Mark Tolson

"That's why I need to do this. I need you to hurt...the way I hurt."

Mark Tolson is a psychopathic, homosexual spree killer and abductor who appeared in A Good Husband.

Background
Mark's parents divorced when he was six years old. Whenever he was in his father's custody, Mark was forced to work in his butcher shop while his father sat elsewhere idly and drank. This caused him to develop a fascination with dismemberment and cutting meat. Later, his mother successfully petitioned for full custody over Mark, with his father never fighting against it. Afterwards, he never saw his father again. This paternal neglect warped Mark's mind and caused him to develop severe abandonment issues. As an adult, he realized that he was gay, and he eventually married another gay man named Bill Seavers. However, Mark was extremely manipulative, possessive, and domineering over Bill, eventually causing him to file for divorce and attempt to leave the house. Enraged by this loss of control, Mark attacked a man named Paul Mastriano, who resembled Bill, stabbed him to death, and dismembered his body. The torso was conveniently discovered by a stranded female motorist, prompting the BAU to be called in.

A Good Husband
The night after claiming his first victim, Paul Mastriano, Mark sets his sights on another man named Brent Miller. As a drugged Brent, gives a message to his wife Lisa on the phone in an alley, Mark ambushes, incapacitates and dismembers Brent with a meat cleaver. He then dumps Brent's remains in a parking lot, which are found by pedestrians. The following day, Mark is seen in his apartment drinking while Bill packs up all of his belongings. As he does so, a frustrated Mark tells Bill that he can't just cut him off, but Bill replies that he didn't come back to argue. Mark also tells Bill that he made a commitment to him. Bill replies that he made up his mind. Then, Mark tells Bill that they have waited three years to get married and asks him if he has another man with him and wants him to tell him as Bill owes Mark that. Bill doesn't respond to that question, but he tells him that Mark is paranoid.

Then, Bill's friends Kate and Diane call, which disturbs Mark, but Bill tells him that they are his only friends he has left, adding that they care about him and they don't make him feel useless. As Mark promises Bill that he will try to get help, Bill looks at the news on television of Mark's second kill while Mark continues to drink without looking at it. Just then, Bill's friends Kate and Diane come to the apartment and give Bill a hug. Mark tells Bill that he loves him and he would do anything for him. Adding what he and Bill are going it is just married couple stuff, but Diane tells Bill not to let Mark play tricks on him as Bill asked them to come to prevent Mark from stopping Bill from moving out. Afterwards, Mark tells Bill not to let them manipulate him. Then, he takes the picture of himself and Bill from the wedding off from the wall, shows it to Bill and tells him that this is who they are, but the three of them are disgusted by him and leave the apartment, which saddens Mark.

The following night, Mark is seen at a bar drinking when he is approached by his and Bill's friend, named Dale Ericsson who offers to buy him another drink, but Mark replies that he had too many. Instead, Mark says that he would take a beer. As they both talk and have a beer, Dale tells Mark that they should leave the bar since it is loud, which Mark agrees. Afterwards, Mark takes Dale to his van where he kills him by dismembering him. Then, Mark dumps Dale's remains in an alley of the gay community. The following day, Bill comes to Mark's apartment where he calls out to his name, then finds him coming out from the bathroom and tells him about another murder. Mark tells Bill that he is glad that Bill came back home, but he replies that he is not back and wants to know that Mark is safe. Then, Bill notices a cut on Mark's hand, to which he claims that he caught it on the latch when he was loading his van. Mark asks Bill if they know who was killed, to which he replies that they didn't say and his body was found a few blocks away.

Later, Bill looks at his phone and to his shock that the murdered victim has been identified as Dale, which doesn't surprise Mark. Then, Mark convinces Bill to stay with him tonight as he tells them that they need each other. At first Bill refuses, stating that he needs his friends, but he then accepts the offer when Mark tells him that he is the one that holds him at night and protects him. Afterwards, when Mark makes Bill some chamomile, he goes to the bathroom, but Mark becomes nervous and prevents him from doing so. At first they argue, but Mark apologizes and gives Bill a hug. As they do so, Mark looks at behind the shower curtain where Dale's bloodied clothes and meat cleaver are in a bathtub, which Bill is unaware of. Mark tells Bill that he thought his life was over when Bill left and apologizes to Bill for pushing him away. Then, Mark kisses Bill and manages to convince him to use the master bathroom.

That night, while Bill is sleeping, Mark gets up from the bed, goes to the bathroom, locks the door and cleans up the meat cleaver, the bloodied clothes and the bathtub. Afterwards, Mark returns to the bedroom where he finds out that Bill is gone. He tracks down Bill to a bar called Rebecca's. Inside, Bill is seen with their friend named Wesley Parham as they both talk about Mark while he watches from outside the bar. Mark sees Bill and Wesley hug each other, which enrages Mark and thinks that Bill is cheating on him. This causes Mark to target Wesley next. When Bill leaves the bar, Mark goes inside and approaches Wesley. Wesley is disturbed and enraged to see Mark. Mark asks Wesley if he has seen Bill, but he tells Mark that he doesn't want to talk to him. Then, Mark tells Wesley that he knows that he has been a terrible friend by cutting off Bill from him. He tries to make it up to Wesley by offering him a drink.

As they both talk about Bill, Wesley's vision becomes blurry due to the Rohypnol that Mark slipped into Wesley's drink. Mark offers to take Wesley home, but he takes him to his van. As Wesley is still drugged, Mark tells him that he brought this on himself and then Mark kills him. The following morning, Mark, Bill and everyone else of the gay community go to the memorial and put flowers on the ground where Wesley's remains were found. The BAU, who are at their SUVs, take pictures of all the men who are attending the memorial. Afterwards, Mark tries to convince Bill to come back to him and give him comfort. Mark and Bill go to a restaurant and have a drink where they have a discussion about the previous night and about Bill's previous job where Mark called him twenty times a day, which got him fired. Mark replies that he did it out of love, but Bill says that is not love. Then, Bill says that if he comes back, it has to be done on his terms and makes Mark promise not to push away his friends, which Mark agrees.

They both go back to Mark's apartment where Bill continues to talk to Mark about the previous night, adding that he wants to invite friends over and be more independent, which Mark agrees to it. However, during the conversation, Mark mentions that Wesley would still be alive if he had not been flirting with every guy at Rebecca's. This makes Bill suspicious and asks Mark how did he know where Bill was the previous night, to which Mark replies that it is his favorite place and he just assumed. Bill becomes frustrated when he realizes that Mark was following him. Then, Bill tells him that is exactly what Kate and Diane warned him about and tells Mark that he is jealous of his friends. Bill tries to leave the apartment, but Mark stops him by grabbing his arm. Bill tells Mark to let him go, but he replies that he should have thought of that before he "cheated" on him with Wesley, which Bill denies. This makes Bill realize that Mark is the one who killed Wesley and the other men.

They both get into a struggle. Mark strangles Bill and tells him that this is all his fault and that he broke the rules. Bill breaks free and assaults Mark, temporarily incapacitating him. He tries to call 911, but Mark gets up and bludgeons Bill into unconsciousness with a horse figurine. A few minutes later, Bill regains consciousness and finds Mark restraining his wrists and ankles with duct tape. Bill begs Mark and tries to reason with him by telling him that he loves him, but he puts a duct tape on his mouth. Mark replies, that is why he needs to do this and tells Bill that he wants him to hurt the way he hurt. Mark grabs the meat cleaver and is about to kill Bill, but the BAU show up, having identify Mark as the unsub. Reid, JJ, and Prentiss hold him at gunpoint and order him to drop the meat cleaver and show them his hands, which he does. As Mark is being handcuffed and dragged away, he tells Bill that they are still married, then invokes spousal privilege. Mark is last seen being taken away by JJ and a police officer, and he and Bill lock eyes at each other.

Modus Operandi
Mark initially targeted blond, lean, healthy men who resembled Bill and were at bars drinking alcohol at the time. However, as he became more focused in his killings, he started targeting people connected to him and Bill. The victims were all mentally incapacitated by date-rape drugs placed in their drinks, then dismembered with a meat cleaver in Mark's van and the pieces disposed of, with the torsos always being the easiest to find.

For his first two murders, which were committed out of rage, Mark stabbed the victims repeatedly with a meat cleaver and dismembered them with the same weapon. The first victim, Paul Mastriano, was stabbed to death and decapitated and dismembered post-mortem, with the torso being hidden away in a dumpster. The second victim, Brent Miller, was also stabbed repeatedly, but the decapitation and dismemberment occurred ante-mortem; the torso was not hidden away and instead left in plain view. In both cases, the victims were straight and had relationship problems, just like Mark. Starting with his third murder, however, Mark became more focused in his victimology. The third victim was gay, and was dismembered and fatally decapitated without being stabbed; the torso was then left in a public place frequented by the gay community as shock value.

During his fourth murder, Mark targeted a gay man who was a friend of Bill's and an acquaintance of his. Much like the previous victim, he was dismembered and fatally decapitated without being stabbed, and the torso dumped in a public place frequented by the gay community in order to frighten Bill into staying with Mark. When Mark tried to kill Bill, he first manually strangled him, but when Bill assaulted him and escaped, Mark bludgeoned him into unconsciousness with a horse figurine. Then, he restrained his limbs with duct tape and attempted to dismember him with the cleaver.

Profile
The unsub is a local white male in his 30s with control issues. He may be homosexual or bisexual, and he has been harboring a kill fantasy. Until now, he has been able to sublimate his homicidal urges by controlling his work environment or his relationships. He may not be physically imposing himself, which is why he drugs his victims to paralyze and control them. He then dismembers them as a form of torture before decapitating them because this gives him the ultimate feeling of power. It is also a way to depersonalize them, or intentionally negate the characteristics that make them uniquely human. He may be disposing his victims' limbs and heads by putting them in dumpsters or in shallow graves in the desert as a forensic countermeasure. The torsos he leaves for display are his trophies and he wants them to be found. Each victim so far has been blond, healthy, and slim, meaning he has a preference. They are most likely surrogates for a current or former romantic partner, or even a spouse who he controlled through nonviolent manipulation. It is believed he may have been rejected recently, causing him to escalate to murder in order to regain a sense of control.

Real-Life Comparison
Mark seems to have been based from a variety of real-life homosexual serial killers. They include:


 * Robert Berdella, a.k.a. "The Kansas City Butcher". Both were homosexual killers who had troubled childhoods involving their fathers, and targeted fellow gay men (including acquaintances of theirs), who they would mentally incapacitate with drugs and alcohol. After killing their victims, both Mark and Berdella dismembered the bodies and disposed of the body parts, with the dismemberment being learned beforehand in their occupations (Mark worked in his father's butcher shop as a child, while Berdella once worked as a successful full-time chef).
 * Larry Eyler, a.k.a. "The Highway Killer". Both were homosexual serial killers whose parents divorced when they were children, had troubled childhoods involving their paternal figures, targeted homosexual men, incapacitated their victims with drugs, and had M.O.s that involved stabbing and dismemberment.
 * Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy, according to Lewis. All three were psychopathic, homosexual killers with troubled childhoods, who incapacitated their victims with drugs and alcohol. Like Dahmer, Mark's parents divorced when they were young, and he shared Dahmer's abandonment and control issues, as well as Dahmer's victimology (homosexual Caucasian males) and tendency to dismember his victims (Dahmer did it post-mortem, while Mark did it ante-mortem). Like Gacy, Mark was raised by an alcoholic father and had a spouse who left him prior to the killings; he also killed his first victim by stabbing them to death.
 * William Bonin, Patrick Kearney, and Randy Kraft, the so-called "Freeway Killers". All four were homosexuals who targeted males and operated in California. Like Bonin, Mark tortured and killed his victims inside his vehicle, and performed overkill on the bodies. Like Kearney, Mark was in a longstanding relationship with another man (though Mark's husband legally left him prior to his killings; whereas Kearney's lover, David Hill, was still with him when he committed his murders), found his victims in bars, killed his victims in his vehicle, and dismembered their bodies (though Kearney did it post-mortem, while Mark did it as a torture method with his last three victims). Like Kraft, Mark found his victims in bars, incapacitated them by lacing their drinks with drugs, and tortured them before killing them.
 * Dennis Nilsen, a.k.a. "The Muswell Hill Murderer". Both were homosexual killers whose parents divorced while they were minors, were in relationships with men that ended prior to their killings, targeted fellow homosexual men, found their victims in bars, and dismembered their victims (Mark did it as a form of torture with his last three victims; Nilsen did it post-mortem).

In addition to all of these killers, Mark has some similarities with an uncaught serial killer, the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run. Both Mark and the Butcher dismembered their victims completely (although the Butcher dismembered all of his victims post-mortem while Mark did it ante-mortem with his later victims), with the torsos always being found first. The Butcher's first identified victim, Edward W. Andrassy, was an alleged bisexual and had several homosexual friends, while police searched for suspects in gay bars; these could have been used as references for Mark's sexual orientation and selection of later victims.

Finally, the early episode discussion about the dismemberment being a possible strategy to ensure difficult identification and the killer most likely being a local, if he was capable of getting rid of a torso in a large city without suspicion, is similar to law enforcement's ideas about the earliest crimes of the Gilgo Beach Killer.

Known Victims

 * 2017:
 * February 5: Paul Mastriano
 * February 6: Brent Miller
 * February 7: Dale Ericsson
 * February 8:
 * Wesley Parham
 * Bill Seavers

Appearances

 * Season Twelve
 * A Good Husband
 * Spencer