Monday, August 17th Spencer was cleared to go back to the BAU. He had not been cleared for active duty but was glad to be back at work even if it was just at his desk. He loved spending time with Chelsea and they had become much closer over the last month, but he was ready to get his normal life back.
The day before, Hotch was able to go back to his own townhouse. The doctor had cleared him for living alone, but not yet back to the BAU. With no sign of Foyet since the stabbing, the FBI and MPDC had pulled his protection detail and he was starting to get back to his typical routine. He kept in contact with the US Marshall that was protecting Hailey and Jack and knew that they were settled in wherever they were and Jack was getting ready to start a new preschool.
The team was sent to Prescott, Arizona on August 31st. Spencer worked the case with Garcia from Quantico and was glad he didn't have to work in the blazing desert sun on crutches. He was starting to get used to them, but it still took effort to get around the office.
Morgan was bitching about the heat, not only because it made him miserable, but also because the bodies were dumped outside and were decomposing quickly. A group of hikers had found the five bodies. Desert scavengers were destroying evidence on and around the bodies making their identification extremely difficult. The coroner placed the time of death of the first victim three weeks ago and the other victims were dumped approximately every four days. The latest girl appeared to be dumped the day they arrived.
The case was violent, the unsub not only was a sexual sadist, torturing and raping the victims, but they found evidence that he continued to rape them after death. There also was a small heart carved on each of the victim's inner thighs that the coroner said was done postmortem. They had never seen a serial sexual sadist that also was a necrophiliac.
The victims were tortured for at least 24 hours before they were asphyxiated. There was no way to tell how long he had kept the four first victims after death, but the latest victim had been dead less than 24 hours before her body was found. They didn't have enough data on the victims or the unsub yet to form a profile but the unsub probably already had his next victim picked out or he even have taken her already.
Garcia was combing through missing persons reports to help identify the five victims as well as trying to find information on the unsub. She started with local searches of murders locally within 15 years and then broadened her search to nation wide. No crimes matching this unusual signature were found anywhere.
Spencer had Garcia change the search. He asked her to look into reports of that heart carving signature on dead women that were not murdered. Garcia was on it quickly, but then asked him why.
"What if there are two unsubs?" Spencer asked. "The first one the sexual sadist and the other one disposing of the bodies. That would give the second unsub an endless supply to perform his fetish."
"That makes sense, but YUCK. Two pervs running around Prescott, I'm glad I'm safe in my cave here in Quantico."
Spencer looked like he was about to start rambling and Garcia continued, "Don't you dare try and tell me how many pervs are running around the Quantico or DC area." Spencer pursed his lips in a guilty manner and said nothing.
A few minutes later, Garcia yelled "Bingo!" breaking the silence. "You were right, my young genius, there have been reports of our necrophiliac buddy carving hearts in young girls in Utah, New Mexico and California over the last two years. This is the first report from Arizona. He must like the desert." Pausing she said, "Ewwww."
"What?" Spencer asked. He wasn't sure what would cause that reaction, they were already looking for a guy that was carving up and having sex with dead bodies.
"I have all of the crime photos. They were already buried he dug them up…" she answered. "Here are the photos, I'm not looking at them." She turned her head so Spencer could see them.
They called the team to fill them in on what they found. Prentiss asked, "Is there a particular type of women this guy went after?"
"No, the race, age and body type are all over the map." Reid explained.
Garcia followed up with "This guy seems to be an equal opportunity deviant, right wonder boy?" Reid just gave her a weird look and said nothing.
Rossi told them that the coroner was able to determine that all of the recent five victims were fair skinned, light eyed, 20 to 25 year olds with light brown hair. "It seems our sadist has a type and our necrophiliac is more of an opportunist."
Morgan asked, "Baby girl, any luck with the missings? Were you able to find out who any of the victims might be?"
"My babies are working on the search right now." Garcia sighed, "You'd be surprised how many girls go missing each year. I'll update the search with the details you gave me about the victims and I should be able to narrow it down for you. Hopefully I'll be able to tell you if our guy has another girl yet."
"Good work guys." Morgan said. "Garcia, set up another search to see if there have been any other victims matching our unsub's type and method of death. Plus lists of missing girls with that description that are still missing. He could have disposed of the bodies somewhere they were never found."
"On it," was Garcia's simple reply.
Morgan continued, "Let's all take a break to get some food and then regroup in an hour. Maybe Garcia's searches will give us some info to make a better profile."
#
When they regrouped, they all worked on the profiles of both unsubs. It wasn't clear if they had joined to work as a team or if they were just using each other. Garcia's search had found reports of missing girls starting back from 2004 in different cities all over the western US.
Mass graves with ten girls that were tortured, raped repeatedly, asphyxiated and dumped together went missing in 2004 in Arlington, Texas, 2005 in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and 2007 in San Jose, California. The girls that had been identified had all gone missing within a six-week period starting the last week of July each year. The bodies had not been found for either months and in one case three years later so some of the victims remained Jane Does.
There were also missing report of girls that matched the profile in other years. In 2006 there were 12 missings in Reno, Nevada and in 2008 14 girls that matched that description went missing in Portland, Oregon.
Hotch had been brought up to speed and was on the conference call stated, "Unfortunately, girls go missing all of the time without a trace, so it is likely that only 10 of the missings Garcia found in Reno and Portland are this unsub's victims. The others could be anywhere. Until they find a dump site, we won't know for sure."
Reid spoke up, "After the search turned up this information, I had Garcia contact the authorities in both Reno and Portland to let them know what we believe happened to many of the girls. We sent them the parameters of the past dump sites, but they haven't been consistent except for very remote areas so I don't know if it will help them at all. We also contacted all of the other city departments and asked them to send all details on the cases to us."
Rossi said, "Good. Forward any information you get to Detective Brown here. He's the lead detective and will make sure we get it. This is the first time the dump site has been found before he finished."
"We have five bodies and he most likely has his next victim already." JJ said sadly, "if he follows the same pattern we have two days until the body will be dumped."
Prentiss finished her thought, "He will want four more victims and I don't think our presence here will change that."
"JJ, go to the media and get out a warning to all women that fit the description. We need to limit his victim pool. That may make him make a mistake." Morgan said nodding. "We have enough to give a profile now. We need to tell everyone about both unsubs, but we should have them concentrate on locating the necrophiliac. If he is the one that dumped the bodies, he will be out looking for a new location."
"I agree," Hotch said from home, "he's never been caught, but he has never been sought after for murder. He may be nervous from all of the media attention and be the weak link."
Before they hung up, Reid spoke up. "Wait. Why did this guy all of a sudden need to have someone else dispose of his bodies? As far as we can tell, he was capable in past years. Or at least they were not disposed of by our current unsub number two."
Prentiss asked, "What are you thinking Reid? That this guy has some time of physically disability that he isn't able to go out in the desert himself?"
"Maybe." Reid said thoughtfully. "It doesn't make sense that only now he has a partner, unless something happened to him recently. No bodies have been found from last year yet, so we don't have any evidence from then. But before that nothing points to a second unsub involvement."
Rossi said. "That could be another piece of our first unsub's profile. If he does have some type of disability, how is he getting his victims? Grabbing women doesn't fit in the necropphiliac profile."
Morgan was thinking out loud, "Maybe what ever ruse he uses to grab the women doesn't need physical strength. Or he has a prosthetic limb. Or he found an old friend and decided to let him have his way with the girls after he was done. I don't know and we need more info, but Reid's right something has changed."
#
Standing in front of the department to give the profile Morgan addressed the group first. "We now know that there are two different unsubs, or unknown subjects, working together here in Prescott. To make our comments clear as we give you the profile, we will talk about them as 'Unsub Number 1' the sexual sadist that takes, tortures and suffocates the women, and 'Unsub Number 2' the necrophiliac that carves the heart on the body and disposes of their bodies."
Rossi started the profile, "Unsub Number 1 has been doing this since 2004. All of the girls have a similar look and probably represent someone that either is or was in his life. He is using these girls as substitutes. Something happened that caused him to kill 10 women in July of 2004 and every year since then. Hopefully we can figure out what happened as the stressor or why these women fill some type of fantasy for him."
A voice from the crowd "What fantasy?"
Prentiss picked it up from there. "We don't know yet, but he is picking the same type of women over and over. He takes 10 in around a six-week period and dumps the bodies in a rarely traveled, out of the way location. It has been in either a heavily wooded area like in Colorado or in a secluded part of the desert like here. This is the first time the bodies have been found before he finished his mission."
"What mission?" someone asked.
"When we figure that out, we will find him." Rossi explained. "In the meantime we will try and warn as many women as we can with the help of the media. There have been no bodies found in Portland as of yet. We gave the local police an idea where they may look, but there are thousands of acres of forests there, they may never be found."
Rossi paused for everyone to take some notes. "In years' prior, where the bodies have been found, there was no evidence of anything done to the victims after death. That tells us that Unsub Number 1 has no use for the bodies, but it doesn't tell us why he suddenly changed his MO and is letting someone else dispose of the bodies. It may be a recent physical limitation, like a amputation that does not allow him to go into remote locations any longer."
Morgan picked it up again from there. "Or he may be evolving and have a new need to see the victims tortured even after death. If he has no personal taste for that, he may have found a partner that fulfills a new part of his fantasy. Even though the bodies have not been found in Portland yet, they could not have been disposed of by our second unsub."
Detective Brown asked, "Why is that?"
"We have evidence that our second unsub, the necropphiliac, was digging up graves in Provo, Utah last year in early August when the girls went missing in Portland." Prentiss picked it up without a beat. "Plus Unsub Number 1 has all of these murders well planned. He finds someplace secluded in each city so that he has time with the victims without being seen or heard. It is unlikely that he would trust someone to dispose of the bodies in Portland and find someone new here. So that leads us to believe he disposed of the bodies himself in the past."
The team continued giving the profile of the Unsub Number 2. In the cities that he had dug up bodies in the past, there were a few very poorly lit shots of him leaving a cemetery. That gave them a general description of his height and weight, but no features. They had the make and model of the vehicle he used from several photos, but the plates were always different and stolen.
They concluded the presentation asking the officers to concentrate their efforts on the necrophiliac. There was much more physical evidence to go on and if they could find him, he could lead them all to the other. Although he probably was physically strong to be able to dig up graves and carry out the bodies quickly, he would be a very reserved and quiet type that would most likely do anything that would keep him out of prison.
Two days later, with a lot of legwork from both the team and the local officers, they apprehended Unsub Number 1, Martin Wellington. As the team had predicted, it was easier to track down the necrophiliac. His name was Barney Sumthers, he was 48 and a self employed carpenter. They never had the chance to make a plea deal with him. With all the media attention on the case, Wellington had also figured out that he could get caught by his association with Sumthers and had gone to kill him. The team and local police got there just after Wellington had stabbed him. He preferred to smother the women to make them suffer, but he just wanted this to be a fast kill and had stabbed him from behind.
Martin Wellington was 57 and from Arlington, Texas the site of the first murders. He was unwilling to tell anyone why he had done it and lawyered up quickly. Ironically it was a knee surgery that had finally caused him to get caught. He had a knee replacement surgery in June that year and was not able to make the hike out into the desert with the bodies. Even with his sort term disability, his compulsion to kill during the same six-week period was too strong to deny. He wouldn't say how he had found Barney Sumthers and now that he was dead, they probably would never find out.
#
They all arrived home just before Labor Day. Rossi decided to have a pool party and barbeque for the team and their families. Hotch came and let everyone know he was cleared to go back to work the next day and would most likely be cleared to travel the week after that. Rossi also invited 3 military wives and their children stationed at Quantico whose husbands were deployed. The day was pleasant and almost everyone enjoyed the pool on the hot day. Reid and Hotch were the only exceptions; even Rossi took some time to enjoy the pool after everyone had eaten.
Everyone was in a good mood. Reid had finally been cleared to travel and Hotch's was looking forward to going back to work.