-the Profilers-
David Rossi
Rossi joined theMarines. After being discharged, Dave was recruited by the Bureau. His career was very successful.
He subsequently cut most ties with his former life, not even returning to Commack for the one who got away, Emma's funeral in early 2009. Rossi was in early retirement until his voluntary return to the BAU after Gideon left. He had retired to go on lecture and book tours.
There's one case that haunts his conscience and may be the reason he decided to come back to the FBI. In 3x11 "Birthright," we find out that case is linked to the charm bracelet he carries around, and that the case itself involved three children (who's names are on the bracelet) who watched their parents get beaten to death on Christmas Eve, 21 years ago. When the case was unsolved, and Rossi called the children every year to remind them he hadn't given up on the case; although his most recent year's call wasn't returned. Rossi continued to express his doubts. He returned to the case and with the help of Morgan, Prentiss, and JJ, he solved it in 3x14 "Damaged." In 3.18 "The Crossing" Rossi revealed he'd been married three times and had no lawyers are the only people who love him, he says.
Prentiss describes him like "anal retentiw neat freak", and JJ in favour of his womenizer reputation states that most of fraternization ruls in BAU exist because of him. When post Prentisses death Hoch intervievs him he states that he is more married to the job then he was ever to his wives.
Aaron 'Hotch' Hotchner
Aaron "Hotch" Hotchner is the head of the BAU Team. His story revolves around balancing his family life and career. He was the only married team member through the middle of Season Three. At the beginning of Season Three, Haley has had enough of Hotch choosing career over his family, so she leaves and files for divorce. Their young son, Jack (who was born in Season 1) lives primarily with his mother, Haley, in the family home after their divorce. Hotch moves into an apartment. Prior to joining the BAU, he was a lawyer, a prosecutor and at one point, SWAT. He sometimes teaches hostage situations and negotiations. He is silent, smiles very little and shares little of his personal life. Like the others, as Season 2 came around, we learned more about Hotch and some of his family life.
Emily Prentiss
Emily Prentiss is the daughter of Ambassador Elizabeth Prentiss who was primarily posted at the United States Embassy in the Ukraine, but has also been posted in some positions in Italy and the Middle East. All this moving around caused her adolescence and family life to be less than enjoyable. Prentiss has expressed extreme disdain for politics as a result. Prentiss apparently lived in Middle East some during her childhood, and she is fluent in Arabic, Spanish, Italian, and some Russian ("Honor Among Thieves" and "Catching Out"). She was placed on the Behavioral Analysis Unit by Section Chief Erin Strauss as a means to end SSA Hotchner's career, but quit instead of helping Strauss ("In Birth and Death") claiming she hates politics. Hotch recognized her on her first day at the BAU from one of his first commands where he set up security clearances for her mother and her employees. She graduated from Yale in 1993, and has been working for the FBI for around ten years, primarily in the Midwest until she joined the BAU – it is unknown what she did between the year she obtained her undergraduate degree up until the time she joined the FBI.
Derek Morgan
Morgan is a confident and assertive character, the son of an African American father and Caucasian mother. He has a black belt in Judo, runs FBI self-defense classes, previously served in a bomb squad unit and was on the Chicago Police Force. Morgan went to Northwestern University on an athletic (Football) scholarship, but lost his scholarship when his knee was blown out during a game. He earned both his undergraduate degree and his law degree from Northwestern University ("Profiler, Profiled"). Morgan is the man's man of the team. He and his two sisters (Sarah and Desiree) grew up in a tough urban Chicago neighborhood. After the death of his father when he was 10 (however in episode 5.23, Our Darkest Hour, Morgan says he saw his father shot in front of him when he was nine), Morgan struggled somewhat and youthful fighting earned him a juvenile criminal record. He was taken under the wing of a local youth center coordinator, Carl Buford (Episode 2x12 "Profiler, Profiled"). Buford acted as a surrogate father to Morgan and helped Morgan obtain his college football scholarship, but also sexually abused him. In the season three finale, Morgan was told he was being considered to run the New York field office, if the current leader should fail. After the events of the season four opener ("Mayhem") where the head of the New York field office was killed, Morgan was offered the job as the head of the field office, but turned it down, after briefly considering it in "Lo-Fi", when Hotchner fails to recommend him for the job, claiming Morgan has trust issues
Spencer Reid
Reid is a genius who graduated from a public high school at age twelve and went to Cal Tech (with Yale as his safety school) at thirteen where he earned three doctorates in Mathematics, Chemistry and Engineering by the age of twenty one. He obtained his first doctorate (in Mathematics) at the age of 17. In addition he holds undergraduate degrees in Psychology and Sociology and is currently working on another degree in Philosophy (4x08 "Masterpiece"). He has an IQ of 187, an eidetic memory, and can read 20,000 words per minute. Even with all of his knowledge though, Reid can't use chopsticks. It has also been stated that while in high school he suffered severe bullying at the hands of his classmates, including an incident when he was tricked into going to meet a girl he liked behind the school field house, where the entire football team was waiting for him. They stripped him naked and tied him to a goal post. When he freed himself (around midnight) he ran home to find his mother, Diana, having a schizophrenic episode. He was humiliated and said nothing until he told Morgan (3x16 "Elephant's Memory"). In his youth, his father left him and his mother, saying that he could no longer deal with the paranoid schizophrenia of Reid's mother, Diana when in reality he couldn't bear the stress of what his mother had witnessed. Reid grew up learning nearly everything he knows from books, with his mother often reading to him. Still, Reid knew the way his mother was living wasn't healthy. When he was eighteen, he had his mother placed in a mental institution, Bennington Sanitarium. She is still there, and Reid has stated that although he sends letters every day hoping to make up for not visiting her more often, he is afraid to visit her up until season four when we see him visit her to learn about his father. Reid is also worried about the fact that his mother's illness can be passed on genetically (He told Garcia); he once told Morgan that "I know what it's like to be afraid of your own mind" (2x11 Sex, Birth, Death). He grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada and is very adept at all card games; and due to practicing magic in between college courses, he has a sleight of hand and make small items quickly appear and disappear.
Penelope garcia
Penelope Garcia was born in 1977. Her parents died in an auto accident due to a drunk driver when she was eighteen, and she now helps counsel the families of murder victims in her spare time. Garcia has stated that after her parents died, she dropped out of Caltech and went "underground" but continued to teach herself computer coding. She has 4 brothers (names unknown) and is godmother to JJ's son, Henry.
Jennifer 'JJ' Jareau
JJ graduated from East Allegheny High School near Pittsburgh, PA, where she was the captain of the varsity soccer team her senior year and earned an athletic scholarship to the University of Pittsburgh. In Season One, she and Reid went on a date to a Washington Redskins game, but nothing has come of it romantically. In Season Two, when she and Reid split up the night of Reid's abduction (2x15), JJ walked into a dark barn and was attacked by several ferocious dogs, which she shot and killed. This had a great effect on her emotionally but has not come up since then. She also ended up shooting Jason Clark Battle - the man who had shot Garcia (3x09) - in the head, subsequently making him the first human she ever had to shoot.