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| “ | You know what? I've howled for ten years against a system that wouldn't even notice me until the Star Chamber embarrassed them, and then it noticed. I'm not gonna cooperate and help you find the Star Chamber. They're the only ones fighting to keep me alive. | „ |
| ~ Sam Russell defying Aaron Hotchner. |
Sam Russell is the secondary antagonist of the Criminal Minds episode "The Black Queen". He is a serial killer and hacker on death row who plots with his partner in crime John Nichols to commit a new series of murders that will cast doubt on his conviction and get his death sentence overturned.
He was portrayed by Erik Passoja, who also played Pierre Danois in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Russell was a gifted hacker who, along with his partner-in-crime John Nichols, used his skills to hack into the informational databases of Fortune 500 companies and rob them blind. He and Nichols became folk heroes to the hacktivist community, who mistakenly believe that their serial robbery is an anti-corporate political statement. Penelope Garcia, the technical analyst for the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) and a former hacker, studied their crimes while learning how to code.
Russell and Nichols were also woman-hating sociopaths, and began raping, torturing, and murdering prostitutes together in 2004. They would alternate between stabbing the women, Russell's preferred method of killing, with strangulation, which was Nichols' signature. Nichols also had a sexual fetish for women's hair, and would cut off strands of his victims' hair so he could smell and touch it in order to relive the experience of the murder. Between the two of them, Russell and Nichols murdered eight women.
Eventually, however, the police tied Russell to the murders after discovering that he had been arrested several times for soliciting prostitutes in the same neighborhood that the murders occurred in. After his arrest, Russell converted to Buddhism, and made a deal with Nichols, as since he would be going to prison no matter what, he would confess to all of the murders and make sure Nichols remained free. In return, Nichols would send Russell care packages containing drugs and prayer beads containing their victims' hair. Russell was convicted of all eight murders and sentenced to death.
"The Black Queen"[]
Ten years after Nichols' conviction, he exhausts his final appeal, and is scheduled to be executed. Soon afterward, the hacktivist group Star Chamber, of which Garcia was once a member, hacks into the U.S. Department of Justice's website with the image of a woman who has been murdered in the same way that Russell's victims had been, along with a message proclaiming his innocence and declaring that his victims had "died in vain". Russell then claims that the police had drugged and beat him to get him to confess. As the BAU investigates the case, two more women are murdered.
BAU Agents Aaron Hotchner and Jennifer Jareau interview Russell on death row to investigate his claims of police brutality and find out whether he or Star Chamber had anything to do with the murders. Russell refuses to implicate Star Chamber, so Garcia goes to talk with the group's leader, and her former lover, Shane Wyeth. She finds out that Nichols, who had become the group's treasurer shortly after making his deal with Russell, is committing the murders in an effort to have Russell's conviction overturned.
After the BAU arrests Nichols, Hotchner and Jareau interrogate Russell one last time, convinced that he is somehow involved. Jareau tells Russell that she knows why he had pulled his victims' hair around their necks while strangling them, and pulls her own long, blonde hair around her throat. Aroused, Russell begins compulsively fingering and squeezing his prayer beads until one of them breaks, scattering hair all over the floor. Hotchner takes the beads as evidence, and tells Russell that he will get his wish for a stayed execution, but only so the U.S. Attorney General's office can try him and Nichols for the murders they conspired to commit, for which he promises Russell that he and his partner will eventually be put to death. As Hotchner and Jareau leave, Russell screams after them to give him back his beads.
Trivia[]
- Russell is inspired by multiple real-life serial killers:
- Bruce Mendenhall, a.k.a. "The Prosti-Shooter", a suspected serial killer of women, usually in prostitution, in multiple states, found guilty for paying an accomplice to attempt copycat murders to cast doubt on Mendenhall's convictions.
- Hubert Geralds, one of the "Southside Stranglers", a serial killer/rapist of women in prostitution in Chicago briefly suspected to be innocent when another "Southside Strangler" with a similar M.O., Andre Crawford (the inspiration for Nichols), also raped and murdered women in prostitution. Their separate were identified and led to convictions accordingly.
- Wilbur Lee Jennings, a.k.a. "The Ditchbank Murderer", a serial killer/rapist of women in prostitution protesting his innocence through his imprisonment, revealed to have collaborated in at least one murder with serial killer Alvin Johnson.
- Jack Unterweger, a.k.a. "The Austrian Ripper", a serial killer of women, mostly women in sex work, believed to have been a rehabed criminal, with enough associates to defend him when he was accused of murder. His killing were previously assumed to have been possibly by more than one murderer, due to changing M.O.s of strangulation and stabbing.
- Leonard Fraser, a.k.a. “The Rockhampton Rapist”, a serial rapist and later serial killer of women and girls, with a history of stealing ponytails of women he raped and/or killed as mementos.
- Kenneth Bianchi, one of the "Hillside Stranglers", a serial killer/rapist of women using an accomplice, Veronica Compton, to nearly kill another woman in the interest of trying to get Bianchi and his other accomplice, serial killer/rapist Angelo Buono, released.
External Links[]
- Sam Russell on the Criminal Minds Wiki
