Curtis Banks

"I meant what I said about my luck turning around. It's going to, I can sense it."

Curtis Banks, Jr., also called "The Circle of Eight Killer" by the media, was a compulsive gambler-turned-spree killer who appeared in Snake Eyes.

Background
In 1988, Curtis's father, Curtis Banks, Sr., who taught him how to gamble, hit the jackpot gambling and abandoned his family, taking the money with him and going to Las Vegas. Only six months later, the senior Banks became broke and drank himself to death. Not much else is revealed about Curtis's personal life, other than that he was a longtime friend of one Eddie Langdon, with whom he was a partner in a failed plumbing firm called 88 Plumbing. He held down several other jobs for short times; he lost one of them directly prior to "Snake Eyes" for punching his own boss. Curtis was also a very compulsive gambler, losing a lot of money at casinos in Atlantic City. His dream was to win a jackpot and take his wife Teri on a trip to Tahiti using the money he won in order to pay for it. Unfortunately, his gambling problem cost him and Teri a lot of money to the point that their house faced foreclosure. He apparently managed to pull himself together, albeit only for a brief time. In 2012, on his way to a job interview in Philadelphia, he bought a scratch ticket, winning $250 and falling off the wagon again. He planned to get more money for the Tahiti trip by winning a high-stakes poker tournament in Atlantic City, which had a $50,000 buy-in and a prize sum of one million dollars. In order to fund his gambling, he had to borrow money from a mob member, Danny Savino.

Snake Eyes
However, Curtis lost a game, which caused him to snap and murder Savino, bludgeoning him with a trophy before leaving eight dollar bills in a circle around his body and an eight of hearts on the body for unknown reasons. Because Savino's death could cause a mob war, this leads to the BAU being called in. When Curtis gambles again, he experiences a string of victories that overjoy Eddie, who came along with him for the job interview. He is later approached by Teri, who says she wants a divorce. Shocked, Curtis begins losing games and eventually approaches a hooker that was previously "all over him", Patricia Riolo, in a parking garage and bashes her head against her car window before leaving an eight of diamonds on her body and, again, eight dollar bills around her in a circle. When he meets up with Eddie again, Eddie notices a connection in which the victims were all related to Curtis, but fails to identify Curtis as a killer. Simultaneously, Curtis begins experiencing another winning streak. Thinking that he must kill again to keep up the winnings, Curtis acquires a handgun from a man named Jimmy and uses it to shoot a gas station cashier, presumably chosen at random, to death and leaves behind his now-signature. However, he continues to lose and realizes that he must murder those closest to him, as Savino and Riolo were connected to him personally. As a result, he remorsefully shoots Eddie twice in the back in an alleyway after giving him an expensive watch as a present and leaves behind two eight cards this time, presumably to give a "boost" to his luck. He also kills a high-stakes gambler and robs him of $50,000, leaving behind $20,000 belonging to him.

Using the gambler's $50,000 to buy into the poker tournament, Curtis gambles again and an undercover Reid joins the game. Reid eventually identifies Curtis as the unsub when deducing that he is being overprotective of a black 8-ball keychain. Reid leaves, secretly alerting the rest of the team, but Curtis flees, killing one of the casino's chefs in the process and stealing his jacket for a quick disguise. Desperate for luck, Curtis decides to kill the one closest to him: his wife Teri. Fleeing to the house of his sister-in-law, Liz Dorsey, he finds both Teri and Liz there and holds them hostage, ranting at the former about how she ruined his winning streak. Rossi enters the house and tells Curtis to release Teri and Liz and that he'll take their place, but Curtis only releases Liz and then holds Rossi at gunpoint. Rossi attempts to appeal to him, telling him that his father was the reason behind his actions, not Teri. Hotch, Prentiss, and JJ then enter the house and order Curtis to put the gun down. Curtis looks at the clock, sees that 8 o'clock is nearing, and then looks at mirror, to which he finally realizes that he is holding his own wife at gunpoint, intending to kill her. Flashing back to all of his killings, then to a moment where his father taught him how to gamble (thus explaining his obsession with the number 8), Curtis realizes that he has become his father and releases Teri. Now seeing that it is 8 o'clock, he pulls the gun on himself and commits suicide.

Modus Operandi
Curtis targeted people he believed jinxed him and took his luck in gambling away. Usually, these people were associated with him in some way. He would kill those victims by bludgeoning them to death with some incidental object, such as a trophy or even the victim's own car. Later, as he began developing his "system", Curtis would shoot them with a handgun. His signature was taking eight one-dollar bills from their wallets and lay them in a circle around the bodies and leaving a playing card on their bodies, usually an eight of something. When Curtis killed his friend Eddie, he left $88 in a circle around the body and two eight cards on the body, the extra amount of money and the two cards presumably acting as some sort of "boost" to his luck. However, while he targeted those he was associated with, as said above, Curtis wasn't hesitant in killing random victims as well. When he would do so, he would just snap their necks and not leave behind the one-dollar bills and cards of eight, in order to ensure that these kills don't "count" in his system. The only exception to this rule was the gas station cashier, Harvey Redland, due to the fact that Curtis didn't fully recognize his system yet.

Profile
The unsub is a compulsive male gambler aged in his 30s or 40s who is targeting people who prey on or take advantage of gamblers, such as loan sharks and call girls. The killings may have been triggered by recent gambling losses. Because he is able to use such brutal and violent force, he is probably physically fit. Since he is able to move around in one of the most surveyed locations on the planet (a casino) without fear of being recognized, he probably doesn't have a criminal record, nor does he have a very domestic life with a wife and children; that would only moderate or stabilize his pathological behavior. As a compulsive gambler, he is extremely superstitious and will not be able to stop his actions on his own. The number eight, his signature that he leaves behind, seems to be a compulsion to him has some significance to himself, such as a birthday or an important event in his life. Not only is he an addict, but he is also killer, and based on how many victims and how quickly he has killed, he is not likely to stop. The unsub basically believes that killing people and leaving the dollar bills and playing cards on their bodies gives him luck in gambling. Because his luck did not improve when he killed Harvey Redland, he also figures that the closer he is to his victim, the more luck he receives.

Known Victims

 * 2012:
 * January-February: An unnamed ex-employer
 * February 7: Danny Savino
 * February 8: Patricia "Francesca" Riolo
 * February 9: Harvey Redland
 * February 10:
 * Eddie Langdon
 * The unnamed high-stakes gambler
 * Unnamed casino chef
 * The standoff at Liz Dorsey's house:
 * Liz Dorsey
 * Teri Banks
 * David Rossi

Appearances

 * Season Seven
 * "Snake Eyes"