Mitchell Crossford

Mitchell Crossford is a homegrown terrorist and mass murderer who attacked a city bus with sarin gas in The Witness.

Background
Crossford was one of over fifty illegitimate children of a cult leader with extremist anti-government views. He and his mother left the cult, and he spent his teenage years racking up a juvenile criminal record. A survey on him found him to be extremely manipulative, hostile, and psychopathic. Eventually, Crossford rejoined the cult and adopted its extremist views as his own. He and one of his half-brothers, Theo Koutranis, later broke off from the cult and began planning a terrorist attack against the U.S. government. However, Koutranis backed out of the plan when he fell in love with a woman, Tracy Senarak, with whom he had a brief romantic relationship with despite her current marriage.

Crossford tried to reel Koutranis back in, to no avail, and proceeded to develop the plan without him. He purchased live samples of sarin from a disgraced chemist, who he then killed, and installed them into fish-feeding devices that would release the gas into the air once triggered. Six weeks prior to "The Witness", he installed one such device on City Link Bus 290, the bus Tracy frequently rode on, in hopes of killing her as retribution. He then began following Koutranis around. One night, Crossford witnessed Koutranis being killed by Tracy's husband Charlie, who intercepted Koutranis's attempt at meeting up with Tracy again. Realizing he had a potential patsy, Crossford began stalking Charlie, intending to blackmail him and use him to help stage attacks.

Modus Operandi
Crossford first killed the chemist by shooting him once in the head, likely with a handgun. Then, he placed small amounts of sarin into the slots of fish-feeding devices, which would release them into the air in an aerosolized form once triggered. During the city bus attack, Crossford placed only one feeding device inside the bus and waited six weeks (the amount of time it took for the devices to activate). During the attempted attack on the federal building, he placed dozens of feeding devices in the trunk of Charlie's car, lured him into a parking garage where many employees would gather (and where the ventilation systems to the entire building were located), and waited for the devices to activate.

Known Victims

 * Unnamed man
 * Ten killed in the City Link Bus 290 sarin gas attack:
 * The unnamed driver
 * Eight unnamed passengers
 * Unnamed man
 * Tracy Senarak
 * The attempted sarin gas attack on the federal building:
 * Aaron Hotchner
 * David Rossi
 * Spencer Reid
 * Derek Morgan
 * Doctor Tara Lewis
 * Agent Natalie Colfax
 * Agent Darryl Young
 * Charlie Senarak
 * Over a thousand other unnamed federal employees

Appearances

 * Season Eleven
 * The Witness