William Cochran

"It's been a long time, Ellen. It's been a long time."

William Cochran was a delusional serial killer who appeared in The Night Watch.

Background
William was a teacher at the Glenbury College of Art and Design, where he met and mentored a student named Ellen Clark, who was briefly auditing courses at the school. The two later fell in love and had a son named Charles. William was later fired from his job after having an altercation with a colleague and later ordered to take a mandatory psychiatric evaluation, indicating an underlying mental illness at the time. In 2007 at Nokomis, Florida, Charles wandered away from Ellen while she was painting and drowned in a nearby lake. Following the tragedy, William split Charles's blanket with Ellen and kept his half in memory of his son, with Ellen doing the same. However, he was still traumatized by the loss and began drinking excessively. Eventually, he temporarily became homeless and was arrested at least once for disorderly conduct. In an attempt to clean up his act and get his life back together, William moved to Georgia and became a handyman. However, this fell apart when he realized Ellen used her half of Charlie's blanket in one of her pieces of graffiti art in Detroit. Believing this to be an insult to Charlie's memory, he cleared out his bank account and purchased a one-way ticket to Detroit, intent on seeking revenge against Ellen for what she did, but not before destroying the reputation of her alter-ego, "Morpheus".

Modus Operandi
William initially targeted people who were directly or indirectly related to the controversial development project in downtown Detroit, but later switched to other victims as he began to reach his endgame. His first victim, Russell Pearson, was hung by his feet and killed by a large, elaborate mousetrap. Afterwards, he left a piece of Morpheus-based graffiti art beside the crime scene to point investigators to Ellen. His second victim, Markus Ivey, was killed in some unspecified way and his body was then strapped to a gingerbread man prop as part of another Morpheus-based graffiti art piece. His third victim, Corey Marlin, was beaten and tortured before being shot and killed with his own handgun. Ellen, his final victim, was killed in a murder-suicide in which the two of them fell off a rooftop onto a piece of graffiti art announcing the death of Morpheus.

Profile
No profile of William was made by the BAU, as they were focused on Morpheus as a suspect.

Known Victims

 * Russell Pearson
 * Corinne Wallace
 * Markus Ivey
 * Corey Marlin
 * Ellen Clark

Appearances

 * Season Eleven
 * The Night Watch