Chase Whitaker

"Did you see it? The darkness? The light? Did you see?"

Chase Whitaker was a terminally-ill serial killer and abductor who appeared in Epilogue.

Background
Chase was born on May 9, 1980, in Ridge Canyon, California. His father Daniel was an abusive alcoholic whose wife, and Chase's mother left the family, leaving Chase to live with Daniel in a cabin by Ridge Canyon Lake. On October 28, 1990, at the age of the ten, he was diagnosed with lymphoma (a kind of cancer), but it went into remission on June 9, 1992, when he was twelve. On February 6, 1996, when he was sixteen years old, he and his father were fishing in the lake from a jetty. When Chase started talking back at his father, he forced Chase to take his shirt off and whipped him with his belt, a usual punishment. When he was done, Chase argued with him again, and as a result, Daniel punched him in the face so hard that he fell into the lake and nearly drowned. His father dragged him up and tried to revive him but couldn't. Thinking Chase was dead, he dragged him into the woods and buried him. Shortly afterwards, Chase woke up inside the grave and dug himself up. Upon coming back to the cabin, he struck his father in the head with a shovel, dragged him to the lake, and drowned him. He was eventually somehow arrested by police and institutionalized for the murder, but was released at the age of eighteen.

On September 2, 2011, Chase was diagnosed with fourth-stage lymphoma and learned that he only had three months to live. He became interested in a news story about Jake Shepherd, a hoodlum who had turned his life around and become religious after suffering an ATV accident; while in an ER, he died for four minutes before being resuscitated, during which he claimed to see an angelic figure who told him it "wasn't his time". When Shepherd was at Ridge Canyon Lake to be baptized by his congregation, Chase approached him, hoping to learn from him what dying was like. When Shepherd didn't give him the answers he wanted, he wound up killing him by strangling and drowning him, unsuccessfully trying to revive him. After that murder, he became a serial killer, non-fatally drowning people in the lake and bringing them back to life to ask them what it felt like before finally drowning them fatally. He initially targeted men with the same kind of physicality of being well-built with dark hair (presumably because that may have been what Shepherd looked like), but as his lymphoma grew worse to the point where coughing fits would briefly distract him, Chase started looking at other victims to prey on.

Epilogue
Chase is first seen spying on Nick Scirvin, who is out camping with his friends. When Nick's friends go out onto the lake, isolating him, Chase moves in. Meanwhile, Nick's brother, Phinny, tells him via walkie-talkie that local authorities have found some of Chase's previous victims in the lake, just before he spots Chase sneaking up on Nick. Unfortunately, it is too late for Phinny to warn Nick, and Chase knocks him out before dragging his body away. Simultaneous to the BAU being briefed about his case, Chase proceeds to drown Nick and puts his body in Lake Banter instead of Ridge Canyon Lake. Later that day, he spies on Lacey and her friends before pumping some of the gas out of her jetski. Later, he watches as she races with her friends, only to run out of gas midway through the race, and she drags her jetski to the shore. Approaching her, Chase introduces himself and offers to ride Lacey back to town, to which Lacey turns down the offer. However, Chase counters with the recent story of his victims being discovered, and Lacey changes her mind and goes with him. He later proceeds to drown her, but the drowning accidentally becomes fatal, and despite Chase's desperate attempts to resuscitation, she dies. At his home, Chase begins coughing out blood at the bathroom sink and takes his medication.

Later, he approaches Samantha Braun, whose car has broken down in the middle of the road, and she tells him that her son Evan is waiting at the car. Chase knocks her out before approaching Evan, luring him in with the story that his mother had been in an accident. Meanwhile, the BAU realizes that he is suffering from lymphoma as well as why he kills his victims. At the harbor owned by Daniel, when he is unable to get an appropriate response from Samantha after non-fatally drowning her, Chase proceeds to do the same to Evan. However, Chase gets distracted from his coughing, and Evan uses the opportunity to cut his bonds, escape, and pull Chase into the water. Evan then runs away from the harbor with Chase in pursuit, all the while coughing. After a lengthy chase, Chase manages to catch up with Evan at another part of the lake and attempt to drown him again, but the BAU arrive and convince Chase to release Evan before diving beneath the lake with the intention of drowning himself. However, visions of Daniel and a younger Chase appear to him, the former telling him that "it's not his time". Chase is then resuscitated by Prentiss and Reid, Prentiss telling him that it's not his time. Though he is last seen alive, it can be assumed he died of his lymphoma while incarcerated.

Modus Operandi
Chase initially targeted heavy-built Caucasian males with dark hair (why he chose that physical type is unknown; it may have been because Jake Shepherd looked like that), but later started killing more frequently and targeting random victims, even attempting to kill more than one simultaneously. After approaching them with some kind of ruse, he would lure them away from whoever they were with, bring them over to an isolated part of Ridge Canyon Lake and drown them. When they passed out, he would revive them with CPR and ask them what it was like. Inevitably, they would be killed, after which he tied rocks to them and dumped them in the lake. After his murder of Nick Scirvin, he stopped weighing them down and even left Nick's body in a different lake. As his killings progressed, he would take more time drowning them, hoping they would experience more of the "other side", and revive them more frequently. He also started killing them in colder parts of the lake in order to keep them alive longer. His father Daniel was first struck with a shovel before being drowned. Jake Shepherd was fatally strangled on accident, most likely in a fit of rage. In addition, Nick Scirvin wasn't lured in with a ruse, being incapacitated by blunt-force trauma instead.

Profile
The unsub is a white male in his mid- to late-20s who is a local to the area. He dumped Nick Skirvin's body in the lake and was compelled to circle back towards Rich Canyon. He went from choking and carrying fit men to their watery graves to drowning smaller victims unceremoniously. Diatom levels indicate he has stopped moving his victims altogether. Because of the changes to his behavior, he has most likely been injured or sick. He has experience in performing CPR, so he may be a doctor, lifeguard, or anyone else with training in resuscitation. He has accelerated his attack schedule, and he won't wait long to strike again.

At first, the unsub was believed to be a sadist with a God complex, who would get off on nearly killing his victims repeatedly and that it was vital that he bought them back from the dead; Reid compared him to Rodney Alcala, who would have a habit of resuscitating his victims after strangling them to the point of unconsciousness, then strangling them again. It later turned out that he was actually motivated by a fear of not knowing what to expect of life after death, being so close to dying himself.

Known Victims

 * February 6, 1996: Daniel Whitaker
 * 2011:
 * October 16: Jake Shepherd
 * October 20: Kirk Huggins
 * October 23: Ben Ganzman
 * October 25:
 * Nick Skirvin
 * Lacey Campbell
 * October 26: Samantha Braun and her son Evan :
 * Samantha Braun
 * Evan Braun

Appearances

 * Season Seven
 * Epilogue