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| “ | This ends now. Confess your sins. | „ |
| ~ Hankel while torturing Spencer Reid. |
Tobias Hankel is the main antagonist of the Criminal Minds episodes "The Big Game" and "Revelations". He is a mentally ill serial killer who murders people according to a warped view of Christianity, and at the behest of his other personalities, "Charles" and "Raphael".
He was portrayed by James Van Der Beek, who also portrayed Sean Albert in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
Biography[]
Born in 1977, Hankel is a religious zealot who kills people who offend his extremist reading of the Bible, believing that he is cleansing the world of sin. He also suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder, and commits his crimes while under the influence of his two alternate personalities, those being "Charles", who takes the form of his abusive, fanatically religious father, whom Tobias himself murdered with said murder being his stressor, and "Raphael", an all-powerful Archangel sent by God to destroy sinners. "Tobias" functions as a superego, trying (and usually failing) to keep the others from hurting people and in the case of Reid, trying to lessen his victim's suffering.
Hankel is also a recovering drug addict who suffered brain damage as a result of years of substance abuse.
In his daily life, he works as a software technician, and installs secret webcams in the houses of his victims so he can record their deaths and relive the experience later.
Hankel begins his murder spree shortly after killing his father, choosing a wealthy couple as his first victims because he felt they were guilty of the sin of greed. He then witnesses a woman on his webcam cheating on her husband, kidnaps her and kills her lover, and calls 9-11 to tell the police what he has done. He takes her to his family's farm, intending to torture and kill her and broadcast it over the Internet. The Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) team are called to the crime scene and discover Hankel's streaming site, but too late to save the woman; they watch helplessly while Hankel feeds her to a pack of dogs while she is still alive.
Hankel's personalities get into an argument following this murder, with "Charles" slapping "Tobias" and ordering him to kill again. BAU Agents Spencer Reid and Jennifer Jareau surprise him and try to arrest him, but Hankel takes Reid hostage and flees.
As "Charles", Hankel tortures Reid by beating the soles of his feet, intent on forcing him to confess his sins. When Reid refuses, "Charles" dry-fires a pistol at him to frighten him into submission and tries to force him to choose someone for "Raphael" to kill. Hankel murders another couple as Reid watches, helpless. When he returns to the barn, however, he finds that the BAU team have destroyed his website with a computer virus. Enraged, Hankel orders Reid to choose which one of his coworkers is to die. Knowing that his fellow agents are watching, Reid chooses Supervisory Agent Aaron Hotchner and misquotes a passage from Genesis to give them a clue as to where he is.
Under Hankel's torture, Reid reveals that he had his mother committed to a mental hospital, which Hankel calls a sinful failure to honor one's parents. He drags Reid to a nearby cemetery and forces him to dig his own grave, even considering burying him alive so he can "think about what he did.". Reid manages to distract him long enough to get his gun and shoot him. The "Charles" and "Raphael" personalities are "killed", leaving only "Tobias", who thanks Reid for setting him free as he dies.
Trivia[]
- Hankel is inspired by multiple real-life and fictional criminals:
- The killer(s) of Jill-Lyn Euto, who was slashed to death in her home on Super Bowl night.
- The late Herbert Mullin, a serial killer in California of numerous people as a result of mental instability exacerbated by drug use.
- ”The Axeman of New Orleans”, an unidentified serial killer in the major Louisiana city responsible for targeting couples and leaving messages behind for police with religious overtones.
- The late Richard Ramirez, a.k.a. "The Night Stalker", a serial killer/rapist, typically of couples, during home invasions, with a history of drug abuse, obsessions with Satanism, and a brutal father having once tied him to a cross as corporal punishment.
- The late Tony Costa, a.k.a. “The Cap Cod Vampire”, a serial killer of multiple people who made defenses including being under the influence of dilaudid and having an alternate personality.
- John Doe, the main antagonist of Se7en, an unnamed serial killer of people based on the Seven Deadly Sins, who also personally dares and targets law enforcement on his case. He was also shot and killed by a law official he targeted.
- Norman Bates, the main antagonist of Psycho, a serial killer with multiple personalities who possessed the body of his mother and killed based on an alternate personality modeled from his mother.
- John Neville, the main antagonist of the film Eyes of Laura Mars, a serial killer with an alternate personality motivated by stalking photographer Laura Mars, who he later falls in love with and has her follow through with his pleas for her to kill him to stop his murders from his dissociative episodes.
External Links[]
- Tobias Hankel at the Criminal Minds Wiki
