Armando Ruis Salinas

Armando Ruis Salinas was a derelict serial-turned-spree killer who appeared in Season Four of Criminal Minds.

History
A Mexican national, Armando was forced to sleep on the floor as a child due to his family's poverty, leaving him with a deep desire for his own bed and home, which he confided in his half-brother and colleague Ruben Garcia. Arrested and imprisoned for an unknown amount of time for various cases of burglary and assault, Armando, after being released, moved to California with Ruben to work on the farms, the two joining several others to form a "cuadrilla", a group of migrant workers. Due to his drug habits, inability to get along with others, and general dislike of work, Armando was kicked out of the group by Ruben after costing them a big job in Tehachapi, causing him to snap. Finding the home of Mildred Younce, an elderly woman who gave food to hobos in exchange for doing odd jobs, Armando killed her and spent the night in her house. Leaving the next day, Armando began to hop from boxcar to boxcar to follow his half-brother, killing homeowners, living in their houses, and selling any valuables he took from them, leaving the money in farm camps for Ruben to find.

In Catching Out, Armando begins killing more frequently, murdering the Sullivan and Ortiz couples in the span of a single day; he finds a local newspaper mentioning him in the latter's home. Amused by the paper dubbing him the "Highway 99 Killer", the authorities having incorrectly guessed he moved along the highway, Armando placed the paper between the dead husband and wife, under the bowling trophy he killed them with, as a taunt. Hopping a train, Armando reaches another work camp and leaves some more money for Ruben. Later brought to the town of Lockeford by another train, Armando finds a suitable house, grabs a shovel lying in the garden, and prepares to break inside when the resident, who had been asleep on the couch, wakes up and hears a news broadcast about Armando just before spotting him outside through a window. Fleeing to a nearby rail yard, Armando boards a box car and, when one of the guards climbs in to look for him, Armando kills him with a rail spike. Spotted by Morgan while murdering the guard, Armando climbs on top of a moving train, followed closely by Morgan. While Morgan is climbing up after him, Armando starts trying to kick him off. Right before he can send Morgan plummeting to the ground, Armando is killed when Hotch shoots him in the chest from a moving car.

Profile
The unsub is a male transient aged somewhere between twenty-five and forty-five, who would be physically fit but somewhat battered from train-hopping and fighting with other homeless men. He may look homeless, but he is taking clothing from his victims' homes, so he will be the only transient near the railroad tracks wearing clean clothing. The trains and the rail-yards are his real home, and when he gets tired of them, he chooses a house to make his own. He will have a red dry rash around his nose from sniffing chemicals, which is what is commonly known as a "sniffer's rash". He takes household cleaners (such as nail polish, remover glue, paint thinner, and lighter fluid) and abuses them as psycho-active inhalants. It is believed that he is living out a fantasy in his victims' homes. Upon leaving, he takes his victims' clothing, money, jewelry, and small electronics. If a person get close to him, he or she will notice him and describe him as smelling "like a combination of human filth and paint thinner".

He shows characteristics of both an organized and disorganized killer; he brutally beat his victims to death with a random object he found lying around, but followed a "ritual" afterwards by wiping away his fingerprints and symbolically dressing his victims in his own clothes by laying them on the bodies. By destroying others and living out their lives, he is raising his own self-worth.

Modus Operandi
Following his half-brother by riding the rails, Armando, after leaving the box car he stowed away in, would search for homes within one mile of the tracks, breaking into one which lacked security features such as dogs, alarms, and motion sensitive lights. Once inside the house, Armando would bludgeon the inhabitants to death with any heavy object that caught his eye. With the homeowners dead, Armando would wear their clothes, use their facilities and commodities, take various small valuables, and get high off any household chemicals he could find. Armando would send any money he made pawning things he stole to his half-brother, leaving the cash in an envelope on the notice boards of worker camps.

Real-Life Comparisons
Armando was based off of serial killer Ángel Maturino Reséndiz, a.k.a. The Railroad Killer. Like Armando, he was a Hispanic drifter who travelled along railroads and killed the majority of his victims by bludgeoning them. He also bears a slight resemblance to The Original Night Stalker in the sense that both attacked couples in their homes and killed them by bludgeoning them to death with an object from the house. Some aspects of him also appeared to have been based on Juan Corona, as both were Mexican-American serial killers who were active in California, worked on the farms, and had half-brothers.

Known Victims

 * Committed numerous victimless burglaries and assaults prior to Catching Out
 * 2008, California:
 * August 27, Tehachapi: Mildred Younce
 * September 6, Bakersfield: Unnamed victim
 * September 9, Orange Cove: Sue Smauder
 * September 13, Fresno: Barry and Gina Jones
 * September 19, Vacaville: Catherine Hexly
 * September 21, Chico: Jeff Davidson
 * September 25, Sacramento: Alan and Brenda Paisley
 * September 27, Modesto: Larry and Ann Sullivan
 * September 28:
 * Stockton: Mr. and Mrs. Ortiz
 * Lockeford:
 * Rose
 * Unnamed railroad security guard
 * Derek Morgan

Appearances

 * Season Four
 * "Catching Out"