Justin Leu

"I need...to finish...this journey!"

Justin Leu is a delusional serial killer, stalker, and abductor who appeared in Season Ten of Criminal Minds.

Background
Justin's mother died of cancer when he was ten years old, causing his father Raymond to stop going to church and begin drinking frequently, spiraling as a result. He also abused him and his older brother Todd, beating them whenever they received a grade less than an A in their schoolwork and also locking them in a shed for hours at a time. Todd would receive the worst of the abuse. The two brothers bonded over their shared love of Inferno, the first part of Divine Comedy (a 14th-century epic poem), which detailed the journey of its protagonist Dante through Hell while guided by the Roman poet Virgil. Eventually, Todd, unable to take the abuse anymore, committed suicide by overdosing on pills, which led to Social Services taking Justin away from the custody of his father. In his adult life, he became an English teacher at a local high school and was strict with his students. One of his former students was Nathan Chow, who reminded him of Todd, which provoked a gradual psychotic reaction from him. The two struck a close friendship, with Nathan taking his classes twice, and when he graduated, Justin gave him a first-edition copy of Inferno. The two eventually decided to commit a series of Inferno-inspired killings when Nathan's life as a college student became miserable; they planned to end it in a double suicide based on the seventh circle, "Violence". On August 10, 2014, two months prior to "Burn", his father died from cardiac arrest and left the family home to him. Four days later, Justin began the killings, being set off by his father's death.

Burn
After claiming four lives in almost two months, Justin begins accelerating, abducting Michael Richmond one day after killing his latest victim, Joe Hazley. Taking Michael to the family shed, he tries to drown him in a bathtub when he regains consciousness, but Justin becomes distracted by hallucinations of voices chanting, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." When he halts his attack as a result, Michael rises from the water, to which he bludgeons him with a hammer, knocking him unconscious. He then proceeds to drown him. The BAU, called to investigate the killings and unaware of the first two victims, find the Roman numerals carved into the roofs of the victims' mouths and deduce from the numbers that there are more victims. Meanwhile, Justin begins construction on a wooden box, and remembers his attack on Michael as he continues hammering the nails into the wooden boards. Once he finishes the box, he abducts Alan Dorslawn, tortures him, and puts him inside it. The following night, Justin takes Alan to a secluded location, where the latter tries to reason with him, but his pleas fall upon deaf ears as Justin closes the box shut. He then pours gasoline all over the box, as well as inside it through cracks in the boards, before setting it on fire, watching passively as Alan screams in pain. The next day, as they investigate Alan's crime scene, the BAU discover the presence of the first two victims as well, and Reid realizes that the unsub is recreating the nine circles of Hell in Inferno. Justin is next seen looking at childhood photos of him and Todd while inside the shed. He then stands up and approaches a handmade list of the nine circles, the first five of which are crossed out; he proceeds to cross out the sixth circle as well.

Soon afterward, he stalks Mr. Connoley and his son and takes photographs of them as they are visiting a dental clinic. When Connoley complains about the money it cost to have his son's several cavities fixed, the boy claims he had been brushing his teeth, but Connoley doesn't believe him and angrily slaps him in the cheek. He then grounds him for two weeks and forbids him from going to a baseball game. Once Connoley drops off his son, Justin abducts and tortures him. He then goes to school to teach his classes; when one period is done, he is approached by one of his students, who asks about a B grade he received on one of his classwork. When Justin tells him it's the grade he got, the student replies that his father will "kill him". This provokes Justin to have a flashback to his childhood. When he remembers Todd's suicide, he immediately crosses out the B on the boy's paper and replaces it with an A, which pleases the boy. Justin then returns to the family home, takes Connoley out at gunpoint, and shoves him inside a grave he dug, all the while projecting his father's image on him. When Connoley tries to reason with him, Justin, hallucinating his pleas as insults from Raymond, angrily beats him with a shovel and then tries to shoot him, but Morgan and JJ arrive, telling him that there was nothing that could've been done for Todd now and that he couldn't let Raymond continue to affect him. This convinces Justin to surrender, and as he is arrested, he begins apologizing to his father. Considering his current mental condition and his unhealthy obsession with Inferno, it is extremely likely Justin was institutionalized afterwards.

Modus Operandi
"Think this is painful?! Wait till you get to Hell!"

Justin targeted men of various races and aged in their mid-30s to early 40s, who were all surrogates for his father. All of them were strict with their young teenage sons (with the exception of Joe Hazley, who was instead a Big Brother volunteer and was strict with a boy he was mentoring), which he observed and took pictures of while stalking them. Once the victims were alone in their cars on the road, he would bump into them as they drove into an intersection, causing them to pull over, after which he would incapacitate them by striking them in the head with a blunt object (presumably a hammer) and abduct them. The only exception to that was his first victim, Steve Oliver, whom he killed in his own apartment. His signature for the murders was torture by using a knife to carve Roman numerals in the roofs of the victims' mouths (which he forced open with a medical gag) in chronological order according to the nine circles of Hell described in Inferno. However, with Mr. Connoley, his seventh victim, he intentionally skipped over the seventh circle and had him represent the eighth circle, since Justin intended for himself and Nathan to represent the seventh circle.

Afterwards, he would take them to another location, usually located at or near the Leu family home, and kill them in various ways, all of which represented the nine circles of Hell as described by Inferno. In the case of Michael Richmond, who was drowned to represent the fifth circle, "Wrath", Justin was also forced to bludgeon him with a hammer when he fought back. When he tried to kill Mr. Connoley, he held him at gunpoint with a revolver, beat him with a shovel in a fit of rage, and tried to bury him alive to represent the eighth circle, "Fraud". He later tried to shoot Connoley with the same revolver instead when his delusions grew increasingly worse. Depending on how Justin killed his victims, the bodies would either be left where they were killed or dumped off the sides of roads.

Profile
The unsub is a male between the ages of 35 and 40 who is killing parental figures based on his need for revenge and punishment. He has designed his M.O. to recreate the nine circles of Hell in Inferno, which describes the sinners encountered in each circle of hell and the punishments they had endured. The unsub has killed all the way to the sixth circle and marked his victims accordingly with a Roman numeral on the roofs of the mouths. However, since his victims did not commit the sins associated with each circle, it is probable that the killings are symbolic of a father figure who abused him in the past. In Inferno, Dante traveled with the Roman poet Virgil, who assured him that he would enter paradise if he completed his journey. Consequently, the unsub is likely metaphorically taking this journey with someone else, likely a sibling who suffered the same fate at the hands of an abusive father (later revealed to be a literal journey with his accomplice and former student Nathan). He is patient and possibly an academic who stalks his victims, and after watching them discipline a child harshly, he waits until what he considers the appropriate moment to abduct and kill them. He will continue with the final three circles of Hell until he feels completely avenged.

Known Victims

 * 2014:
 * August 14: Steve Oliver
 * September 3: Kyle Dern
 * September 23: Dan Chen
 * October 6: Joe Hazley
 * October 7: Michael Richmond
 * October 7-8: Alan Dorslawn
 * October 8: Mr. Connoley
 * Note: There were also two other circles that have not been attempted by Justin: the seventh circle, "Violence", and the ninth circle, "Treachery". Since both Justin and Nathan had intended to commit suicide to represent the seventh circle, it is possible Justin had another target in mind for the ninth circle, possibly the father of the student who had asked Justin to give him an A for his assignment.

Appearances

 * Season Ten
 * Burn