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“ | I was His most faithful servant! Why take my Matthew?! | „ |
~ Acosta during the final standoff. |
Rafael Acosta is the main antagonist of the Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders episode "De Los Inocentes". He is a serial killer of boys who are the eldest sons of international families on vacation in Mexico, to avenge the death of his own son.
He was portrayed by Aaron Behr.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Rafael left his life in Puerto del Santos as a pastor behind when a church collapsed from an earthquake, his 12-year-old son Matthew dying under the rubble. A boy named Bryant Holt was successfully rescued, having been on vacation with his family at the time. Working in security, Rafael always maintained a hatred over God not choosing his son to live, deciding to punish other boys and their families in the vacation hotspot. He attacked a 13-year-old boy months after Matthew died, but that wasn't enough.
Starting in 2010, on every Día De Los Innocentes, Rafael would break into the hotel room of a vacationing family, recite the Confiteor in Latin while holding a gilded True Cross before stabbing the boys to death. He washed them with mineral oils and wrapped them in hemp blankets to treat them with burial rights out of a sense of respect. Rafael killed five boys in such ways in the passing five years in ever recurrence of the holiday.
"De Los Inocentes"[]
In 2015, Rafael breaks into the hotel room of the Wolf family. Just when he's about to kill Ryan Wolf, his mother Jessica walks him, resulting in Rafael stabbing her instead. He performs his burial rituals on her, then throws her body into the sea. When she washes up onto the shore, her husband Daniel is considered a suspect from a life insurance policy out on Jessica and his mistress Laura arriving around the time of Jessica's murder. They're both placed in custody on suspicion of Jessica's murder once they've been tracked down.
The IRT is called under the concern of Daniel's innocence and his fair chance at procedure to exonerate him. Chief Inspector Silvia Ruiz is discouraged from releasing them to the general population for a day so the team has time to find another suspect. After Rafael is one of many security officers deputized for the case, as the city doesn't have an official police force, the agents find the murders of the boys, which leads them to Rafael's history based on the profile. In spite of their discreet attempts to inform CI Ruiz over the phone, Rafael stabs her to death in front of Ryan and his little sister Megan.
The agents arrive to see Rafael holding Ryan at knifepoint, trying to discourage him. Rafael professes he needs to punish God for the loss of Matthew, and Agent Clara Seger draws out time by telling him of her husband's death and how she still carried on with her life despite her pain and rage, quoting scripture to further appeal to him. Rafael is touched enough he releases the children and peacefully surrenders to arrest in tears. He's late incarcerated for his crimes, and Daniel and Laura are released before Daniel is reunited with his children.
Trivia[]
- Rafael is inspired by multiple real-life criminals:
- Luis Garavito, a.k.a. "The Beast", a Columbian serial killer/rapist of children, mostly boys, and one of the worst serial killers in history. He and Acosta share a record of previously attacking children before their murders, and like Acosta being profiled as having dropped out of school, Garavito left in the fifth grade and struggled with literacy all his life.
- The "February 9 Killer", a formerly unidentified serial killer (as a suspected was recently arrested) responsible for raping and strangling women in the U.S. on the same day of separate years, one of whom was pregnant.
- An unidentified serial rapist of girls in vacationing families at holiday homes in Portugal, and a prime yet unidentified suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
- Rafael's killing of Jessica and the frame job on Daniel is inspired by multiple real-life cases of husband convicted of killing their wives:
- Bruce Beresford-Redman, a TV producer who was imprisoned for killing his wife in Mexico while vacationing with her.
- Mark Unger, the killer of his wife Florence, who was drowned during a lakeside fsmily cacation in what Unger failed to disguise ss an accident.
- Sam Sheppard, a man acquitted for the murder of his wife in their home, one of the most infamous miscarriage of justice and wrongful conviction cases in American history.
- Scott Peterson, the killer of his pregnant wife Laci out of trying to cover up his history of affairs.
- In spite of the above, Criminal Minds crew members asserted no case inspired the plotline, and the showrunners argued it was their take on believing Mexico was unjust and didn't provide fair trials.
External links[]
- Rafael Acosta on the Criminal Minds Wiki