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“ | Well, from what I've read about the Mill Creek Killer, I'd say he's an artist. | „ |
~ The Mill Creek Killer bragging about his own crimes in a deniable way. |
The Mill Creek Killer (real name unknown) is the primary antagonist of the Criminal Minds episode "The Last Word". He is a serial killer and necrophile who "competes" with another killer, nicknamed "The Hollow Man".
He was portrayed by Jason O'Mara, who also portrayed Bill Croelick in The Closer.
Biography[]
Nothing is revealed about the Mill Creek Killer's past or personal life - not even his real name. He murders and rapes (in that order) white women with brown hair in St. Louis, Missouri, bludgeoning them to death and concealing their bodies so he can revisit them for sex. By the time the episode takes place, he has murdered seven women.
Shortly after the Mill Creek Killer started his killing spree, another serial killer, known as "The Hollow Man", began murdering prostitutes in St. Louis, and sought him out by leaving coded messages in the personals section of his local newspaper. The Mill Creek Killer, intrigued, responded with his own coded messages, and the two began a "friendly rivalry" in which they challenged each other to "top" the other's murders. The Mill Creek Killer and the Hollow Man, both fans of the late J.D. Salinger's 1947 novel The Catcher in the Rye, signed their communications "Holden" and "Sunny", respectively, after the novel's protagonist, Holden Caulfield, and a prostitute he hires in one of the novel's more famous scenes.
"The Last Word"[]
The Mill Creek Killer is first seen approaching his latest intended victim, Ellen Carroll, claiming to be looking for his lost daughter. He pretends to hear something moving in the nearby bushes and beckons her to follow him, and then knocks her unconscious. He then murders her and sexually abuses her corpse.
The FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) Is called to St. Louis to investigate both the Mill Creek and Hollow Man murders. After the former kills another woman, Meredith Dale, the BAU's agents leave her body where it was discovered by police in hopes of catching the killer in the act of abusing the corpse. They apprehend a man approaching her body, but he turns out to be a decoy; the Mill Creek Killer had caught onto what they were planning, and paid the man to (unknowingly) walk into their trap.
The Mill Creek Killer later approaches another woman, intent on killing her, but she manages to fight him off and yell for help, attracting passerby and forcing him to run away. The BAU gets a physical description of the killer, and learns that he has been corresponding with the Hollow Man through personal ads. Supervisory Agent Jason Gideon devises another trap for the Mill Creek Killer: he puts an ad in the newspaper pretending to be the Hollow Man that describes a fictitious murder and includes the location of the "body"; he then has a female FBI agent who fits the killer's "type" play dead in that location as bait. Sure enough, the Mill Creek Killer attempts to assault the agent, who springs to life and arrests him.
Gideon interrogates the Mill Creek Killer, who claims that he had merely approached the agent out of curiosity and had not intended to harm her. Gideon senses his inflated ego, and plays to it by asking him what he thinks of the Mill Creek Killer; the killer smugly refers to the murders as the work of an "artist". Gideon intuits that the killer's arrogance is a defense mechanism against the shame he feels about his sexual attraction to corpses, and so switches tactics - Gideon confronts him with irrefutable evidence of his guilt, and threatens to out him as a necrophile. The Mill Creek Killer panics and begs Gideon not to tell anyone about his necrophilia, revealing his guilt.
At that moment, the Hollow Man bursts into BAU headquarters, having been angered by a press conference the BAU had given announcing the Mill Creek Killer's capture and dismissing the Hollow Man murders as unrelated and committed by several different offenders. Gideon had in fact planned the conference as a provocation to lure the Hollow Man out into the open. The Hollow Man demands to see the Mill Creek Killer and pulls a gun, but is subdued by police before he can shoot anyone. The Mill Creek Killer and the Hollow Man are then both arrested and imprisoned.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- The Mill Creek Killer is inspired by multiple real-life criminals:
- Ted Bundy, America's wost serial killer, a serial killr/rapist of women and girls with the use of ruses and an M.O. of necrophilia while their remains stay in the woods for him to revisit.
- Derrick Todd Lee, a.k.a. "The Baton Rouge Killer", a serial killer/rapist of higher-class women active at the same time as a nearby serial killer in competition with him, Sean Vincent Gillis, the inspired for the Hollow Man.
- Nick Ruskin, a.k.a. "Casanova", a serial killer/rapist of sophisticated women held captive as sex abuse slaves, with the collusion and in competition with his accomplice, William Randolph, a.k.a. "The Gentleman Caller". Ruskin is inspired by real killer/rapist Gary Heidnik, a recurring inspiration for the show's unsubs.
External Links[]
- The Mill Creek Killer on the Criminal Minds Wiki