Daniel Dryden

"I'm no copycat. You wait. Before this is over, you'll be a footnote in my story."

Daniel Dryden is a serial killer (and attempted spree killer) copycat who appeared in the Criminal Minds novel "Killer Profile".

Background
Originally a fashion photographer on his way to stardom, Daniel met his future wife Connie during an outdoor shoot, which was interrupted when it began to rain. Taking shelter in the company car while waiting out the storm, Daniel and Connie wound up having a bout of spontaneous sex and instantly fell in love, marrying sometime later. The two eventually had a son named Kevin, which ultimately caused Connie to become a stay-at-home mom. Without his so-called muse, Daniel's quality of work declined and his popularity fell rapidly, forcing him to get a job as a crime scene photographer when companies and agencies stopped hiring him and moved on to the next hot prospect.

A few years after their second son Kyle was born, Daniel decided to become a copycat killer. Using Max Ryan's book Serial Killers and Mass Murderers: Profiling Why They Kill as a guide, Daniel planned on first emulating the serial killers it listed before moving on to the spree killers. Daniel's first victim was Bobby Edels, who he lured from a gay bar by paying off a lowlife named Eddie Minchell. After strangling him, Daniel disposed of Bobby's body in a plastic barrel, which he left in an abandoned apartment in Chinatown. Weeks later, Daniel killed a couple making out in a car and months later lured two female beachgoers to a secluded area, where he strangled them and left several of their bones partially buried in the forest.

Killer Profile
By the time the BAU is called to Chicago to investigate the murders, Daniel has Eddie bring him another victim, a traveling salesman named Stevie Darnell, who Daniel abducts after Eddie drops him off at a secluded motel. Burying Stevie in the crawlspace of John Wayne Gacy's house after killing him, Daniel (in his job as a crime scene photographer) arrives at the scene with the authorities after the body is found by an employee of the gas company. As Rossi and Hotch talk with detectives, Daniel, overhearing them discussing how the unsub replicated crime scene photos that were never made public, introduces himself and mentions the killer could be a city employee with access to evidence, or they could merely be someone who found the pictures on the internet.

Daniel goes on to kill a man he picks up in a bar (disguising himself as a woman to do so) and later abducts and prematurely buries Grant Shuler near a deserted farmhouse, being interrupted in the midst of doing so by Detective Jake Denson, who had somehow pieced together Daniel was the killer. Managing to gain the upper hand against the detective, Daniel shoots him the stomach, knocks on top of the homemade coffin Shuler is in and fills in the hole.

Having finished copying all the serial killers in Max Ryan's book, Daniel moves on to the spree killers, the first one mentioned in the book being Richard Speck, who had raped and tortured eight nursing students before stabbing them to death. Discovering Daniel is the killer, Rossi, Morgan and a local detective reach the house where Speck committed his murders at the same time as Daniel. Scared off, Daniel manages to reach his car and drive to a nearby community hospital, where he randomly opens fire, killing one nursing student and wounding two others (who he incorrectly believes he had killed) as a distraction intended to get the authorities away from the Speck house. After a few hours of hiding, Daniel returns to the house and, just as he about to break in, Rossi (who had been staking out the property, having correctly assumed Daniel would return) engages him. Trying to escape again, Daniel is brought down and arrested by Rossi.

Brought to the police station, Daniel is interrogated by Rossi, due to it being possible Grant Shuler is still alive, as Daniel had Herman Kotchman (a killer who buried his victims alive and gave them enough supplies to survive a few days) in mind when he kidnapped him. By making it seem as if Shuler had already been rescued (using doctored photographs of a man vaguely resembling him being loaded into an ambulance) Rossi manages to manipulate Daniel into unintentionally revealing some information about Shuler's whereabouts - he is in a secluded farmhouse a short distance across the state border. Spreading out to search possible farms where Shuler is, Rossi and Morgan find the correct one and successfully dig up and save the still barely alive Shuler.

Profile
The BAU's profile of Daniel said he would be an unassuming middle-aged white male whose occupation allowed him a lot of freedom. He would likely have a wife and even children, but was a sociopath with a massive ego, believing himself to be smarter than the public, the authorities and even the killers whose crimes he copied. He felt underappreciated and unnoticed by society and murder was his means of gaining the attention he believed he deserved.

Modus Operandi
Daniel's kills were all meticulously planned, sometimes weeks in advance. Though he went to great lengths to make sure his murders were as true to the originals as possible (even going so far as pretending to be a woman in the Wuornos-based shooting) Daniel always made sure to alter the crime in some small way (for example, in the Berkowitz-based double homicide he shot the male driver, not the female passenger, first). After killing them, Daniel would take several pictures of his victims, mailing the photographs to the authorities to fuel his need for attention, which grew so immense over time that he eventually came to skip the police all together, e-mailing the photos directly to the media.

Known Victims

 * Bobby Edels
 * Benjamin Mendoza and Adrienne Andrews
 * Donna Cooper and Casey Goddard
 * Stevie Darnell
 * Vern Latham
 * Detective Jacob Denson
 * Unnamed nursing student
 * Laticia, her unnamed son, and three unnamed others
 * David Rossi
 * Grant Shuler

Appearances

 * Novels
 * "Killer Profile"