Suzanne Silvan

Suzanne Silvan is a serial killer who appeared in the Criminal Minds novel "Finishing School".

Background
Suzanne was born sometime in the 1960's and raised on a small, secluded farm in Ames, Iowa. As a child Suzanne was abused verbally and physically by her father Jacob and, when she reached adolescence and began menstruation, the abuse became sexual. At some point Suzanne's father impregnated her, forcing her mother, Tess, into bringing her to a back alley abortionist, who she also had render Suzanne completely infertile. Shortly after Suzanne's abortion, Tess, unable to deal with life anymore, committed suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills, with Jacob dying soon afterward when a gun he was cleaning went off and shot him.

Surviving on her own for several years, Suzanne met Lawrence Silvan in Atlanta, Georgia and the two instantly fell in love, marrying after Larry graduated from college and got a job working for a high-end logging company. Suzanne was obsessed with having children, but her childhood abortion left her unable to conceive, so she managed to convince Larry to abduct some children, three little girls, who Suzanne renamed and raised as her own. For a few years the Silvans lived happily, until the girls reached puberty, which prompted Suzanne into killing them in 1998 by overdosing them on her prescription medication while Larry was at work. While Larry was greatly unnerved by this, he remained faithful to Suzanne, abducting three more girls for her after burying the original trio in the woods. A short time later the Silvans moved from Georgia to Bemidji, Minnesota. After another decade or so of normalcy Suzanne killed off her current batch of children when they to grew to old for her liking, having Larry bury them as well.

Finishing School
In 2007, a trio of hunters stumbled on the bodies of the last three girls, prompting the local police to call in the BAU to help investigate the murders. During the investigation, Larry, who had, months prior, made plans to move to another state and start anew, manages to abduct two more children, who he leaves with Suzanne while he goes to frame a coworker for their crimes, intending to plant evidence in a car he had sold the man. By sheer chance the BAU happened to be interviewing the man and catch Larry in the act, but not before he calls Suzanne and warns her to run.

After getting Larry's call, Suzanne fled to her childhood home, but the BAU, realizing her destination, got there first. Suzanne's feigns innocence, putting the blame squarely on Larry, who she claims told her he had adopted all their children, also stating she had no idea he was killing them. Rossi manages to break Suzanne down when he tells her that Larry had confessed to molesting the girls, causing the completely horrified Suzanne to blurt out a confession, all the while bemoaning the fact that she had failed to protect her girls. While a state trooper takes Suzanne away, Rossi tells he had lied, Larry never said he had sex with the girls, but he had admitted to everything else and would have gone to death row for her. The taboids would come to call the abductions and murders Suzanne and Larry committed "The Mommy and Daddy Murders".

Profile
The victims appearing well taken care, lacking any sign of sexual abuse, and the lack of ransom demands caused the BAU to profile the unsub as someone who abducted children due being unable to have any of their own. The clothes the children were buried in implicated an unsub of a middle-class background and, as the girls were held for years, it meant the unsub either worked from home, kept the girls captive in some secluded location or had a partner. The girls being killed when they reached adolescence meant the unsub likely loved them as children, but hated them as women, believing they lost control of them when they started growing up.

When it became apparent it was a team they were dealing with, probably a married couple, the BAU profiled the husband as the abductor and the wife as the killer; the husband would do the grunt work, be mild mannered, subservient, non-threatening and completely abhorred to violence, while the wife, who probably had an abusive childhood, would be the one in control. Suzanne believed that by killing her girls before they grew up she was keeping them pure, stopping any men (including her husband) from tainting and hurting them, essentially making her a type of Angel of Death.

Modus Operandi
Suzanne would raise the girls Larry abducted as her own, renaming them, schooling them and presumably barring them from leaving the house. When the girls reached adolescence and began their period, Suzanne, to protect them from any men (including her husband) who would want them sexually, poisoned them with hydrocodone, a barbiturate she was prescribed for her chronic pain and nightmares. After killing the girls, Suzanne would dress them in homemade clothing and wrap them in layers, the first layer being blankets, the second winter clothing and the last plastic tarps; the girls would then be buried in graves Larry dug in the forest he was currently working in. Suzanne referred to poisoning the girls as sending them to "finishing school" for reasons never explained (even Larry remained in the dark as to the expression's origin).

Known Victims

 * Ellen
 * Two unnamed girls
 * Abigail Mathis
 * Heather Davison
 * Lee Ann Clark
 * Sophie Scheckel
 * Unnamed girl

Appearances

 * Novels
 * "Finishing School"