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| “ | Maggie: Are you gonna hide your face from me? Coward. Charles: That old man was begging. Maggie: I'm not gonna give you that, you son of a bitch. I'm not gonna beg you for anything. Charles: But you will beg, whore. They all do. |
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This wanna Jigsaw Killer might not look like much, but his high kill count should account to something...
Here we are, back with a new Criminal Minds proposal. Originally, I was planning to propose a villain from Assassin's Creed Odyssey next, but I ended up with a case of writer's block while writing up the proposal. As a result, I took a smol break from that to instead propose someone from Criminal Minds, so let's not waste anymore time. As a certain crime boss once said: “Alright ramblers, lets get rambling.”
What’s the Work?[]
Criminal Minds is a franchise that needs no introduction. The main TV series originally ran from 2005 to 2020 for 15 Seasons, before being revived in 2022 for a 16th Season (Evolution), with a 17th season in the works. The show centers on the FBI's Behaviour Analysis Unit as they investigate crimes and use profiling to track down the suspects (or Unknown Subjects/UnSubs). It also has two spin-off shows (Suspect Behaviour and Beyond Borders), as well as a Korean adaptation.
Given the franchise's extensive run, it's given us some of the absolute evil villains to ever grace television. Last time I proposed a villain from here, we looked at Shane Wyland, but today, we go back further to the penultimate Season 2 episode "Legacy" and to that episode's main UnSub... Charles Holcombe.
Who is he? What has he done?[]
Nothing is known about Charles Holcombe past, but what is known is that following the death of his father, Charles would inherit the meat-packing factory that belonged to him. For unknown reasons in 2006, Charles would take up serial killing in a twisted desire to clean Kansas City of its undesirables, namely homeless vagrants and sex workers. In order to achieve this, he not only transformed the meat-packing factory into a death maze (one that would make even John Kramer jealous of), but also bullied his friend Steven Foster into working as a submissive accomplice by bringing him victims under the guise of Foster being a social worker.
Come 2007, Charles learns that Detective Cal McGee (who was assigned by his superiors to keep an eye on the vagrants) was given a commendation by the city. Angered by this, Charles sends McGee an anonymous letter, telling the detective that he doesn't deserve the credit. This, along with McGee noticing the number of missing vagrants, however, leads to Cal (against the orders of his superior) getting in touch with the BAU, who eventually get involved after he tells Agent Jennifer "J.J." Jareau the number of people missing. In the meantime, Charles is shown torturing and eventually butchering Nate, an old homeless man.
As the BAU begin to investigate, Charles has Steven bring him a new victim in the form of prostitute Maggie, who is forced to make her way through the death maze in under two hours, else she'll die. In spite of the traps she painfully encounters (including crushed glass on the floor and a Doberman dog), Maggie manages to make it to the exit, with it looking like she escapes... only for Charles to completely Bait the Dog and reveal that, surprise, he was never intending to let her escape and instead knocks her out with gas, before strapping her to a table to prepare her to be killed.
However, by that point, the BAU, having since apprehended Steven and learned about Charles, raid the factory with SWAT, surrounding Charles and ordering him to surrender. However, Charles, knife in his hand, refuses to surrender and raises his knife to stab Maggie, resulting in Morgan, Hotchner and Prentiss gunning him down in the process and saving Maggie, who taunts Charles in his dying breath by telling him that she won.
Heinous Standards[]
Now, as I previously mentioned in my proposal for Shane Wyland, Criminal Minds has an insanely jacked heinous standards, with cannibals, pedophiles, serial killers, mass bombers, rapists... pretty much the worse of the worse. So, how does Charles even stand out? Well, there's this exchange at the beginning of the episode between J.J. and Detective McGee
| “ | JJ: How many? (referring to the number of people missing) McGee: 63. JJ: ...63 people? |
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63 people (technically 64, since Nate in the cold open was the 64th victim)... all abducted and killed for Charles' twisted belief that he's helping clean the streets of vagrants. To put that into comparison, George Foyet (another Criminal Minds PE) has a confirmed kill count of 36, and while there are more prolific serial killers in CM like Billy Flynn (who has over 216 kills), I don't recall any other UnSubs aside from Charles who rely on a death maze to torment their victims.
Mitigating Factors[]
None at all. Charles thinks he's doing the city a favour by cleaning the streets of vagrants and sex workers, but its not even mitigating in any way. Even when cornered by the BAU and SWAT, he refused to surrender and attempted to stab Maggie while yelling at them to let him "do my job!", resulting in his death. Additionally, his relationship with Steven isn't redeeming either, since he was revealed to have bullied and intimidated his friend into working as his submissive partner. And furthermore, we don't know much about his past to know if he atleast cared for his father before his passing. Same deal about the Doberman dog that he had in the death maze.
Verdict[]
Yes to this delusional Jigsaw Killer knock-off who murders 64 people using a death maze that he had no intentions of letting them go from, and who attempts to kill his latest victim even when surrounded by police.