Charles Holcombe

"Just let me do my job!"

Charles Holcombe was a prolific serial killer who appeared in Legacy in Season Two of Criminal Minds.

Background
"But you will beg, whore. They all do."

When Charles' father died last year, he inherited the family's meat-packing plant and a substantial amount of money. In 2006, Charles took up serial killing for an unknown reason. He had a submissive accomplice, Steven Foster, whom he personally knew because Steven's family worked for his. Steven would pick up potential victims for Charles and bring them to him, to which he would then place them in the meat-packing plant, torture them by allowing them to run around the plant and fall into his traps, and then kill them. His murders went mostly unnoticed and none of his victims were reported missing as most were drug addicts, homeless people, runaways, prostitutes, etc. Charles later became enraged when he read a newspaper article announcing Detective Cal McGee's receiving of an award for Charles's work, since McGee was assigned to supervise the areas where Charles's victims disappeared in. As a result, he sent a letter to McGee, saying, "There are two types of people in the world, those that do work and those that take the credit, you should be ashamed."

Legacy
After killing 64 victims, Charles had Steven bring him a prostitute named Maggie, whom he tortured like the rest of the victims. Maggie was nearly able to escape the warehouse, but failed at the last minute and was knocked unconscious by gas. Charles took her to an operating room where he tried to kill her, but was interrupted when Hotch, Prentiss, Morgan, and a SWAT team burst into the room, having deduced him as the unsub after apprehending Steven, who identified him. When he raised his butcher's knife, shouting "Just let me do my job!", he was shot and mortally wounded by Hotch, Prentiss, and Morgan. Maggie demanded to see his face, which prompted Morgan to remove Charles's surgical mask, revealing his bloody visage. She then looked at Charles's face and said "I won" just before he slowly bled out from his wounds and died.

Modus Operandi
"I assure you, I'm not without compassion. You're in the center of a 130,000-square-foot facility. You have until sunrise to find your way out of here. If you don't, your sentence will be carried out. You only have a few hours, Maggie. Go."

Charles targeted random homeless people, prostitutes, vagrants, and junkies. After being given his victims by Steven, who picked them up with a van using some simple ruse such as pretending to be a Social Services employee, Charles would torture them indirectly both mentally and physically by placing them inside the basement of his meat packing plant and giving them a few hours to find their way out, all the while watching them attempt to escape on a TV connected to the surveillance cameras inside the plant. The dungeon would be filled with traps (such as crushed glass scattered across the floor and dead ends), gas, and a Doberman dog used to keep the captives going. If they didn't make it out in time (and it appears no one did), Charles would sedate them by releasing gas using the plant's ventilation system, strap them to a stainless steel table, butcher them alive with an electric saw, all the while recording the murder, and then use the tape to torment future victims with. Charles kept the dismembered limbs (and presumably other body parts) in his "Kill Room" and the shoes of his victims, presumably as trophies, in a room near the meat plant's exit.

Profile
"What did you do? Hmm. What is the legacy of a whore, Maggie? How 'bout AIDS, syphilis, gonorrhea, herpes, hepatitis, disease, and filth. What did you do? You... were... you."

The unsub is a "house cleaner", a mission-oriented killer who fixes perceived wrongs in the world. He has deeply rationalized his behavior and while he knows his killings are wrong, he believes he is doing the world a service by doing so. This type of killer devolves rapidly and is usually a loner since not many people could tolerate him. He leaves a long-lasting and negative impression on everyone he meets, and even if he has someone who is close to him, that person will not be an equal, but more of a servant of sorts. He would be very fastidious, tending towards obsessive-compulsive disorder, and would have an overwhelming sense of indignation towards the things he perceives as wrong, not even considering the reasons why someone might disagree. It is unlikely that he will have an actual job, based on the number of victims as well as the fact that it would prevent him from his murdering. The killings were most likely set off by the death of a family member or someone who had control over the unsub.

Real-Life Comparison
Elements of Charles's meat plant (such as gas emitting vents, random dead ends, a furnace presumably used for disposing of body parts, etc.) may have been partly inspired by serial killer H.H. Holmes's so-called "Murder Castle", a multistory facility that he constructed to torture and murder his victims in.

Known Victims

 * Unspecified dates from 2006 to 2007: At least 63 victims killed by him. Named ones include:
 * Victor Arkwright
 * Roger B.
 * Margo Blackwood
 * Miles Cye
 * Jane Daughterly
 * Daryl Espenson
 * Doreen Gorbold
 * Rachel Green
 * Marcy Hackett
 * Kimberly Harmond
 * Dillion Jeffers
 * Naomi Keegen
 * Clint Lesser
 * Bailey Mathews
 * Dean Maxby
 * Oriah Odell
 * Jonathan O'Neil
 * Carl Padmore
 * Travis Phung
 * Henry Quincy
 * Tina Radley
 * Shirley Sangster
 * Mindy Spano
 * Todd Starks
 * Jorge Suárez
 * Dwight Thurban
 * Tad Underhill
 * Ross Valenta
 * Robin Waller
 * Ben Wolcott
 * Kevin Zanetti
 * 2007:
 * May 7-8: Nate
 * May 8-9: Maggie

Appearances

 * Season Two
 * Legacy
 * Novels
 * Jump Cut