Donnie Mallick

"You can lock me up. I still win. I got my girls. And I killed Jason Gideon."

Donald Allen "Donnie" Mallick was a delusional serial killer, abductor, and stalker who appeared in Season Ten of Criminal Minds.

Background
Mallick's single mother Zettie was institutionalized for schizophrenia when she was eighteen. As a result, he was sent to live with his wheelchair-ridden aunt Gertrude, who was a founding member of a bird-watching club in Roanoke, called the Flappers. However, Mallick was socially isolated, with only Gertie to depend on, and he developed an affinity for birds. He also became delusional. On March 29, 1973, Gertrude died from natural causes, leaving Mallick alone in their house. Four years later, he snapped and began stalking women around his age, abducting them, dislocating their legs, and leaving them bound in a wheelchair with hopes that the victims would be replacements for Gertie. However, when they couldn't fit his fantasy, he killed them and dumped their bodies in the forests. The deaths caught the attention of then-fledgling FBI agents Gideon and Rossi, who at the time were two of only three agents in the Behavioral Science Unit at the time. When Mallick abducted another woman, Tara Barnett, Tara's mother Mary Ellen pleaded Gideon and Rossi to investigate the case, but in the end, they couldn't launch one due to the short numbers in the unit's ranks, much to Gideon's distress. Meanwhile, Mallick held Tara captive for the next 37 years, his fantasy having been fulfilled by her.

On January 25, 2015, Tara died from cancer, causing Mallick to snap again and go out searching for another woman to abduct and use as a replacement. The discovery of Tara's dumped corpse caught the attention of Gideon, who by that point had resigned from his position following his girlfriend's brutal murder. Having obsessed over the case in the past, Gideon decided to conduct his own independent investigation and deduced that the killer behind the 1978 murders was back. Hoping to lure him out, Gideon ordered some food at a café that was frequented mostly by locals, which he deduced the unsub to be. Coincidentally, Mallick was at the café at the same time. Recognizing him from the newspaper clippings that he kept of his killings, he became threatened by the former agent's presence, tracked him down to a house he owned in the wilderness, and shot him with a high-powered rifle from outside. Wishing to taunt Gideon before his death, Mallick entered the home, allowed him to see his face, and executed him with a shot to the head. Afterwards, he resumed his search for another replacement for Tara, while the BAU was called over to investigate Gideon's murder.

Nelson's Sparrow
A few hours after killing Gideon, Mallick lures in his newest target, a woman named Josie Behdart. Pretending to be wheelchair-ridden, he earns her trust after pretending to try unsuccessfully to make a call at a payphone. He then allows her to pet his dog; when she does so, he knocks her out and takes her to the basement of his house, where he dislocates her legs and tries to feed her. Eventually, Mallick is identified by the BAU, who go to his house and rescue Josie while he flees, armed with a pistol. Rossi corners Mallick at the backyard of the home, and Mallick puts down his gun. He then tells Rossi that he is willing to go to prison, since his fantasy had been fulfilled after all this time. He adds that he killed an FBI agent, which would make him popular in prison. Rossi replies that he killed "a legend", then lowers his own gun and tells him that if he kills two FBI agents, he will become a legend as well. Mallick agrees and tries to grab his gun, but Rossi is faster and guns him down.

Modus Operandi
Mallick targeted lonely brunette women in their early 20s (why he chose that specific physical type is unknown, although it is likely because they resembled his mother or aunt at a young age). He found all of his victims at a local library and would lure them in with a simple ruse. After subduing them, Mallick would take them over to a basement on his property, where he would dislocate their legs so then they would have to use a wheelchair for mobility. He would then kill them by strangling them to death, most likely after they did something to shatter his fantasy, or because he found they couldn't fit his fantasy. Afterwards, Mallick would dump their bodies in the forest, with dead Nelson's sparrows clutched in their hands (as a reference to their behavior and lifestyles, since Nelson's sparrows have been figuratively compared with loneliness). He was initially active every three months, but stopped after abducting Tara Barnett. Mallick also killed Gideon by shooting him several times with a high-powered rifle, and later tried to kill Rossi by shooting him with a pistol.

Profile
No official profile of Mallick was created by the BAU.

Known Victims

 * 1977:
 * September: Unnamed woman
 * December: Unnamed woman
 * 1978:
 * March: Unnamed woman
 * June: Tara Barnett
 * 2015:
 * January 27: Jason Gideon
 * January 28:
 * Josie Behdart
 * David Rossi

Appearances

 * Season Ten
 * "Nelson's Sparrow"
 * "Hero Worship"