Caleb Dale Sheppard

"I think I said watch it. I said watch it!"

Caleb Dale Sheppard, a.k.a. "The Stripping Bandit", is a bank robber and attempted spree killer who appeared in Psychodrama.

History
Caleb’s father died when he was young. After that, he and his sister were left alone with their mother, a painkiller addict, whose inebriation and loneliness caused her to abuse them, possibly sexually. Eventually Caleb’s sister killed herself. This drove him to start acting out, spending the next 12 years in and out of juvenile detention facilities and prisons for various crimes. In the 90s, he served time in the San Luis Obispo County Jail, at which a pilot program for psychodramas was performed at the time. When he was there, he was presumably subjected to that form of therapy and was also taught how to rob banks by other inmates. Before Psychodrama, he committed three bank robberies in Los Angeles. He would force people at gunpoint to strip down to their underwear in order to make them less likely to fight back or chase after him, lock their clothes in the vault, and take the money. At his fourth robbery, however, his crystal meth addiction had caused him to spiral out of control and the memories of the psychodrama therapy to return. He forced two couples at gunpoint to simulate sex with each other and beat a uniformed security guard to the brink of unconsciousness.

As the BAU’s investigation proceeded, Caleb became less careful and kept spiraling. At his fifth bank robbery, he didn’t bother checking all rooms, parked his motorbike illegally, and beat a man to death when he refused to take off his clothes. He then fled when he found that a bystander had called the police from his cell phone in a restroom, punching a ticket lady in the face outside. Escaping the BAU, Caleb then arrived at a small restaurant, fired his gun into the air, and forced a teenage boy to slap his mother in the face. When he refused to hit harder, Caleb shoved him to the floor and shot him to death. After that, he held the attendants of a birthday party near the motel he was staying at hostage, gave his gun to a young boy, and held a knife to his throat, telling him to shoot his own mother. By then, the BAU had identified him and tracked him down at the party. They attempted to get Caleb to surrender but when that wasn't possible, Hotch, enraged over Caleb's actions, shot him in the shoulder, making his arrest possible. When Caleb demanded drugs to help combat the pain of his gunshot injury, Hotch told the medics not to give him any because he had shot a teenager earlier.

Modus Operandi
Caleb's initial bank robberies were skillfully planned. He would enter wearing a mask, fire his MAC-10 machine pistol at the ceiling, clear the rooms, talk down eventual security guards, and force bystanders to strip down to their underwear (in order to make them less likely to chase after him or fight back). He then placed their clothes in the bank's vault, took the money, and fled. During his fourth robbery, however, he placed the stripped bystanders in the middle of the bank and made some of them simulate sex with each other. On his fifth robbery, he forgot to clear all rooms, struck when more people were present, and beat a man to death with his MAC-10 when he refused to undress. Caleb's sixth attack was at a restaurant, at which he forced a teenage boy to hit his mother. During the attack on the birthday party, he tried to get a young boy (held at knifepoint) to shoot his mother.

Profile
Caleb was estimated to have spent 5-10 years in prison and have been 18-23 years old at the time, which would put his present age at 23-35. His original M.O., which was made up for practical reasons, triggered a psychological response and made it compulsive for him to manipulate bystanders. He was, at first, believed to be a sexual sadist who forced his victims to simulate sex for the humiliation. The truth was that he was forcing them to perform psychodramas, a form of psychotherapy in which actors serve as surrogates for people in the subject’s life. His fantasies were usually about sons extracting revenge on their mothers.

Real-Life Comparison
Caleb may have been based on a bank robbery case in Grand Rapids, Michigan mentioned in John Douglas's book Crime Classification Manual. Like Caleb, the perpetrator forced bystanders to undress completely before taking the money. He also might've been partially inspired by Larry Phillips, Jr. and Emil Mătăsăreanu, a pair of bank robbers. All three committed a series of notorious bank robberies using automatic firearms; had a significant M.O. (Phillips and Mătăsăreanu used heavily-modified, high-powered firearms; Caleb made his hostages undress); and during one of the robberies, Phillips and Mătăsăreanu's murder of security guard Herman Cook seems to have been obscurely alluded by Caleb's murder of the deliveryman during the fifth robbery.

Known Victims

 * Committed three bank robberies prior to Psychodrama
 * The fourth bank robbery:
 * An unnamed security guard
 * An unnamed man
 * Bill and Claire Henderson
 * An unnamed elderly woman and an unnamed young man
 * The fifth bank robbery:
 * An unnamed woman
 * An unnamed deliveryman
 * Unnamed ticket lady
 * The restaurant shooting: Unnamed teenage boy
 * The birthday party standoff:
 * Numerous unnamed parents and children
 * Jeffrey
 * Jeffrey's unnamed mother

Appearances

 * Season Two
 * Psychodrama