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| “ | You made a mess... and now you're gonna clean it up. | „ |
| ~ Robert Parker humiliating a victim after disemboweling her. |
Robert Parker is the main antagonist of the Criminal Minds episode "52 Pickup". He is a misogynistic serial killer who charms women into going home with him, where he then kills them.
He was portrayed by Gabriel Olds, who also portrayed Sean McKinnon in Law & Order and Paul Carson in Dead Rising.
Biography[]
Early life[]
The son of a maid, Parker's lifelong hatred of women, especially privileged ones, was sparked when he was seven years old, when his mother's wealthy employer Mrs. Holden caught him and her daughter Vanessa fooling around in a closet. Vanessa claimed he was molesting her to stay out of trouble, and laughed as her mother berated and spanked him. Mrs. Holden fired Parker's mother later that day.
As an adult, he becomes a "pickup artist", charming women in bars with seduction techniques he learned from a class taught by self-described ladies' man (and fellow misogynist) Paul "Viper" Thomas that involve playing to their insecurities. After taking the women with him to cheap motels in the area, he stabs them, disembowels them, and forces them to clean up their "mess" before slitting their throats. The FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) eventually begins investigating his murders.
In his everyday life, he cares for his mother, who suffers from kidney disease and is bedridden to the point that she has to wear a diaper, that Parker changes.
"52 Pickup"[]
Parker finds and seduces the now-adult Vanessa and kills her in his own version of Viper's method of "squashing the queen bee" - approaching an intimidatingly attractive woman and "putting her in her place".
His next intended victim, Becky Williams, fights back when he attacks her, resulting her falling out of a window to her death. Denied the emotional sexual release he typically gets from gutting a woman, Parker goes into a frenzy and attempts to seduce and kill another woman, Brandi, the very next night. The female bartender, Austin, recognizes him from a police sketch that BAU Agent Spencer Reid had given her earlier while investigating the murders, and spills a drink on Brandi to give her an excuse to take her outside, away from Parker.
Austin tries to call Reid, but Parker follows her outside and punches her out. He carries her to his apartment, inadvertently leaving her cell phone behind. When Austin regains consciousness, Parker forces her to clean his floor at knifepoint, and when she tries to placate him, he puts duct tape over her mouth and tells her that "the help" doesn't talk. As he prepares to gut her, however, the BAU bursts in, having discovered his guilt after interviewing Thomas and Mrs. Holden. Agent Derek Morgan arrests him, while Reid and Supervisory Agent David Rossi tend to Parker's mother, who is calling out to her son to change her. Parker is then presumably imprisoned.
Trivia[]
- Parker is inspired by multiple real-life serial killers:
- George Russell, a.k.a. "The Charmer", a serial killer of women in Washington state who were picked up at social venues.
- "Bible John", an unidentified Scottish serial killer who preyed on women he met at a dance hall.
- Lonnie Franklin, Jr., a.k.a. "The Grim Sleeper", a serial killer of prostitutes who briefly went dormant after one of his victims got away.
- Richard Cottingham, a.k.a. "The Torso Killer", a serial killer of prostitutes who tortured his victims to death in hotel rooms and usually mutilated them post-mortem.
- Iain Scoular, a Scottish violent murderer of two women with a similar habit of arranging items at the crime scene in specific fashions.
- Parker actor Gabriel Olds would ironically later be revealed to have had a history of rape and was arrested and charged in August 2024 for at least seven counts of sexual assault.[1]
External Links[]
- Robert Parker on the Criminal Minds Wiki
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