Trey Gordon

"I did it again. It's not supposed to happen. Please. I need help. Can you help me?!"

Trey Gordon, dubbed "The Day/Night Killer" by the media, is a sleepwalking serial-turned-spree killer who was briefly mistaken for two serial killers. He appeared in In the Dark.

Background
Trey's mother died at some point early in his life, and he was left to be raised by his abusive father Samuel. Samuel was a poacher with a criminal record consisting of arrests for drug use and solicitation. He liked to bring Trey to drug dens and prostitution brothels that he would frequent. In the early morning hours of May 14, 1991, police raided a brothel and found the then-eight-year-old Trey in a bedroom with a naked prostitute who had molested him. Samuel was busy having sex with another prostitute in the next room. It is unclear whether Samuel or the naked prostitute involved were prosecuted as a result.

As an adult, Trey started taking multiple prescribed medications for anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and borderline personality disorder, all preconditions for sleepwalking. Six weeks prior to In the Dark, Samuel died of a heart attack, prompting Trey to start killing men who reminded him of his father. However, unconsciously, that was not enough for him; as he succumbed to sleepwalking, he started tracking down the places Samuel frequented, which had now been renovated into up-and-coming suburban homes. There, he would kill any homeowners present.

Modus Operandi
Trey had two distinct M.O.s, which caused the BAU to initially believe two different, independent unsubs were at work. As such, they dubbed one series of murders as the work of "The Woods Unsub", and the other as the work of "The Home Invasion Unsub". Trey's signature, the only thing in common between both sets of murders, was killing all of his victims with a single gunshot or stab wound directed to the heart.


 * As the Woods Unsub, Trey would kill male poachers with a history of violent confrontations, who all reminded him of his father, during the daytime hours. He would follow them into the woods, position himself at a safe distance, and kill them by shooting them once with a scoped Winchester .30-06-caliber, single-action hunting rifle. He was always organized during these killings and made sure he never left behind any incriminating evidence, since he never sleepwalked during those murders.
 * As the Home Invasion Unsub, Trey, while sleepwalking, would break into a home in the middle of the night and stab the homeowner(s) to death with a kitchen knife. All of the homes he targeted were former drug dens or prostitution brothels that his father frequented. The first victims, all women, suffered from multiple stab wounds, but as he devolved, the victims suffered from only one stab wound. During these killings, he was disorganized and more violent, which would increase as he went along due to the heightening seriousness of his sleepwalking.

Real-Life Comparison
Trey has some similarities to the prolific South African serial killer Cedric Maake and may have been indirectly based from him. Maake had three different M.O.s that he used simultaneously: bludgeoning passers-by at a beach with a rock; ambushing couples in cars, shooting the man before raping the woman; and killing tailors in their shops with a hammer. While the first two series of murders were soon identified as the work of a single killer, the third one was believed to be a different case almost until Maake's arrest, much like how Trey was initially assumed to be two independent serial killers.

Known Victims

 * Ron Carini
 * Reba Wilson
 * Jerry Hornsby
 * Pearl Roberts
 * Bob Joplin
 * Mike Hood
 * Jon Kreutzmann and Lyn Anastasio
 * Paul McConnell
 * The attack at 122 Lyon Street:
 * Janis Weir
 * David Rossi

Appearances

 * Season Twelve
 * In the Dark