Tommy Wheeler

"I'll burn the whole town down."

Tommy Wheeler is a delusional serial arsonist and mass murderer who appeared in Season Four of Criminal Minds.

Background
When he was five, Tommy's parents both 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 critical injuries (which included 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 ever talk about it. Fearing for their grandson's life, Tommy's grandparents, after talking to the chief of police, sent him to a boarding school in Colorado, severing all ties between him and Tina and changing 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, a Christmas tree, and an abandoned shed.

House on Fire
"Boom."

After the Franklin 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 fire killed twelve people, with no survivors. Two days after the recreation center fire, Tommy burns down a theater, sealing the exits and turning off the main waterline to ensure fatalities. A total of nineteen people die, once again with no survivors. 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 fiancé 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, trying to write a letter, but scrapping them multiple times.

Then, he traveled to Tina's home, where he forcibly takes her to the community center. There, Tommy admits to being the arsonist, telling Tina he killed her fiancé 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 and the fact they were siblings, Tommy grows agitated, his condition worsened when the police and BAU, who had discovered his past and tracked him down, burst in. Refusing Hotch and Carlson's orders to let Tina go, Tommy knocks over a can of gasoline and lights a match, threatening to kill himself and Tina. Appealing to his love for Tina, Hotch 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, his obsession with Tina and fire, and his delusion of him and Tina being the only residents in their hometown with no one to bother them anymore, he is probably deemed unfit for trial and institutionalized.

Profile
Based on the limited population of Royal, the unsub is most likely a male between the ages of 17 to 30. The fires of the recreational center, the restaurant, and the movie theater were all indicative of a "revenge arsonist", someone who is seeking retaliation for a perceived injustice, whether real or imagined. Revenge arsonists often target group headquarters, such as churches or government buildings. This unsub chooses local gathering places with a large numbers of potential victims inside. It's clear that he has chosen to target the community as a whole. That meant that the arsonist is a local, someone who lived or grew up in Royal, Indiana. Despite the fact that he is from Royal, however, he feels like an outsider, as if his community had wronged him in some type of way. The fires are his way of striking back, trying to draw attention to himself. The fires not only killed innocent people, it also gave the unsub a sense of power over the community, choosing who lived and who died. But somehow, the first few fires were lacking. They didn't exact the correct measure of punishment or attract enough attention or they didn't attract the attention of a certain person. Like most arsonists, he liked to watch the fires he created, relishing the destruction.

The bar fire didn't increase the number of victims, as the previous two fatal fires went from twelve to nineteen casualties, but reduced them, which is the reason the third fire was a key to the investigation. The unsub isn't striking out at the community as a whole anymore; now, he is striking out at one or more specific individuals. This type of rage would stem from things or memories people tend to keep buried, things they just do not talk about.

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 the most fatalities, Tommy would block or lock all the available exits, disable all fire suppression equipment in the building, 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, usually from smoke inhalation caused by the main fire and the companion ones. He wore gloves to ensure he didn't leave behind fingerprints on the items, but he would take off one while lighting his matches using his thumb, since his fingers were coarse enough.

Real-Life Comparisons
Tommy seems to be partially similar to Julio González, a mass murderer who killed 87 people at a social club called "Happy Land" on March 25, 1990. Both used gasoline to start their fires and were motivated by something to do with their romantic lives (Tommy wanted to be alone with his sister who he had a crush on, while González had an argument with his girlfriend). Their massacres also involved the exits being blocked off, thus contributing to a higher body count. Also, Tommy's habit of killing multiple victims in public places and his usage of fire as a weapon might have been an extremely loose allusion to Martin Bryant's massacre, which occurred at a popular tourist site and involved an arson fire. In addition, both share identical body counts, having claimed 35 victims individually, and would later be institutionalized due to their mental illnesses.

Known Victims

 * 2009, Indiana:
 * January, Franklin: Set at least three minor victimless fires
 * Royal:
 * March 11:
 * A victimless convenience store fire
 * A victimless restaurant fire
 * March 21: Twelve killed in the recreation center fire. Named victims are:
 * The Alexander family:
 * Andrew Alexander
 * David Alexander
 * Jean Alexander
 * Alex Nagel
 * Mayor Flip Phillips
 * Alan Thompson
 * Alice Thompson
 * Betty Thompson
 * March 23: Nineteen killed in the Highland Theater fire. Named victims are:
 * Rick Bradford
 * Cathy Duncan
 * Buck Ford
 * Gary and Linda Grimshaw
 * Van Hawkins
 * Donna Howard
 * Windy Kennedy
 * Robert Lucas
 * Michelle Smith and her son Jesse
 * March 24: Four killed, and one injured, in the Pop's Place bar fire. The victims are:
 * Jason Elliot
 * Eric Gall
 * Roger and Hilda Drake :
 * Roger Drake
 * Hilda Drake
 * Nancy Scott
 * March 25: Tina Wheeler
 * Note: The following are other victims of either the recreation center or theater fires, as mostly seen on boards at the team's office:
 * Mary James
 * Carolyn Jones
 * Ann King
 * Bruce Long
 * Robert Lucas
 * James Madison
 * Barbara Matthews
 * Lawrence Powell
 * Mark Tong
 * Heather Young
 * Three unidentified others

Appearances

 * Season Four
 * "House on Fire"