Tommy Wheeler

"I'll burn the whole town down."

Tommy Wheeler is a serial arsonist who appeared in Season Four of Criminal Minds.

Background
When he was five, Tommy's parents died in a house fire, and he and his sister Tina were sent to live with their grandparents in Royal, Indiana. Tommy was more traumatized by the fire and the death of their parents than Tina, showing signs of being emotionally unbalanced. Over time, Tommy became fixated on Tina, his sister having become his entire world, disturbing the townspeople, who came to believe Tommy's love for his sister was incestuous. Word spread quickly of Tommy's "depravity" and he became a pariah, even being expelled from school due to the rumors.

In 1998, Tommy and Tina made plans to go to the Spring Formal, which was being held in the community center. On the night of the dance, Tommy was attacked and brutally beaten by a group of grown men outside the community center, sustaining numerous injuries (including broken bones and a punctured lung) and nearly dying. No real effort was made to investigate the attack, as no one, not even Tommy, would talk about it. Fearing for their grandson's life, Tommy's grandparents, after talking to the chief of police, sent Tommy to a Colorado boarding school, severed all ties between him and Tina and changed his surname to Boren, his mother's maiden name.

Tommy attended school for a year and a half, but was sentenced to juvenile hall for three years for an unspecified crime, presumably for setting a fire. Released when he was sixteen, Tommy fell off the grid for five years, eventually resurfacing in Franklin, where he purchased a large amount of gasoline and started several nuisance fires, burning a trash can, Christmas tree and abandoned shed. After those fires, Tommy disappeared again, laying low for some time before returning to Royal in 2009, where he began an arson spree, setting fire to a convenience store, a restaurant, and the recreation center. The first two fires were victimless, while the recreation center one killed twelve people.

House on Fire
Two days after the recreation center fire, Tommy burns down a theater, sealing the exits and turning off the main waterline to ensure fatalities. Hours later, as most of the townspeople and the BAU are attending a memorial service for all those who have died in the fires, Tommy enters Pop's Place, a bar owned by Tina's husband Jason Elliot. Continually switching seats in the bar to get a good layout of the place, Tommy leaves, seals the exits, pours a large amount of gasoline and throws a Molotov cocktail through the window, causing the bar to erupt in flames, killing four (including Jason) and hospitalizing the bartender, who presumably died later on.

Returning to his hideout, Tommy broods for some time, before going to Tina's home. Forcibly taking Tina to the community center, Tommy admits to being the arsonist, telling Tina he killed her husband and the other townspeople so they could not stop them from being together, claiming they are soul mates. Becoming more and more erratic, Tommy begins trying to make Tina remember the Spring Formal, which he begins hallucinating. When Tina begins rejecting him due to all that he has done, Tommy grows agitated, his condition worsened when the police and BAU, who had discovered his past and tracked him down, burst in. Only saying, "I'll burn the whole town down", Tommy knocks over a can of gasoline and lights a match, threatening to kill himself and Tina and possibly anyone else near the fuel. Appealing to his love for Tina, Hotchner and Rossi manage to calm Tommy down, causing him to regain his senses and let Tina go. Dropping the burnt out match, Tommy tells Tina he loves her as is he handcuffed and hauled away by the police. Because of the hallucinations and his obsession with Tina, he is probably deemed unfit for trial and institutionalized.

Profile
Given the population of Royal, the unsub was profiled as a local male between the ages of seventeen and thirty who would have a juvenile record consisting primarily of vandalism and small nuisance fires. He would be anxious, voyeuristic, was probably prone to burning himself, and, judging by him knowing the layouts of some buildings but not other, newer ones, likely lived in town at some point but moved away.

As there were no records of any fires in Royal over the last year, the unsub probably committed his practice fires far enough away as to not arouse suspicion. As the unsub ensured fatalities, it ruled out Hero Syndrome, though that did not exclude the possibility that he could still be a firefighter or other first responder. It eventually became apparent the unsub was a "revenge arsonist" whose rage had been building for years. He was attacking the community as a whole for some real or imagined injustice, with the fires drawing attention to him and giving him a sense of power over the town, which he felt like an outsider in. As he escalated, the unsub's fires became less random, with specific targets being killed, indicating the unsub was not getting the attention he craved, likely from a specific group or individual. Like most arsonists, he would essentially feed off the grief caused by his destruction, and if he attended the memorial held for his victims he would stand out by keeping mostly to himself, showing either too much or too little emotion, by intently watching the reactions of others and by insinuating himself a little too closely into another person's grief.

With his parents dead, his grandparents too old to take care of him, and only Tina left, Tommy's love map, which develops at around age six, was distorted and revolved entirely around her. While he loved Tina, he may hurt or kill her if she rejects him in some way.

Modus Operandi
Tommy set fires primarily with gasoline and matches, though the bar fire was started with a Molotov cocktail. To ensure his fires would cause fatalities, Tommy would block or lock all the available exits, disable all fire suppression equipment and also start one or two smaller fires, meaning that no matter how fast the fire department responded, the victims would likely all be dead from smoke inhalation caused by the main fire and the companion ones.

Known Victims

 * Set at least three minor fires prior to House on Fire at Franklin
 * Two victimless fires at a convenience store and a restaurant
 * Twelve killed in the recreation center fire. Named victims are:
 * David Alexander
 * Jean Alexander
 * Barbara Matthews
 * Alex Nagel
 * Mayor Flip Phillips
 * Alan Thompson
 * Betty Thompson
 * Mark Tong
 * Heather Young
 * Nineteen killed in the theater fire. Named victims are:
 * Rick Bradford
 * Cathy Duncan
 * Buck Ford
 * Gary Grimshaw
 * Linda Grimshaw
 * Van Hawkins
 * Windy Kennedy
 * Robert Lucas
 * Jesse Smith
 * Michelle Smith
 * The victims that are unspecified to have been killed in either the recreation center or theater fires are:
 * Andrew Alexander
 * Donna Howard
 * Mary James
 * Carolyn Jones
 * Ann King
 * Bruce Long
 * James Madison
 * Lawrence Powell
 * Alice Thompson
 * Three unidentified others
 * Four killed, and one injured, in the bar fire. The victims are:
 * Jason Elliot
 * Eric Gall
 * Roger Drake
 * Hilda Drake
 * Nancy Scott
 * Tina Wheeler

Appearances

 * Season Four
 * "House on Fire"