Donnie Mallick

Donnie Mallick was a delusional serial killer, abductor, and stalker who appeared in Season Ten of Criminal Minds.

Background
Mallick's single mother was institutionalized for schizophrenia sometime after he was born. As a result, he was sent to live with his wheelchair-ridden aunt Gertrude, who was a founding member of a bird club in Roanoke. However, Mallick was socially isolated, with only Gertrude to depend on, and he developed an affinity for birds. He also became increasingly delusional. When Gertrude died from natural causes in 1978, Mallick snapped and began stalking women around his age, abducting them, dislocating their legs, and leaving them bound in a wheelchair with hopes that the victims would be replacements for Gertrude. However, when they couldn't fit his fantasy, he killed them and dumped their bodies in the forests. The deaths caught the attention of then-fledgling FBI agents Gideon and Rossi, who at the time were two of only three agents in the Behavioral Science Unit at the time. When Mallick abducted another woman, Tara Barnett, Tara's mother Mary Ellen pleaded Gideon and Rossi to investigate the case, but in the end, they couldn't launch one due to the short numbers in the unit's ranks, much to Gideon's distress. Meanwhile, Mallick held Tara captive for the next 37 years, his fantasy having been fulfilled by her.

In 2015, Tara died from cancer, causing Mallick to go out searching for another woman to abduct and use as a replacement. The discovery of Tara's dumped corpse caught the attention of Gideon, who by that point had resigned from his position following his girlfriend's brutal murder. Having obsessed over the case in the past, Gideon decided to conduct his own independent investigation and deduced that the killer behind the 1978 murders was back. Hoping to lure him out, Gideon ordered some food at a café frequented mostly by locals, which he deduced the unsub to be. Coincidentally, Mallick was at the café at the same time. Recognizing him from the newspaper clippings that he kept of his killings, he became threatened by the former agent's presence, tracked him down to a house he owned in the wilderness, and shot him with a high-powered rifle from outside. Wishing to taunt Gideon, Mallick entered the home, allowed him to see his face, and executed him. Afterwards, he resumed his search for another replacement for Tara, while the BAU was called over to investigate Gideon's murder.

Modus Operandi
Mallick targeted lonely brunette women in their early 20s (why he chose that specific physical type is unknown, although it is likely because they resembled his mother or aunt at a young age). He found all of his victims at a local library and would lure them in with a simple ruse. After subduing them, Mallick would take them over to a basement on his property, where he would dislocate their legs so then they would have to use a wheelchair for mobility. He would then kill them, most likely after they shattered his fantasy. Afterwards, Mallick would dump their bodies in the forest, with Nelson's sparrows clutched in their hands (as a reference to their behavior and lifestyles, since Nelson's sparrows have been figuratively compared with loneliness). He also killed Gideon by shooting him several times with a high-powered life, and later tried to kill Rossi by shooting him with a pistol.

Known Victims

 * 1978:
 * Three unnamed women
 * Tara Barnett
 * 2015:
 * Jason Gideon
 * Josie Behdart
 * David Rossi

Appearances

 * Season Ten
 * "Nelson's Sparrow"