David Rossi

''"My wife always said I had a flair for the dramatic." "Which one?"

"All of them."'' David Rossi is a Supervisory Special Agent and Unit Senior Agent at the Behavioral Analysis Unit at Quantico, Virginia. He, like Jason Gideon, his previous counterpart, are both partially based upon real life former profiler, John Douglas.

Background
David has been married and divorced three times, his first wife being Carolyn. The reasons for his divorces are never made clear, but it is likely that it was because of his devotion to his job. Following his first divorce, he made an agreement with Carolyn that they would still help each other out when the other needed it. It has been implied that he has a son.

David was in early retirement until his voluntary return to the BAU in 2008. He had retired in order to go on lectures and book tours but returned to settle some unfinished business which wasn't immediately specified. Upon joining the team, it is obvious that he has had a previous working relationship with both Hotchner and Erin Strauss, the BAU's Section Chief. Unlike most of the other team members, Rossi is not intimidated by Strauss's personality, and he often calls her by her first name (much to her chagrin).

Season Three
In "Birthright" Rossi revealed to Sheriff Caulfield his reasons for returning. He held out a charm bracelet with the names of three children from one of his first cases. The children had come into their parents' bedroom to find them in bed, covered in blood and he promised them he would find out who did it. Each year on Christmas Eve, Rossi calls the children to let them know he hasn't forgotten them and he hasn't given up on solving the case of their parents' murders. He kept with this tradition through his return to the BAU, though none of the children had replied to his most recent calls. Rossi finally told Caulfield that the case had gone unsolved for 20 years; it was finally solved in "Damaged". He steps in as a hostage negotiator--his forte--in "Minimal Loss" when fellow agents Reid and Prentiss are held hostage.

Season Six
In Remembrance of Things Past, Rossi gets back on the hunt for The Butcher, a brutal, sadistic serial killer active in the 1980s and 1990s in Bristol, Virginia, when bodies killed exactly like the old victims turn up in the same area. He had investigated the case during the first murders, but was unsuccessful﻿ in catching The Butcher. He was, however, responsible for stopping his killing by narrowing down the geographic profile and alerting all possible victims in the area. The case stuck with Rossi for several years afterwards. He never wrote about it because he felt doing so would give the killer too much power. In the end of the episode, the killer, an elderly, Alzheimer-afflicted electrician named Lee Mullens, is caught. Upon getting home, Rossi, having suffered a writer's block earlier, begins writing his next book, presumably about the Butcher case.

Season Seven
In Proof he invited the rest of the team over to his house for a cooking lesson/ dinner party, after receiving a "tempered" suggestion from Hotch when they talked about the tensions born between several team members due to the lies said to keep Prentiss' safe.

In From Childhood's Hour, Rossi met up with Carolyn his first wife. He believed that she wanted them to get together again; he also seemed to be still in love with her. Rossi was later shocked to find out that she had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and she knew that she didn't have long left to live.She asked him to help her end her life on her own terms when her time came. Rossi still in shock hasn't answered her plea.

On the Job
Like his predecessor Gideon, Rossi is an experienced agent that acts as the team's official profiler. He is adept at getting into the minds of criminals and works in tandem with Hotch to develop these profiles. He is also the glue that holds the team together, taking over as confidant and adviser to the team's personal and professional dilemmas.