John Nelson

"But I only wanted to fix you..."

Dr. John Nelson is a mortician-turned-serial killer and abductor who appeared in God Complex.

Background
John was a mortician married to Linda, a woman who suffered from limp hypoplasiam, being born with her right leg missing at the knee and using a prosthetic to walk as a result. Two months prior to "God Complex", John quit his job at the funeral home he worked at and got the idea to try and transplant a foreign leg onto his wife's knee and got funding from an investor for medical equipment which he set up in his garage. He then began to experiment with amputating and transplanting legs, presumably starting with mice and then moving up to human trials, which claimed the life of Richard Hubbel.

God Complex
"Everything's fine. We just need to operate."

John then abducted Tony Anders and took him to his garage. Before he could start the surgery, Tony regained consciousness and took a good look at John's face, which was covered with a surgical mask, before John attacked him and put him back to sleep. He then removed Tony's right leg without killing him and left him at a hotel room. The attack on Tony was what led the BAU to being called in. At the same time, John set his sights on Carl Timmons, abducting him and taking him to his garage, later removing his right leg and replacing it with Tony Anders's. He then left Carl a block away from a hospital, where he died of gangrene. John began to feel the pressure when his investor started demanding to examine data acquired from his experiences. Going over the experiments upon his three victims, he felt that he found what he needed to succeed, going on to sedating Maria Rodriguez. He then called over Donna Sullivan and abducted her also.

The following night, he killed Maria whilst taking her left leg and putting it onto Donna's. Satisfied with his success, John wakes up Linda and urges her to come with him to the garage, where he intends to amputate Donna's right leg and put it onto Linda's. However, when the two reach the garage, John finds Donna missing, as she regained consciousness earlier and freed herself from her bonds. Donna then ambushes Linda and holds her at knifepoint with a scalpel, but John tricks her to putting her back on him while she heads for the door, allowing him to sedate her again. Linda, realizing what John has been doing, yells at him for hurting others, much to his shock. Just then, the BAU arrive, their guns drawn, and John threatens to drug Donna again, which would prove fatal. Reid urges Linda to talk to John and convince him to put the syringe down. This proves successful when Linda threatens him that she will order the agents to shoot, to which John slowly puts the syringe down. He is then arrested while Linda sobs and exclaims his name in shock.

At the end of Magnificent Light, someone is seen cutting off another person's right leg, reminiscent of John's M.O. He was later referenced in Perennials and Carbon Copy.

Modus Operandi
John would use a blood donor van to screen his victims and see which ones were suitable for testing. Once he found a suitable candidate, he would track them down using their contact information and abduct them, likely after luring them in using the van. Drugging them to prevent them from fleeing, John would then sedate them and amputate their right legs. He would then either dump the victims or try to reattach a foreign leg onto the stump. Due to his inexperience and refusal to accept the laws of biology, some of the victims would die due to blood loss or gangrene as a result of the leg removal or amputation. His ultimate goal was to transplant a foreign leg onto an amputated limb in an attempt to heal his wife. John initially targeted men for his human trials, but then switched to women and amputated their left legs when he felt that he was getting closer to achieving a successful result.

His dump site seemed to change with each victim in accordance to if they survived or not. Hubbel, who didn't survive his surgery, was dumped in Juarez, Mexico; Anders survived his surgery and was left in a hotel room; Timmons survived his surgery and was left a block away from a hospital, where he later died; and Rodriguez, who also didn't survive her surgery, was dumped in an alleyway.

Profile
The unsub is a male doctor with a severe God complex. His narcissism makes him believe that he can defy human biology and anatomy, and that has likely caused problems in his career. That said, he is probably a doctor who had lost his license or a medical student who had ethical violations. He is not a psychopath, since they rarely have the training and discipline for medical school or residency, so this unsub will not behave in an antisocial matter. He is probably successful, respectful, outgoing, can maintain healthy relationships, and his neighbors probably know him very well. Such a background makes it seem possible that he lives in a mid- to upper-class lifestyle, in which he may be married and have kids; if the latter fact is true, he will be devoted to both. He hides his criminal operations away from his neighbors through a psychological process called "doubling", in which he acts one way professionally and acts another way at home. This unsub's sense of superiority supersedes the Hippocratic Oath.

Known Victims

 * 2012:
 * October 15: Richard Hubbel
 * October 21-22: Tony Anders
 * October 22: Carl Timmons
 * October 23: Maria Rodriguez
 * October 23-24: Donna Sullivan

Appearances

 * Season Eight
 * "God Complex"
 * "Magnificent Light"
 * "Perennials"
 * "Broken"
 * "Carbon Copy"
 * "The Gathering"
 * "Brothers Hotchner"