Robert Adams

"Before tonight, they didn't know my name! But now... no one will forget it."

Robert "Bob" Adams was a serial killer and bomber who copycatted school shooter and bomber Randy Slade in Season Seven of Criminal Minds.

History
"I was the only one brave enough to stare him down, but his bomb knocked me out, and when I woke up there was Jerry on the TV telling my story! My story!"

Robert was a complete outsider at North Valley High School. On October 12, 2001, a student named Randy Slade carried out a massacre in the school's cafeteria, taking Robert and over a dozen other students hostage. Holding them at gunpoint, he dared them to look him in the eye. Those who couldn't were promptly shot. After killing two students this way, he dared Robert, who was the only one to actually look him in the eye. Slade didn't shoot him, saying he wasn't "worth a bullet". Slade then detonated an explosive device he had brought with him, killing himself and ten other students. Robert was among those injured by the blast, but he was knocked unconscious and wounded so badly that he developed a condition called pain asymbolia, which made him unable to suffer from physical pain. A few days after the massacre, Robert saw Jerry Holtz, a student who had also been present in the cafeteria and was forced by Slade to lock the doors, on television, claiming to have been the one who managed to look Slade in the eye. Robert went on with his life, resentful of the fact that Jerry had stolen his credit. In 2011, when a memorial service for the students killed in the massacre was to be held, Robert came back to Boise with a revenge plan in mind.

Starting by killing the former principal of North Valley High with a bomb similar to Slade's, Robert then proceeded to target the members of the Top 10, ten survivors of Slade's massacre who gained widespread media attention. Killing Chelsea Grant second, Robert confronts and attacks Jerry in a lonely hallway, repeatedly demanding that he look at him and breaking a glass case with his arm in anger. Unable to muster the courage to do so, Jerry yells, "I didn't know! I didn't know!" Robert simply replies, "That's the point! You're gonna find out!" He then murders him in a fit of rage. Later, he approaches Tiffany Gleason and learns from her that she and the rest of the surviving Top 10 members are holding a meeting at the Seven Stars restaurant. Following her there, Robert places and then detonates a bomb at the main entrance, injuring the nearest patrons and waiters before entering the restaurant and holding Tiffany and the other Top 10 hostage, all the while ranting on about how he never got the credit for being the only one who stared down Slade. Hotch and Prentiss confront him as he holds Tiffany at gunpoint, and they attempt to reason with Robert, telling him that only he could set the record straight. However, he flees, allowing Tiffany and the others to escape. Hotch and Prentiss pursue him to the boiler room, where Robert tries to shoot the former, only to be shot by him. However, the gunshot wound isn't fatal, and Robert grabs a large wrench, snarling, "That...didn't...hurt!" He then charges for Hotch, only to be shot again, this time fatally. The memorial service proceeds just as initially planned.

Modus Operandi
"Can you look at me in the eye, Jerry?! Huh?! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me, LOOK AT ME!"

Robert killed his victims in various ways. Principal Givens, whose death was apparently a kind of compact copycat act based on Slade's killings, was first shot in the leg with a handgun (possibly the same kind Slade used, a 9mm M9 Beretta) to prevent him from fleeing and then killed by a bomb modeled after Slade's. Chelsea Grant and Jerry Holtz were both savagely beaten to death with his bare hands, with Grant's neck being crushed first to prevent her from yelling out, while Holtz (the source of his anger) was struck and incapacitated with a fire hydrant first. Also, Robert asked Principal Givens and Jerry Holtz if they could look him in the eye, like Slade did, before killing them, though with Holtz he did it more aggressively due to their personal connection.

Profile
"Was it that hard...for you people...to tell the truth about me? Huh? To notice me?!"

Perpetrators of school violence are sophisticated with their weapons; while Slade carried his bomb in his backpack, the unsub hid his bomb in Givens' clock radio. He was also progressive, and a loner by default, not by choice, and this filled him with boiling rage. He tried multiple times to join social groups, but was rejected each time. He had a sense of control and was working toward an endgame. Slade's pathology revolved around the big kill. The unsub could have done the same, but didn't, which meant there was no "blaze of glory fantasy". The unsub had more bombs made after killing Givens, but was savoring his next attack for the big kill, the meeting of the Top 10 members. The unsub's vendetta had nothing to do with Slade's hit list as first thought and he didn't appear to be Slade's partner trying to reclaim credit. His hatred manifested itself when the names on the hit list emerged from the cafeteria as media heroes, and now, he wants to finish the job that Slade started. Emotionally, the memorial is more like a high school reunion to the unsub. The unsub was also tied to the school in some way, a student, a family member of one of the victims killed in Slade's massacre, or a groupie. However, he was quickly ruled out as a groupie, because the unsub tricked Givens into blowing himself up, and a groupie wouldn't have showed that much control. Seconds before murdering Jerry Holtz, he smashed a glass case as a show of force. Empathy is developed by sharing pain, and because the unsub couldn't feel pain, the empathy was cut off.

Known Victims

 * 2011:
 * October 10: Principal Doug Givens
 * October 11: Chelsea Grant
 * October 12:
 * Jerry Holtz
 * The attack at the Seven Stars restaurant:
 * At least six unnamed patrons and waiters
 * Held the following hostage and presumably intended to kill them:
 * Tiffany Gleason
 * The other seven unnamed former Top 10 members
 * Aaron Hotchner

Appearances

 * Season Seven
 * Painless