Chad Brown

"You understand why I had to show everybody how vulnerable we are!"

Chad Brown is a homegrown terrorist who appeared in the Season Four episode Amplification.

History
Chad studied at the School of Public Policy located at the University of Maryland in 2004 and spent the next five years as an on-and-off Ph.D. candidate. He had an unsteady job at a bookstore, has an estranged sister, had been arrested twice at protest rallies, and had a girlfriend to whom he proposed but was rejected. She later filed a restraining order against him. Prior to "Amplification", he applied for a civilian position at Fort Detrick a total of four times, but failed the psychological evaluation every time; whenever he was asked about whether it was appropriate to sacrifice a few to save many, he had always answered "yes". During his studies at the School of Public Policy, Chad wrote a thesis that was focused on anthrax attacks, like the Amerithrax attacks of 2001. In it, the thesis talked about city preparedness and how easy it was to make samples of anthrax at home. For assistance in his thesis, he asked Dr. Lawrence Nichols, an expert in the field who had been previously demoted to working with the influenza. Nichols accepted it, having missed teaching, and even showed him the private laboratory in his residence, where he had access to anthrax and had even developed a new and more aggressive strain.

Nichols being an anti-WMD proliferation fanatic who wanted to show people how vulnerable America was, Chad took his teachings to the extreme and performed an anthrax attack on the bookstore he once worked at, hoping for a promotion but had been rejected. Since the dosage was very high, all three infected victims died of organ failure before other symptoms became present, with the deaths being classified as meningitis. When Nichols found out, he and Chad got into an argument, which resulted in a struggle that led to Chad killing Nichols and breaking a container of anthrax in the process. Unfazed by Nichols's death, Chad went to the Quiet Hills Park in Annapolis, Maryland, where he had proposed to his girlfriend, and released the weaponized anthrax developed by him and Nichols. A total of 25 people were severely infected, with twelve of them dead by the time a joint investigation by the BAU and several U.S. Army scientists from Fort Detrick, led by General Lee Whitworth, was launched. The profile they made of the unsub eventually led them to Dr. Nichols. However, when Morgan and Reid went to Nichols's residence, the latter found Nichols dead at the lab, as well as the broken container of anthrax. Knowing that he inhaled the released anthrax, Reid locked Morgan out of the lab. Investigating the lab, Reid realized that Nichols had a protegé, later identified as Chad.

In Chad's thesis paper, he also wrote about a mock anthrax attack on the D.C. subway system. Whitworth sent watchmen to the target area suggested by Chad as having the most fatalities, but Hotch argued that Chad attacked places he associated with rejection and would therefore attack the subway line leading to Fort Detrick. Whitworth was unconvinced, but he accompanied Hotch and Morgan to the subway line suggested by Hotch, where they found Chad and confronted him. Chad refuses to listen to Hotch and Morgan, but just before he can drop a bag full of anthrax-filled light bulbs, thus shattering them and releasing the anthrax upon everyone in the station, Whitworth stopped the two agents, wanting to take Chad into military custody so he could help find a cure for the anthrax strain. When he talked Chad into giving up the bag, Morgan made the arrest; the whole intervention had been staged in order to give Chad fake validation and get him to surrender. Reid, who had deduced that Nichols had hidden a cure for the anthrax strain in his inhaler, was cured along with the last four surviving victims infected at the park. A sample of the anthrax, the container of which bearing his and Nichols's names, was seen being placed inside a massive storage vault.

Modus Operandi
"I can kill everyone in here!"

The homemade anthrax strain used by Chad was highly aggressive and killed its victims much faster than its regular counterpart. In addition to the lung failure and black lesions that were typical of symptoms of anthrax poisoning, this strain would duplicate roughly 30 to 45 minutes, deeply poison the lungs, and cause massive hemorrhaging and failure to other organs as well as aphasia, a speech impediment. He targeted places that he associated with rejection. When Chad killed Dr. Nichols, he personally applied blunt-force trauma to his head.

Profile
"I helped make this [anthrax]! You have to name it after me!"

Because the targeted locations are not symbolically significant, the attacks are believed to be personal, which strongly indicates a homegrown terrorist. Like the Amerithrax case, this is someone from the science or U.S. Defense community and may also be known to other communities. These types of terrorists are myopic zealots, ideologues that believe that their work is of the greatest importance, and may have preached about the threat of an attack on America. His coworkers would describe him as very histrionic, paranoid, and secretive. He may have logged excess hours at work in the past weeks preparing for the attack. He has taken the full dosage of anthrax vaccines over the recommended 18-month schedule and had yearly boosters. This unsub has his own work space where he develops his products in privacy, has access to large and expensive industrial-grade equipment at work, and has written about the threats of anthrax attacks in published papers, yet he feels that no one is listening and that angers him. He may have experienced some sort of professional humiliation, like being demoted or fired, which was his trigger. He may have also betrayed his loved ones to this cause, possibly being recently separated or divorced. He has intimate knowledge of every detail of the 2001 anthrax attacks and has talked about what that suspect did right or wrong. He is also watching the news closely to see how the country reacts.

Real-Life Comparisons
Chad's attacks are similar to those committed by the Amerithrax killer, as he used anthrax to attack his victims and was described as a homegrown terrorist. Also, Chad's attempt to attack a subway with anthrax is similar to Aum Shinrikyo's "Subway Sarin Incident". The way the victims were infected (dozens of people being infected at once in a single location by a singular source of poison), plus the torturous time it took for them to die, also seems to be an allusion to Japanese poisoner and mass murderer Masumi Hayashi, a woman who spiked a pot of curry being served at a July 25, 1998 summer festival with 1000 grams of arsenic (an amount potent enough to kill over 100 people). The poison attack left four out of 68 infected dead.

Known Victims

 * 2009:
 * May 8, unspecified locations in Maryland:
 * Killed three people at the bookstore he once worked at with a large dose of anthrax. The victims are:
 * Albert Franks
 * Gale Mercer
 * Martha Finestein
 * Doctor Lawrence Nichols
 * May 9, Annapolis, Maryland: Infected 25 people in the Quiet Hills park, with four of them cured. Named victims are:
 * Abby
 * Danny
 * Ethan
 * Jason
 * Melinda
 * May 10:
 * Unspecified location in Maryland: Spencer Reid
 * Washington, D.C.: The attempted anthrax attack at the Frederick subway line:
 * Aaron Hotchner
 * Derek Morgan
 * General Lee Whitworth
 * Lisa
 * Unnamed Fort Detrick employee
 * Numerous unnamed people present

Appearances

 * Season Four
 * Amplification