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marblegloveAnd yet another Highlander/Criminal Minds plot idea. Given the fact that it’s serial killers, I’m sticking the rest of this post under a cut. Nothing particularly graphic but possibly not what you want to see by surprise while browsing.
A man is killed. He’s an associate professor at the local university. If anyone knows what he was doing in such a bad part of town, they’re not telling, but he either stumbled across something important to the local gang or was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and wound up dead after a beating. Several broken bones, several knife wounds. It wasn’t nice but it wasn’t anything unique. The police treated it like any other homicide but, given the circumstances, weren’t able to pinpoint one killer.
The BAU wouldn’t have been notified at all if it weren’t for the second body. The second body turned up two weeks after the first one. He was a young gang member, actually one of the suspects in the first man’s murder. Again a seemingly regular homicide, the detectives didn’t notice anything unusual. It was the medical examiner who noticed: the deaths were exactly the same.
Every broken bone, every cut. Aside from differences in age, appearance, and pre-existing conditions, the autopsies were exactly the same.
What kind of serial killer has such a subtle signature? The BAU was called.
Morgan throws out the idea that the beating pattern has a specific meaning to the unsub. He or someone he cared about was beaten in such a way.
Hotchner points out that getting the exact same physical effects on two different bodies takes knowledge and skill and a lot of practice. There’s no way this is only the second killing.
Spencer comes out with statistics about variations in human bone density. The broken ribs mostly have a minimum force necessary, but for the cracked ribs, there’s a finite about of leeway in how much force used: it has to be enough to crack but not enough to break. And that amount depends on the person and the situation: are they breathing in or out, how much padding do they have, how much muscle, what’s their bone density.
Gideon is looking at the autopsy photos. “Look at this. The bruising around the ribs. The first victim, he was kicked repeatedly. The second one, it was three strikes. The killer hit him exactly where required to make those breaks.”
Hotchner looks up from his examination of the pictures, “A copycat? For a simple beating?”
“I think Morgan was right. This beating pattern held significance for the unsub. The second killing was revenge for the first killing.”
Spencer, “Then we don’t have a serial killer. Each unsub only killed once.”
“No,” Gideon says, “what we have is an unsub who has enough experience and control to hide his kills amongst the rest of the violence of a large city. This man has killed many, many times, he’s very good at it and he enjoys it. We’ll probably never know how many times he’s killed, but I do know that if we don’t stop him, he will continue to kill.”
** That took place on the airplane. Then they get to the police station and get more details. **
“He’s very smart and very experienced. He’s no younger than thirty-five, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he were seventy. He’s lived at least part of his life in a war zone. He may have military training but any record of it was cleaned from his record.”
“He’s survived torture and moved on with his life. He expects other people to do the same. He’s cheerful.”
“And we will not have a second chance to catch him. When he kills again, there will be no reason to connect that kill to this one, just as there is no way to connect this kill to his previous ones.”
“This man,” pointing to the picture of the associate professor, “was important to him. The unsub felt guilty for that death. So we need to know everything about him.”
** scene break **
They discuss the first victim: he was a professor, he was former military, he was married with two young children, he vacationed in France, and had an odd line of additional income from a French historical society.
“This doesn’t make any sense. He was an engineer. What is he doing for a historical society several thousand miles away?”
And that’s the start.
What happened was that an old Watcher chum of Adam Pierson’s was set to Watch him. Everybody knew that the only way to keep him under surveillance was for him to agree to it. So it was a friend. Adam would still play pranks though and lead his friend through awkward situations. He shouldn’t have died.
Joe and Duncan talk.
“These are the best profilers in the country. They say he can’t stop.”
“They’re using their experience with other serial killers.”
“Other serial killers. You think Methos is a serial killer.”
“He was, both a serial killer and a mass murderer. Do you think Watchers don’t study the psychology of murder? No killer like that stops after a mere human life-time. Methos certainly didn’t. It took twenty human life-times (I’m estimating a life-time of 50 years in the BC which is probably optimistic) for him to stop his killing spree. But he did stop.”
“He did kill that one man.”
“He’s not going to go on a killing spree because of one man, just as he didn’t go headhunting after Kristin.”
In the end, I’m not sure if anyone (or everyone) at the BAU learns about immortals or not.
I do know that they come relatively close to capturing Methos but they still don’t have any solid proof and he slips through their surveillance anyway.
A man is killed. He’s an associate professor at the local university. If anyone knows what he was doing in such a bad part of town, they’re not telling, but he either stumbled across something important to the local gang or was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and wound up dead after a beating. Several broken bones, several knife wounds. It wasn’t nice but it wasn’t anything unique. The police treated it like any other homicide but, given the circumstances, weren’t able to pinpoint one killer.
The BAU wouldn’t have been notified at all if it weren’t for the second body. The second body turned up two weeks after the first one. He was a young gang member, actually one of the suspects in the first man’s murder. Again a seemingly regular homicide, the detectives didn’t notice anything unusual. It was the medical examiner who noticed: the deaths were exactly the same.
Every broken bone, every cut. Aside from differences in age, appearance, and pre-existing conditions, the autopsies were exactly the same.
What kind of serial killer has such a subtle signature? The BAU was called.
Morgan throws out the idea that the beating pattern has a specific meaning to the unsub. He or someone he cared about was beaten in such a way.
Hotchner points out that getting the exact same physical effects on two different bodies takes knowledge and skill and a lot of practice. There’s no way this is only the second killing.
Spencer comes out with statistics about variations in human bone density. The broken ribs mostly have a minimum force necessary, but for the cracked ribs, there’s a finite about of leeway in how much force used: it has to be enough to crack but not enough to break. And that amount depends on the person and the situation: are they breathing in or out, how much padding do they have, how much muscle, what’s their bone density.
Gideon is looking at the autopsy photos. “Look at this. The bruising around the ribs. The first victim, he was kicked repeatedly. The second one, it was three strikes. The killer hit him exactly where required to make those breaks.”
Hotchner looks up from his examination of the pictures, “A copycat? For a simple beating?”
“I think Morgan was right. This beating pattern held significance for the unsub. The second killing was revenge for the first killing.”
Spencer, “Then we don’t have a serial killer. Each unsub only killed once.”
“No,” Gideon says, “what we have is an unsub who has enough experience and control to hide his kills amongst the rest of the violence of a large city. This man has killed many, many times, he’s very good at it and he enjoys it. We’ll probably never know how many times he’s killed, but I do know that if we don’t stop him, he will continue to kill.”
** That took place on the airplane. Then they get to the police station and get more details. **
“He’s very smart and very experienced. He’s no younger than thirty-five, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he were seventy. He’s lived at least part of his life in a war zone. He may have military training but any record of it was cleaned from his record.”
“He’s survived torture and moved on with his life. He expects other people to do the same. He’s cheerful.”
“And we will not have a second chance to catch him. When he kills again, there will be no reason to connect that kill to this one, just as there is no way to connect this kill to his previous ones.”
“This man,” pointing to the picture of the associate professor, “was important to him. The unsub felt guilty for that death. So we need to know everything about him.”
** scene break **
They discuss the first victim: he was a professor, he was former military, he was married with two young children, he vacationed in France, and had an odd line of additional income from a French historical society.
“This doesn’t make any sense. He was an engineer. What is he doing for a historical society several thousand miles away?”
And that’s the start.
What happened was that an old Watcher chum of Adam Pierson’s was set to Watch him. Everybody knew that the only way to keep him under surveillance was for him to agree to it. So it was a friend. Adam would still play pranks though and lead his friend through awkward situations. He shouldn’t have died.
Joe and Duncan talk.
“These are the best profilers in the country. They say he can’t stop.”
“They’re using their experience with other serial killers.”
“Other serial killers. You think Methos is a serial killer.”
“He was, both a serial killer and a mass murderer. Do you think Watchers don’t study the psychology of murder? No killer like that stops after a mere human life-time. Methos certainly didn’t. It took twenty human life-times (I’m estimating a life-time of 50 years in the BC which is probably optimistic) for him to stop his killing spree. But he did stop.”
“He did kill that one man.”
“He’s not going to go on a killing spree because of one man, just as he didn’t go headhunting after Kristin.”
In the end, I’m not sure if anyone (or everyone) at the BAU learns about immortals or not.
I do know that they come relatively close to capturing Methos but they still don’t have any solid proof and he slips through their surveillance anyway.
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-16 10:00 pm (UTC)Oh, I do like the idea that more watchers would be coming into the area, probably to clean up the records as well as to keep Methos under watch. And part of their training must be with how to deal with law enforcement, so they'd be really frustrating to interrogate. And the BAU would start getting twitchy around people who's wrists they couldn't see.
I don't think there are international warrants at this point (except possibly in the European Union) but there are extradition treaties. One question is, though, do the writings of a dead man count as hearsay or is it evidence? And they'd still need to backtrack the evidence to the original crime before they could figure out where to have him extradited to. It could definitely get real messy.
Makes me wonder what happens if a Watcher dies in some random killing that brings the police in, and they find his records? Maybe the Watchers are supposed to keep it better secured than that.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-16 11:42 pm (UTC)Perhaps the watchers are such an old, organized secret society that they rely on tradition a bit too much, and are falling behind on the times. Though if that were true, they probably have their own wildly specialized code words and terms and Amy really shouldn't have used the word immortal when talking about her subject in Season 5 - Indiscretions.
I know there must have been other episodes with Watcher protocal, but everything I think of seems to be for an extreme situation (Like, "ZOMG! The Highlander just walked into our bookshop/Regional HQ!" or "Grr! We hate immies now, lets kill them all.")
I once read a fic where the FBI started looking too hard at the Watchers and the Watchers realized that they had embraced technology too much, and were being found out by too many different people because of it. (following money trails and such, phone records of people checking in with regional heads, etc.) Everything seems to leave a paper-trail in this day and age.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-17 04:28 am (UTC)Sort of like immortals, too. For as long as there has been history, there have been immortals: declaring themselves gods, imprisoned as demons, fighting each other to death/decapitation/lightshow... and there are enough of them to have a semi-stable culture with rules and etiquette. Plus, they come from all cultures and any family type. In reality, I rather assume that the public would have to be well aware of the race of immortals, even if they couldn't necessarily identify the individuals. It would simply be a part of history. And it would probably effect the lives of all foundlings, whether pre-immie or not.
To make this sort of plot work, there has to be a certain amount of hand-waving, and vague explanations of "and it all works out" or "and nobody noticed."
no subject
Date: 2010-01-15 06:15 pm (UTC)some jurisdictions accept hearsay as evidence mostly civil ones, the problem however lies in getting the evidence, especially if it is from such a powerful society as the Watchers are. You can send an international request for evidence but the local courts are the ones that will have to carry it out so in many cases it can be denied and though criminal cases are a little different than what I usually study it would be incredibly hard to get any access to the records
no subject
Date: 2010-01-15 07:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-15 07:44 pm (UTC)I can imagine the poor prosecutor trying to arrest either Amanda or Cory's watcher after some scam thinking they were the guilty ones or for aiding and abetting while the watchers are trying to keep the agent out of jail and the prosecutor out of their business.
Unfortunately it is a very stubborn and bright guy who starts to see connections... cue to conspiracy theorists trying to help and only confusing him more
no subject
Date: 2010-01-15 08:41 pm (UTC)I seem to recall hearing that "The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway started out life as a whaling manual which couldn't get published, so characters and plot were added, and suddenly it's a classic.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-15 08:56 pm (UTC)I wonder if my professors would give me higher grades if I added characters to my anwsers?
no subject
Date: 2010-01-15 10:22 pm (UTC)I once turned in an astro-physics essay with a story, and the professor gave me an odd look but agreed that it did meet the requirements of the assignment. I got an A, but he was an easy grader regardless, so... probably depends on the prof.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-15 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-15 11:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-15 11:44 pm (UTC)I do promise I am trying but it doesn't come easily for me especially since I can't remember much of how Willow was in the later seasons!
no subject
Date: 2010-01-15 11:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-16 12:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-16 12:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-16 04:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-16 05:39 pm (UTC)