Criminal Minds

The team arrives in Chula Vista, California, in the middle of the night. Katie Owen and Lindsey Vaughan have been missing for 18 hours, and one disfigured body has been found at the bottom of a hill at a construction site. The hands and face of the body have been so badly mutilated that identification is impossible. Just beyond the yellow tape Katie's parents and Lindsey's father have been waiting for hours for someone to tell them which girl is dead and which might still be alive. Morgan and JJ approach the distraught families while the rest of the team discusses the situation with Det. Payton. Mr. and Mrs. Owen tell the two agents they dropped the girls off at the movie theater on their way out to dinner, and Jack, Lindsey's father, had arranged to pick the girls up after the movie. The girls never came out of the theater. An usher told Jack that the girls left the movie half-way through to go outside to have a cigarette.



Mr. Owen wants to know why the police haven't told them which girl is dead, but Jack has already realized the police have not been able to identify the body. Pat Mannan, a friend who is standing with Jack, asks JJ and Morgan if they are with the FBI, and if they are taking over the case. Morgan insists the BAU is in Chula Vista to assist the police with their investigation. When Jack walks away in disgust, Pat advises the agents that Jack had recently lost his wife and his daughter Lindsey is all that he has left. Morgan keeps an eye on Jack, watching him swallow a pill from a prescription bottle.



Prentiss, Rossi, Hotchner and Reid examine the body. They find layer upon layer of bruises and cuts, deep wounds from her bindings, and bruising around her neck. Reid notices an indentation on her neck from a belt buckle. Det. Payton wonders why the killer would destroy her hands and face. Hotchner and Rossi explain this indicates the victim knew her attacker and the killer is trying to delay police identification to give him time to get away. Hotchner also tells the detective that this location is only a dump site – the killer did not torture and strangle the girl at this location. They must find the place the killer took his victims, and they must find out which girl has been killed. Rossi glances up to find Jack Vaughan standing at the edge of the depression, looking down on the investigators.



Morgan asks Mrs. Owen for her cell phone: Katie called her and left a garbled message after her abduction. Det. Payton gathers the two families and advises them they will have to move the body and continue the investigation – they cannot determine identification yet. Jack Vaughan calmly offers to look at the body and claims he will be able to tell which girl is dead. Rossi advises against it.



Morgan contacts Garcia back at Quantico, gives her Mrs. Owen's cell number and asks her to put Katie's message through a filter so that they can hear the recording. Garcia works at her keyboard, running the message through various filters to try to eliminate the distortion. She finally isolates the voices of the two girls, and, donning headphones, begins to make a transcript of the call. She calls the team at the Chula Vista Police Department and plays the recording for them. "It lasts exactly 53 seconds and then it goes dead. I think she was strangled." Rossi believes the quickest way for the team to make an identification of the dead girl is to allow the parents to hear the tape – they will be able to tell which girl is being strangled. Prentiss and Garcia cannot believe he would suggest such a thing – how can he expect a parent to listen as his child is being murdered? Hotchner hesitates, but realizes that the only option is a DNA test, and by the time they received the results the other girl would probably be dead. He leaves the decision to Mr. and Mrs. Owen and Jack Vaughan, telling them they would be hearing the last moments of one of their daughter's lives.



When Mrs. Owen begins to sob, JJ suggests that they could wait and make an appeal to the media, but Rossi is quick to point out that, either way, they will still be looking for one daughter. Pat Mannan advises Jack against making a media appeal, telling him the FBI is only setting it up to gauge the parents' reactions and to determine whether one of the parents is involved in the kidnapping and murder. The agents exchange glances, wondering how Mannan knew about this tactic. Mrs. Owen leaves the room; she cannot bear to listen to the tape.



Hotchner orders Garcia to play the message as Mr. Owen and Jack Vaughan listen. Vaughan closes his eyes as he begins to listen to the girls' voices, but Mr. Owen's eyes fill up with tears. The two fathers lock glances. Mr. Owen, trying to hold back his tears, asks them to play it again, denying the voice is that of his daughter. He looks up to find his wife has come back into the room. She mouths the word "yes" to him, but he continues to deny it. Finally, Vaughan approaches Owen, the truth written plainly on his face, and Owen collapses against him. Vaughan puts his arm around Owen and leads him out of the room.



Even Rossi cannot help reacting to the parents' horror, wiping his hand across his face before he can get back to profiling the crime. He points out the torture and murder of Katie Owen took a long time, and Katie evidently screamed, but no neighbors complained about the noise. Reid hurries the team to a large map posted nearby. He tells them the abduction site was nine miles north of the dump site on the edge of town, and both are indicators of the unsub's comfort zone - the killing area must fall between these two locations. Hotchner advises the police to do a grid search that concentrates on isolated sites such as wooded areas and abandoned houses as the killer needed privacy and a controlled environment. He instructs Rossi, Reid and Morgan to go to Jack Vaughan's house to profile the victim, while he and Prentiss go to the last place the girls were seen alive – the movie theater.



Hotchner and Prentiss stand in the middle of the street and observe the area around the theater. Two teenage girls are leaning against the wall, talking and smoking cigarettes. Hotchner wonders aloud whether their parents know they smoke, and Prentiss replies, "Mine didn't." Just watching the girls, the profilers determine they are out late, smoking, breaking the rules for one reason: boys. When two strange boys approach them, Hotchner believes the girls will not go with them, not after the press has just announced that two girls had been abducted. When he is proven right, Prentiss notices there are no alleys around the theater – everything is brightly lit and out in the open. It is a holiday weekend, so there is a lot of foot traffic in the area. The only way these girls could have been taken was by someone they knew.



Jack Vaughan and Pat Mannan watch carefully as Reid, Morgan and Rossi go through Lindsey's bedroom. Rossi asks Vaughan how his wife died, but he doesn't see the relevance. Reid and Morgan try to explain the concept of victimology – how knowing as much as they can about the victim may lead the team to Lindsey's abductor. When Vaughan suggests Lindsey is just like any other 15-year-old girl, the team makes observations about Lindsey's room that tell them just the opposite is true. Lindsey doesn't have posters of her idols, framed pictures of her friends, or stuffed animals in her room. All these things suggest she keeps herself hidden and doesn't relate well with others.



Garcia is watching a series of vlogs – video logs that Katie had posted on the internet. Katie did not like Lindsey's dad – she called him a "creep" and claimed he treated Lindsey more like a wife than a daughter. She calls Reid to tell him about it and he moves out of the bedroom and into the living area of the home. Garcia tells him Jack and Lindsey had moved to Chula Vista six years earlier and, according to Katie, they lived in Maine previously. The story is that Jack owned a fishing boat, and when the market dropped out, the family fell apart and the mother died in a car accident. Reid feels the story is very familiar. Garcia confirms this – it is the very same story of a girl named Lindsey in a book called The Emerald Sea of Dreams. Lindsey has taken her life story from a book – why hasn't her father told them about this? Reid sits down at Jack Vaughan's computer and begins noticing some things that are out of the ordinary: his computer is set to clear the browsing history and wipe the temp file on a daily basis. Reid gives Garcia Vaughan's IP address, and Garcia cannot find anything – he is using a type of server that makes tracking his internet use impossible.



Vaughan surprises Reid and asks him what he is doing. Stammering slightly, Reid mentions the possibility of Lindsey being in contact with an on-line predator, but Vaughan tells him that Lindsey didn't like computers. Reid quickly leaves the room to talk with Morgan and Rossi. The three profilers confront Vaughan and Mannan with their observations about the Vaughan home. They explain they know this is not a regular family home – they have a state-of-the-art security system, but nothing is hung on the walls, they have spyware that wipes their computer file history every day, and the furniture looks rented. Even Lindsey's responses caught on the tape were not typical. When faced with a horrifying and violent experience, she chose her words carefully. Rossi interrupts Reid when he tries to be diplomatic and blurts out that either Lindsey was coached or she had experienced sexual abuse before. Jack Vaughan goes wild and tries to attack Rossi, but Mannan grabs him and puts himself between the two, struggling to control Vaughan. As the two struggle, Morgan sees a handgun tucked into the waistband of Mannan's pants. The three agents quickly pull their guns and cover the two men. Vaughan raises his hands and backs away, but Mannan turns to face the agents and tells them he has a badge to show them. He slowly reaches into his pocket and pulls out a Federal Marshal's badge. Jack and Lindsey Vaughan are under his supervision in the Witness Protection Program.



Lindsey Vaughan sits barefoot and bruised in a cold, bare, institutional bathroom, leaning against the wall. The constant drip of one of the faucets startles her from sleep, and she looks around her in despair.



Hotchner and Prentiss arrive at the Vaughan home just as JJ and Det. Payton are dropping the Owens off across the street. Mr. and Mrs. Owen move towards the street, and want to know what is going on. JJ, Prentiss and Det. Payton try to reassure them the investigation is nothing out of the ordinary. When JJ tells Mr. Owen that he can't speak with Jack Vaughan just then, he becomes suspicious.



Hotchner hurries into the Vaughan home and Rossi tells him that Jack has been in the WPP for 10 years. Hotchner is livid, and demands to know why Marshal Mannan didn't tell them immediately. Mannan explains Vaughan's identity must be protected at all costs, and goes on to suggest that Lindsey's abduction may have nothing to do with his past. Hotchner points out to Vaughan that every person in that room, with the exception of Mannan, is there to find his daughter. Vaughan tells him that, if this does have something to do with his past, the men would have flown out of Boston. Hotchner tells the team to get Vaughan and Mannan back to the police station until the case is over. Mannan places himself in Hotchner's path and says, "You know, you have no idea who or what you're dealing with here." Hotchner replies, "Then enlighten me, or stay out of my way.



As the agents escort Vaughan out to the car, Owen demands to know if he's being arrested. JJ and Prentiss try to deflect his attention, but Owen storms across the street and tries to confront Vaughan. Morgan blocks his approach as Reid and Rossi place Vaughan in the car, but Owen screams out at Vaughan that he'll kill him if he finds out Vaughan had anything to do with his daughter's murder.



Garcia is still watching Katie Owen's vlog when she receives a call from Hotchner. He asks her to check flight records into the area from Boston, looking for two men, possibly Irish. He also asks her to check motels, hotels and car rentals. Rossi is looking at Jack Vaughan through the window of a conference room. He remarks to Hotchner that he's interviewed hundreds of killers with all types of crazy motives, but all of them had one particular look in their eyes. Hotchner pins up a picture of Lindsey Vaughan on the case bulletin board and adds once the thing they love the most is taken away from them, these "killers" are as lost as anyone else.



A tear falls down Lindsey's cheek as she stares at the dripping faucet. She becomes agitated, crying out for the dripping to stop. She struggles to her feet, although her arms are bound behind her back, and she staggers to the sink. She grips the handle of the faucet with her teeth and tries to push it to shut off the water. She fights with the handle, biting down so hard that her mouth begins to bleed, but she finally succeeds and the dripping stops. As she looks up into the mirror over the sink she sees two figures emerge from the shadows. One man tells her all she had to do was ask and he would have turned it off. He backs her up against the sink and holds a knife to her face. He tells her she will find out who he is and what he can do to her if she doesn't shut up. Lindsey holds in her fear and quietly tells her abductor that, one way or another, he is going to die. As the two leave the bathroom, she wipes the blood from her chin on her shoulder.



In a small conference room in the Chula Vista Police Station, Vaughan takes another pill. He tells Hotchner he worked for the McCrellan Corporation out of Boston. The team knows this is a term used to describe an Irish mob that authorities have never been able to bring an indictment against because they have a reputation for eliminating anyone who tries to testify against them. Hotchner asks Vaughan if he was one of the mob's killers and if the pills keep him in check. Vaughan replies it is his daughter that keeps him in control. He doesn't know if Katie's death and Lindsey's abduction have anything to do with his former business. Mannan tells the team the McCrellan brothers will face trial in two weeks. Det. Payton receives a call that his men have found something in an abandoned house within what Reid describes as the unsub's comfort zone. As the team rushes out to investigate, Vaughan stops Hotchner and tells him that, whatever he finds, Vaughan wants to see her.



Police cars pull up in an abandoned housing development that is 6.2 miles from the dump site. If this is the scene of the murder, the unsubs risked going out on the open road to place Katie's body at the construction site. Something made them abandon this area. Inside the team finds piles of cigarette butts and dozens of empty bottles of alcohol. Prentiss locates Katie's cell phone and Morgan finds two different sets of footprints in the blood on the carpet. This crime scene is too much of a mess to be the work of professionals. Prentiss also finds a belt that may have been the murder weapon. Morgan follows a blood trail out the back door and the team splits up to search nearby homes. Hotchner moves up the stairs in an empty home to find more blood evidence. Slamming open a door, he finds the body of a teenage boy who had been stabbed several times. The team notices scratch marks on his face and both arms as well as a bite mark on one arm. Rossi determines he was one of the kidnappers, but, at some point during the evening, he decided he wanted out. When he had tried to leave, one of the other unsubs stabbed him. Once he staggered off, the other unsubs assumed he had gone to the police, so they dumped Katie's body and moved Lindsey to another location. Now they must identify this boy and figure out where his friends took Lindsey before it's too late.



Jack Vaughan is becoming more agitated. He stares through the conference room window as JJ and Prentiss post pictures of the young man's body on the bulletin board. Rossi tells Vaughan he believes Lindsey is still alive, but that Vaughan needs to let the team do its job. When Rossi leaves, Mannan tells Vaughan this case has nothing to do with him; it's karma for what he did to all of his victims.



The team discusses the case with the Chula Vista officers, telling them that the dead man had something to do with the abductions. The police are reluctant to believe that teenagers could have committed such a heinous crime, but Prentiss reminds them of the case of Kevin Foster and the self-proclaimed "Lords of Chaos" who banded together to commit murder in 1998. When teenage boys are intoxicated and worked up into a frenzy by a dominant male, they can do terrible things.



Reid stands alone at his map of the Chula Vista area. He is on the phone with Garcia asking her to check all high schools in the area for the identity of the dead boy. Garcia finds the numbers are too big and they will need some way to narrow down the search. Even the boy's height, weight, coloring and family financial standing does not help her. Reid finally asks her to focus on a two-mile radius around the Castle Park area, and Garcia finds a match to Doug Silverman.



Reid brings the school photo of Doug Silverman out to the team. Hotchner and Rossi instruct the other officers to look for Doug's friends, especially for an older boy, someone who had been expelled or left school and had a criminal record. Hotchner is concerned this will end violently.



Lindsey's two abductors are arguing in the bathroom. Taylor, the younger boy, is trying to convince Ryan they should try to get "out of this." Ryan nervously waves the knife around and tells Taylor to calm down - all they need now is a gun. Talking fast, he convinces Taylor to go back to his house and steal his father's gun. Once Taylor leaves, Ryan stands at the sink and looks at himself in the mirror. Lindsey has been watching, and reminds him she saw everything he did. Ryan tells her none of them is going to get out alive.



Hotchner and Prentiss approach Doug Silverman's father at work. At first, he doesn't allow himself to believe something could be wrong with his son, but when the reality of his son's death sinks in, he is devastated.



JJ shows Doug's picture to Mr. and Mrs. Owen, but they don't recognize Doug as someone Katie knew. Now that he's found out that Jack Vaughan has been cleared, Mr. Owen asks if he can speak with him – to apologize for his earlier remarks. Reid and Rossi have a similar conversation with Jack Vaughan, who also doesn't recognize Doug Silverman. Rossi asks Vaughan how much Lindsey knows about his past and about his wife's death. Reid listens as Rossi discusses Lindsey with Vaughan. Vaughan told Lindsey everything: about his work for the mob, about her danger, and about the fact that Lindsey's mother was killed in an accident that was meant for Jack. Lindsey would not have allowed herself to be abducted, but she was very protective of Katie and probably went along to try to keep Katie safe.



Reid leaves the room to speak with Garcia and have her trace any boys who left the same high school a few years previously. She is still watching Katie's vlog, and Katie is talking about an older boy who she finds fascinating who hangs around with a couple of "geeks." Lindsey had warned her to stay away from him.



Mr. Silverman can't believe his son could have been involved in something like this. He remembers his son had begun hanging around with an older kid named Ryan or Brian.



Mr. Owen enters the conference room, and Rossi and Reid walk out so the two men can talk. Owen stops Vaughan when he tries to show sympathy concerning Katie's death. Owen is there to find out if Vaughan can do something about the boys who killed his daughter. Owen had lied to the police. He did recognize Doug Silverman's picture, and he knows who his friends were. Vaughan's cold eyes move to the picture of Doug still posted on the bulletin board.



Sitting outside the conference room, Reid asks Garcia about boys who either flunked out or were expelled from Katie's high school. As Garcia comes up with the name Ryan Phillips, Reid notices Mr. Owen leaving the conference room. Stepping inside, Reid finds the room completely empty. Vaughan has escaped, leaving behind only his bottle of pills. Reid hurries to the phone to tell the rest of the team, and looks up as Mannan comes into the station, blood pouring down his face. Vaughan has attacked him and stolen his car.



Morgan, JJ, Rossi and Det. Payton meet Hotchner and Prentiss at Mr. Silverman's workplace. Owen sent Vaughan after Katie's killer and he clearly knows where to go. Prentiss gets a call from Reid about Ryan Phillips – they know they have to find him before Jack Vaughan does.



Following Ryan Phillips' instructions, Taylor Coleman is trying to break the lock on his father's gun safe. He is sweaty and frustrated as he tries again and again, but he can't get the lock open. Suddenly, he hears a voice and looks up to find Jack Vaughan standing behind him. Vaughan asks him where he is holding Lindsey, but Taylor denies knowing anything about her. Vaughan picks up a hammer from the work bench and breaks the lock off the gun safe with one strike. He reaches inside and retrieves a shotgun, pumping it once. Vaughan points the gun at Taylor's right leg and pulls the trigger. Taylor falls to the ground, screaming and bleeding badly from the wound in his thigh. Pointing the gun at Taylor's other leg Vaughan asks him about Lindsey again.



Mannan hovers over Reid as he frantically makes notations and calculations on his map of the area. Mannan has no patience with Reid's methods and, when he's given a note about gunshots reported on Jackson Street, Mannan walks out. Reid hastily plots the new location on his map and has his answer.



Hotchner and the rest of the team have donned their vests and are waiting for a call about a possible location for Ryan Phillips. Reid calls and tells them he has input all of the variables, and he believes Ryan is holding Lindsey at the Mayford High School – just two blocks from Reid's location. Hotchner knows Reid will get there ahead of the team and tells him to be careful.



Ryan paces in the restroom in Mayford High School trying to reach Taylor on his cell phone. Lindsey taunts him, telling him Taylor has abandoned him. Ryan slams the cell phone against the wall and turns to Lindsey. Smiling, he begins unbuckling his belt as he walks towards her.



Jack Vaughan arrives at the school with the shotgun. He quietly walks down the hall, peering into each room as he passes. Reid arrives moments later. Gun drawn, he walks down the same hallway, unwittingly following in Vaughan's footsteps.



Lindsey warns Ryan that nothing he does to her will be able to compare with what her father will do to him. Ryan begins to respond, but Vaughan enters and hits him across the face with the stock of the gun, knocking Ryan to the floor. Lindsey jumps up and demands that her father kill him. Reid hears the commotion and flings open the restroom door to see Lindsey standing in front of her father and Vaughan holding the shotgun on the helpless Ryan. Reid calls for Vaughan to put down his gun, but Lindsey stays between the agent and her father, telling her father to kill Ryan for what he did to Katie. Ryan begs for his life. Reid keeps talking, telling Vaughan that Lindsey's mother wanted him to protect their daughter from all of the violence in his life. He asks him when the violence will end if he kills Ryan right in front of her. "When does it stop?" Reid asks. Vaughan answers, "Tomorrow," and pulls the trigger, shooting Ryan in the head. Reid is stunned into immobility.



Hotchner and the rest of the team arrive at the school in time to hear the gunshot. They tell the Chula Vista police to hang back and hurry down the hallway to the bathroom. The door opens as they arrive, and Vaughan and Lindsey walk out. JJ and Prentiss take them by the arms and lead them back out of the school as Hotchner, Morgan and Rossi enter the restroom. Reid has not moved, and stands staring at the body of Ryan Phillips, bright red blood splashed all over the wall behind him. Reid stammers out an explanation that he had tried to stop Vaughan but couldn't. He asks Rossi what's going to happen to Vaughan, and Rossi tells him it depends on how important a witness he is. Morgan puts one hand on Reid's shoulder.



The BAU team members walk toward their cars, Reid in the rear, and they watch U.S. Marshals usher Vaughan and Lindsey into a waiting car nearby. For a moment, Vaughan's eyes meet Hotchner's.



In Atlanta, Georgia, the two people formerly known as Jack and Lindsey Vaughan are admiring their new home. Their new neighbors walk up and introduce themselves. "Lindsey" tells them that her name is Katie.

[recap written by Finnegan77]