Criminal Minds

It's raining in Manhattan, as a man worriedly tapes aluminum foil over his windows, trying to shut out the voices. Putting on a dark, hooded sweatshirt, he goes outside and walks down the dark streets, his fingers drumming against his legs. Inside a cab, he ignores the small talk made by the driver. The cab stops in a secluded part of town, and the man gets out. Standing outside the driver's window, the man in the sweatshirt stares in at the driver – then suddenly shoots him.

Hotchner describes the crime to the BAU as he shows video of the crime scenes and victims. Walter Derbin, the cab driver, had been blindfolded, shot once in the chest, and then stabbed through the ear. Other victims, Rachel Holman and Kaveh Surrani, also had been shot, blindfolded and stabbed through the ear with the handle of the knife broken off, just like Derbin. The unsub always kills at night and there have been no witnesses, so the NYPD is having a difficult time. Reid compares this murderer with the Zodiac killer who continually changed his type of victim. Gideon adds the Zodiac also killed for 30 years without ever being caught.

As the jet flies over New York City, Elle and JJ discuss what they'd like to do in New York, but Reid mentions he's never been there and is looking forward to it. "Reid, it's a one-hour flight – it's a three-hour train ride, man," teases Morgan.

From the profile of a blitz attacker, they believe the unsub is male and probably white. The unsub has both organized and disorganized characteristics – he's a blitz attacker, yet he brings a murder kit to each scene. The blindfold may mean the unsub feels remorse.

At the Derbin crime scene, Gideon and Reid determine the unsub had planned the murder out meticulously – he picked up the cab at a well-known dive where cabbies often stop and he had the driver take him to a pre-determined secluded location. At Rachel Holman's crime scene, Morgan and Elle find out she had just moved in – her neighbors would not have been likely to check up on her. After examining the blood trail, Hotchner concludes the unsub had been waiting in her apartment for her to get home. When a NYPD officer asks why the unsub had bothered to stab her, Morgan replies it is common to prison shankings. At the other crime scene, Reid's theory is the killer is a "serial killer groupie," taking victimology and methods from serial killers of the past. Since the unsub shoots his victims first, in order to control the situation, he may have a physical problem or he may be small. He probably has a steady job.

Back at the precinct, the NYPD are confused. "So, we're looking for a small angry white guy with a day job?" Gideon admits there is a lot they still don't know, but they do know these are not blitz attacks – they are executions. Reid explains the unsub's "signature" is part ritual and part M.O. – he kills in order to satisfy an inner need – he will not stop killing until they catch him.

As an older woman turns from lighting a votive candle in a Catholic church, she sees a man in a dark hooded sweatshirt. He stares at the altar, his fingers tapping, before approaching the confessional. When the priest opens the screen, the unsub shoots him.

The BAU arrives at the church and notes the unsub is getting bolder – it is his first public killing and there is a witness. The priest's body lies on the floor, blindfolded, with a broken knife in his ear.

The older woman tells Morgan and Elle it felt like the unsub, "couldn't hear me, like he was in his own world." She tells them his hands kept moving as if he were "playing a piano or fingering a rosary, maybe." Since the unsub didn't kill this woman, he may be picking his victims purposefully – not killing at random – and whatever the victims have in common is the reason he kills them. The woman tells them a lot of people stopped worshipping at that church when the rector was indicted for pedophilia. He was tried and found innocent.

Reid asks the medical examiner to slide the knife from the victim's ear. The knife is made of flint – in mythology flint was used as a symbol for protection and retribution. Gideon looks more closely at the blindfold – all the blood is on the inside. The unsub puts the blindfold on after he kills them.

Hotchner calls Garcia, and asks her to check the victims' backgrounds to see if any of them had been charged with a crime. Kaveh Surrani was tried and found not guilty of vehicular manslaughter, Rachel Holman was tried and found not guilty of administering a fatal dose of heroin to her boyfriend, and Walter Derbin was arrested for spousal battery but the charges were dropped mid-trial. Hotchner calls her a genius and she happily responds, "You're just saying that because it's true."

The new profile is that of a vigilante. The victims are blindfolded after they are dead to resemble a statue of Lady Justice. He has a poetic sense of right and wrong, and these killings are somehow personal – he or someone close to him has been the victim of violent crime. His original kill may have been against his attacker. He may work in or around the criminal justice system; he's overworked and undervalued and is used to not being noticed.

Gideon warns the police officers to close ranks, not to let details out about this man, but is interrupted by JJ: "Too late." A New York newspaper is leading with the story of the vigilante. Gideon is worried this case may now turn into another like that of Bernard Goetz – a vigilante folk-hero.

Sitting around a table at a Chinese restaurant, the team talks about the "big hole" in the profile – that the unsub might be a cop. All of them know how frustrating police work can be. Gideon mentions the first instance of criminal profiling happened in New York when a police officer asked a psychiatrist for help on the Mad Bomber, who eluded police for 16 years starting in 1940. The profile developed by psychiatrist James Brussels was extremely detailed and accurate. Morgan gets a laugh out of watching Reid try to eat with chopsticks. "It's like trying to forage for dinner with a pair of #2 pencils!" JJ puts a rubber band around one end of his chopsticks, but he still can't seem to get the hang of it. Elle realizes that, even when they aren't talking about their case, all they can talk about is profiling. When Hotchner responds by asking about her love life, she quickly turns the talk back to work.

An almost empty city bus pulls up to a stop that same evening, and a man in a hooded sweatshirt.

Gideon gets a call at dinner – the unsub "just took out a cop killer." The case has gone from bad to very, very bad. The next morning, Det. Bennett tells the team that the victim was Shaun Coolie, who had been set free when the only witness against him was killed. JJ reveals the same reporter, Lance Wagner, had written another story about the vigilante, "practically deifying him." Hotchner reads a line from the article: "Someday a real rain will come and wash the dirt off the streets." It is a line from Taxi Driver. This type of killer should have been seeking out the press to tell his story, but Gideon feels he is only growing into his role – it's about his work, not about getting credit for it. The tip hotline is full of people who consider the unsub a hero.

Garcia has found no overlap among the five victims in arresting officers, public offenders or district attorneys, but each was processed at the Manhattan Criminal Court House. Unfortunately, 122,998 cases run through there a year. Morgan and JJ check case lists to look for controversial acquittals as Reid, Hotchner and Gideon head over to the courthouse to see if there is an employee with a history of erratic behavior. On the steps outside the courthouse, Hotchner asks Gideon if he ever felt like taking the law into his own hands. Gideon, asking Hotchner if "this is about the boys in Iowa," and tells him that would be letting the unsubs get into his head.

The three interview people around the courthouse, asking about employees who are impatient with how the system is working. Many people fit this description. Reid, coming upon Gideon alone, asks him about what happened in Iowa. On one of the first cases Gideon and Hotchner worked together, two boys had been murdered in a small town. When they went to interview a suspect, he threatened to commit suicide, but eventually turned a shotgun on Hotchner. Instead of shooting him, Hotchner got him to surrender. At his trial, his wife gave him an alibi and he was acquitted, and then went on to kill another boy.

Another article in the newspaper leads the team to ask the reporter in to be interviewed. The reporter, Lance Wagner, has heard of Gideon and his "famous meltdown," and agrees to talk to him. He covered the trials of all the victims, and believes the unsub is a crime victim. Hotchner shows him pictures of the crime scenes, and the wounds in the ear. When Gideon asks him, "Why would you stab someone through the ear into the brain?" Wagner gets suspicious. He realizes that they suspect him. Gideon profiles the reporter, and knows he isn't the unsub, he's just happy to be getting a lot of press out of the killings.

In the park, at night, a hooded figure shoots a man. The victim was an undercover cop. The hooded figure presents himself at police headquarters, saying, "I don't understand, I did this all for you. We're in this together." Will Sykes was a mugging victim last year, and confesses to all the murders. Gideon challenges him with details of the crime scenes, and he realizes that, although he killed the cop, he didn't commit the other murders. In order to draw the real vigilante out, they plant a story about how he has inspired someone to shoot a police officer. They hope to bring the unsub to the policeman's funeral out of remorse, and the team briefs the officers on methods to detect him. Watching the funeral on television, Det. Bennett is disturbed by the sound of the bagpipes playing "Amazing Grace" – it "wakes me in the middle of the night. If there was any justice, cop killers would have to hear it for an eternity."

Morgan, at the court house trying to get transcripts of the victims' original trials, finds that there are no transcripts for the cab driver's trial – it was too recent. That means the vigilante had to be in the courtroom during the trial. This may be why he's stabbing people in the ear – because he has heard too much, and continually hears the voices of victims of crimes. A court reporter fits the profile – overworked, access to the courthouse, a nameless cog in the machine, even the motions of the fingers may be that of someone transcribing. Garcia checks and finds all the trials had the same court reporter – Marvin Doyle. His parents had been killed in an attempted robbery. He works at the courthouse in Courtroom 104.

As Hotchner and Reid enter the courtroom they realize they were there just yesterday interviewing people. The unsub must have seen them, as he isn't there – he had called in sick. There is a large painting of a blindfolded Lady Justice on the wall. Hotchner asks the judge to give him a warrant for Marvin Doyle.

At Doyle's empty apartment, they find the windows covered with aluminum foil and insulation to "keep the voices out." They find a life insurance check that is two years old from the deaths of Doyle's parents that he didn't cash, a box full of flint knives, and a stenography machine that has been worn out from his attempts to transcribe the voices that he hears. There are also boxes and boxes of trial notes in 'steno' – the phonetic shorthand used by stenographers. This shorthand is unique to each different stenographer and cannot be read by anyone except the original reporter. "Someone in these boxes is targeted to die." They will have to go through the actual files in each box – to narrow it down, they look for capital cases in which the accused took the stand, and claimed to be a type of victim himself. Reid finds the case of Ted Elmore who shot and killed both his parents after claiming years of physical abuse. Since Doyle's parents had been killed, this might have been too much for him to hear.

Ted Elmore is walking down the street on his way home when Gideon calls his home. Gideon warns Ted's wife that he is in danger as Ted comes in. Doyle pushes his way in after Ted and shoots him. Gideon hears the shot over the phone and the police, SWAT and the BAU go to the apartment. Doyle is inside the apartment with Ted and his wife as hostages. Gideon and Hotchner go in to try to talk to him. Doyle is seated on the floor against the wall holding Ted in front of him. Gideon and Hotchner arrive, pointing their guns at Doyle, and promising to get the truth out of Ted Elmore. Gideon puts his gun away and tries to get Ted to tell Doyle he lied on the stand, but he won't. Hotchner and Gideon describe case after case of killers who have gone free, telling Doyle he won't be able to keep up with all the people he has to punish – he can't kill fast enough to stop the voices in his head.

Gideon promises, if he gives himself up, he will find Doyle a place to rest. Doyle, still pointing his gun at Gideon, lets Ted go. His movements are slow, and he leans forward, his pointed gun held toward Gideon. Hotchner shoots him. After Doyle's body is wheeled out, Gideon walks out of the building watching Hotchner's reaction.

Gideon notes: "Gandhi said, 'Better to be violent if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.'" Hotchner responds, "Gandhi also said, 'I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary. The evil it does is permanent."

Short clips of man-on-the-street interviews reveal that New Yorkers are divided over the vigilante's death – some were grateful for his work, while some believe he, too, got what he deserved.