Terrance Wakeland

"What I'm saying is that it's so beautiful. Ally, I... I just can't... let it live. You ever feel that way? Like there's something so beautiful... so beautiful you can't let it live to show you... to remind you of how ugly you are?"

Terrance Wakeland is a serial killer who appeared in Season Two of Criminal Minds.

Background
A freelance musician, Terrance worked as a security guard at the failing recording studio A&L in Mount Vernon, New York. For reasons unspecified, Terrance murdered Keisha Andrews and Vickie Williams on January 2007, recording their voices in the studio beforehand under the guise of a music producer. To keep the authorities off his trail, Terrance made the deaths look like random hate crimes by painting swastikas on the victims' bodies. Prior to the two murders, he had attempted to kill a girl named Gail, but failed when she didn't fall for his ruse.

Fear and Loathing
One night, he goes out to meet talent-show winner Sandra Davis in the park. However, in the process, Terrance is confronted by her ex-boyfriend Ken Newcombe, who he shoots in the chest. Approaching the hysterical Sandra, who witnessed him killing Ken, Terrance demands her to get into his car. When Sandra runs, Terrance chases after her and beats her to death, inflicting several post-mortem stab wounds to the body. After killing Sandra and dragging her body to the curb, Terrance paints a swastika on Ken's car. Having been unable to get a recording of Sandra's voice, Terrance drove around her house on a few occasions, but eventually moved on, killing another girl named Naomi Dade. Terrance later takes Ally Hadley to the studio sometime after Naomi's death, recording her singing before drugging her. As Ally grows disoriented, Terrance begins ranting and beating her, but is incapacitated when Ally kicks him in the groin before running outside. Finding Ally weakly asking for help from a police officer, Terrance convinces the cop that Ally is his younger cousin, that she had sneaked out, and gotten high on something. Claiming that he is going to take Ally home, Terrance begins to leave with her but is surrounded by the police and the BAU, and is arrested by Morgan.

Profile
The unsub is a sexually-motivated killer who finds release in something that he takes from his victims, in his case their voices. He is a black male between the ages of twenty to thirty-five. The victims he chose are female students with no behavioral problems, a low-risk lifestyle. He is intelligent and a smooth talker, being able to make people around him feel at ease and easily gain the confidence of his targets. He may not have a lot of education, but he knows how to trick impressionable young girls. Because all of the girls are singers, he may be connected in some way to the music industry. He has a vehicle that is big enough to transport a body, which should be clean, not too old, nice enough to make a girl feel comfortable, and not too flashy; he doesn't want to attract attention to himself, so the vehicle is probably a large dark sedan. It is probable that his ruse didn't work on everybody and there is at least one woman who didn't fall for it. His ritual was interrupted when he killed Sandra Davis, and because he was not able to get his souvenir from her, it is likely that he will visit her home or any place she frequented. He might approach his victims in areas where young girls frequent, such as churches, high schools, libraries, and coffee shops.

Modus Operandi
Terrence targeted African-American girls aged between fifteen to seventeen years old who lived low-risk lifestyles and had a talent for singing. Under the guise of a music producer, he would approach his victims at places such as churches and talent shows, offering them his card. Whenever the girls arranged a meeting with him, Terrance would have them go to a pre-selected location at night, pick them up, and have them perform at A&L Studios, keeping a CD recording of their singing as souvenirs, and drug them with a GHB-laced water bottle before strangling and beating them. Terrance would then finish his victims off by stabbing them in the chest, dump the bodies in a wooded areas, and paint swastika symbols on their faces to make the murders look like hate crimes afterwards.

During the killings at the park, he incidentally shot Ken Newcombe (who was a Caucasian man) in the chest with a handgun in order to get him out of the way. He then beat Sandra to death and stabbed her post-mortem without being able to record her voice.

Real-Life Comparison
Terrance appears to have been partially based on Wayne Williams, a double murderer and the suspected perpetrator of a series of murders of at least twenty-eight African-American children and adults. Both were African-American, targeted and killed African-Americans (though Terrance targeted mostly women while Williams targeted mostly male children and adults), were around the same age when they committed their crimes, and did some work in the music business.

Known Victims

 * 2007:
 * January 7: Gail
 * January 19: Keisha Andrews
 * January 30: Vickie Williams
 * February 8: The double homicide at the park:
 * Ken Newcombe
 * Sandra Davis
 * February 9-10: Naomi Dade
 * February 10-11: Ally Hadley

Appearances

 * Season Two
 * "Fear and Loathing"