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| “ | I didn't kill her, I just... I really wanted to. | „ |
| ~ Harris expressing his violent urges. |
Nathan Harris is the secondary antagonist of the Criminal Minds episode "Sex, Birth, Death".
He is a high school student who is suspected of committing a a series of prostitute murders due to his harboring violent sexual urges. While he is eventually cleared of all suspicion in the murders, however, he later attempts to kill a woman.
He was portrayed by the late Anton Yelchin who also voiced Hunter Jim in Trollhunters.
Biography[]
Past[]
Born in 1991 in Washington DC, Harris' father died when he was nine years old, and he was raised by his mother Sarah, who worked as a doctor and a professor at GW Medical School. As he grew up, he developed sadistic sexual fantasies about the female cadavers in his mother's classroom and started exhibiting antisocial behavior, including killing birds, deriving pleasure from the act of killing an animal because "it was dead and I was still alive".
He had a conscience, however, so he decided to fight his urges, and read several books about sexual sadism and other violent pathologies - including one by Agent Spencer Reid of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) - to better understand them. He later found a victim of Ronald Weems, a vigilante serial killer who targets prostitutes, and felt sexually aroused by her mutilated body and fascinated by the killer having cut off a strand of her hair without taking it as a souvenir. Frightened of his feelings, he attended Reid's lecture on anger excitation serial killers in hopes that Reid would be able to help him.
"Sex, Birth, Death"[]
Harris is first shown approaching Reid on his way to work and awkwardly introducing himself as a fan. Their conversation takes a disturbing turn when Harris starts asking questions about a "hypothetical" series of prostitute murders, such as what it would mean if the killer stabbed his victims and cut off their hair without taking it with him. A concerned Reid asks Harris to come to the BAU with him, but Harris makes an excuse and takes off. Upon arriving at the BAU, Reid calls the DC police and asks if any murders have occurred matching the signature outlined by Harris. Upon confirming that there have been several matching it, Reid sets out to track down the then-unidentified Harris.
Using a sketch of Harris and things that Harris said during their conversation. such as him being a high school student, Reid deduces his identity after viewing The Morton School website and goes to his address with fellow BAU Agent Derek Morgan and their supervisor, Jason Gideon. After seeing that Harris is writing a graphic novel about killing prostitutes on his computer, Reid brings Harris in for questioning. Harris denies killing the prostitute, but he says he wishes he had done it. He also states that he watches the prostitutes at night and thinks about murdering them. This prompts the team to hold him for a psychological evaluation overnight. After performing the psychological evaluation, Gideon concludes Harris should be institutionalized, which his mother adamantly refuses, though she agrees to have him see a therapist daily.
Harris later disappears from his room after returning home. When his mother searches his room, she finds a pornographic magazine with gruesome photos of mutilated dead bodies of women taped over the model's pictures. Later after another body is found, the team suspects Harris committed the murder, as it does not match the MO of the previous murders. Harris is found at a church after having apparently been there four hours. When Reid arrests Harris for murder, Harris states that the only way for him to avoid killing people is to kill himself.
After Weems is found and captured, Harris approaches Reid and says his mother is going to have him institutionalized the following day. Reid tries to reassure Harris that he will be getting the help he needs and that he will not be institutionalized forever, but Harris is convinced that his life is over. He decides to finally give in to his sadistic impulses on his last night of freedom by soliciting a prostitute, intending to torture and kill her. When he is alone with her, he threatens her with a knife and calls her a whore, but he cannot bring himself to kill her; he instead turns the knife on himself and slashes his own wrists. He then gives the prostitute Reids's business card and tells her to call for help. Reid and BAU Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia rush to the scene and slow Harris' blood loss in time for paramedics to arrive and save him. Harris is presumably institutionalized after his recovery.
External Links[]
- Nathan Harris on the Criminal Minds Wiki
