Benjamin Reeves

“	You look good enough to eat.	”
	— Reeves

Benjamin Reeves was a narcissistic, psychopathic and cannibalistic serial killer, rapist and accomplice of Elias Voit who appeared in the Season One of Criminal Minds: Evolution.

Background[]

Benjamin was the son of Martha Reeves, a prominent senator from Virginia, who he hated for always being so cold and domineering. It's implied she may have coddled, even sexually abused, Benjamin as a child. In his teenage years, Benjamin had multiple arrests for possession and assault, including that of his mother’s third husband on their wedding night. He went to college in England during the mid-2000s. Benjamin was a founder of Beltway Elite, a dating app for government employees, families, and officials in D.C. He also got into contact with serial killer and organized crime leader Elias Voit, known by his alias "Sicarius". Using Benjamin's server, Voit and he communicated and decided to form a partnership. Voit encouraged Benjamin's desires to kill women, who would be lured through Beltway Elite, to practice to the ultimate goal of killing his mother. Voit even provided Benjamin a specially fashioned, razor-sharp mouthpiece to bite victims, as a bolster to Benjamin's psychopathy and M.O. In secret, Voit, who coached Benjamin into wanting the glory of pretending to be Sicarius, wanted Benjamin as a red herring to murder by the time the law closed in. Benjamin first raped and assaulted a sex worker named Jessica Sayer, but his aide and accomplice Mitch Nevins met Sayer at the hospital and immediately paid her for her silence.

Criminal Minds: Evolution[]

Moose[]

Benjamin called Voit, saying he wanted to be the next killer. As Voit was closed in on by the FBI, he told Benjamin to wait. Benjamin was furious at the idea Voit would disenfranchise the network and cover his tracks, so Voit said he'd cater to him specifically if Benjamin gave him more funds. Benjamin decided to sit on the options before hanging up. Benjamin would later transfer more funds to Voit, but still had to wait before he could strike.

Oedipus Wrecks[]

Voit finally activated Benjamin as the latest killer to enact his plan. After Benjamin killed Sandra Hart, he lured Claire Durham over, having Mitch drive her and making her turn her phone off with the lie that it was to protect his family. Benjamin met Claire and put on a charming front, showing her a portrait Martha, who she idolized. Eventually, she passed out from being drugged and was later chained in the basement. Benjamin arrived, grinning and showing his mouthpiece before he murdered her. Benjamin is later seen having an argument with Martha, who he refuses to accompany at a benefit. Martha orders him to kneel in front of her, then strokes his face and whispers her orders at him to attend, to which he acquiesces. After Benjamin kills Rose Taylor, Nevins is sent to take the fall while Benjamin holds Jessica at gunpoint, intent on killing her to silence her testimony. The FBI arrest him, but not before he sends a distress signal to Voit. Prentiss tries to goad Benjamin into confessing by reminding him of Martha. he does confess, but he all but confesses falsely to Voit's crimes by mentioning his victims' names. Martha arrives shortly thereafter to order Benjamin's release, and Nevins is left to fend for himself. When mother and son arrive at their home, Voit holds a gun on Martha and says he'll give Benjamin a few minutes to kill her. Benjamin doesn't think he can because the FBI has his teeth, but Voit says since she's his mother, he doesn't need him. Benjamin kills her by biting half her face off, and the two killers fly to Voit's Georgia hideout. They have to pull their car over for Benjamin to vomit over how overwhelmed he was from murdering Martha.

True Conviction[]

Benjamin's corpse was found by the BAU, having been murdered by Voit and staged as a suicide, with the intent of framing him as Sicarius. Benjamin was ultimately scapegoated as Sicarius by Attorney General Louise Davis, but the team didn't accept it and continued their investigation.

Modus Operandi[]

Benjamin targeted Caucasian, beautiful women in government positions or office staff in their 20s, singling in on their resemblances to his mother and their loves for and commitments to their families. He also targeted Jessica Sayer, a sex worker, but she fought back and escaped. He would have his personal aide, Mitch Nevins, arrange Benjamin to have a date with them through Beltway Elite, his company's dating app, which deleted each ended chat session as part of the app's discretion policy. Benjamin would lure them to his home and set the scene with romantic 20th-century music, making them turn off their phones so their movements wouldn't be tracked by GPS. Benjamin with give the women drinks spiked with GHB, then chain them in his basement. When they came to, the victims would be raped by Benjamin, as well as bitten using a mouthpiece with razor-sharp metal Benjamin wore and was provided by Voit. Benjamin strangled each woman, biting them even after they were dead and blanching their hair with peroxide and alkaline agent to make them resemble Martha. Benjamin would then bleach every bite mark as an added forensic countermeasure and, with the assistance of Nevins, transport the victims into Virginia to leave them in outdoor locations in rural towns near Martha's real estate properties. Benjamin would bite more violently and whiten the victims' hair deeper during each murder. When he attempted to kill Jessica, he raped her and bit her, but after she broke away the first time, he later held het hostage at gunpoint to interrogate her on what he should be worried she said to the FBI. It's likely he would have killed her afterwards, but he was arrested before he could. He finally killed Martha, the primary target of his rage, by mauling her face off without his mouthpiece. with the assistance of Voit, who held her hostage at gunpoint. Benjamin didn't blanche her hair, and it's never specified if he raped her.

Profile[]

The unsub has a ritual, a type of victimology, and a level of forensic education, which is particularly centered on bite marks. He escalated from sadism to ego cannibalism, which means he has a surviving victim who escaped. The unsub has political connections, and it's possible the Beltway Elite app itself was made specifically for him as a hunting ground (it would later be revealed the unsub himself founded the app). The drugs and bleach were meant as added violations and abuses of the victims' bodies', and the bite marks and hair blanching were both a signature and a compulsion, degrading the victims postmortem to resemble a maternal figure in his life. He has a severe Oedipus complex and never outgrew his oral instincts while developing as a toddler, which became a part of his love map. As a teenager, the unsub's latent psychopathy expedited into his growth from either the maternal figure denying him attention, or sexually abusing him out of obsession. Violence and desecration against women are the unsub's projection of his rage for not getting attention from his mother or wanting more than what he got from her. Speaking to the people close to the victims, not the unsub, will reveal the unsub's victimology profile, as he targets their character as well as their femininity. The dump sites the unsub uses, which have emotional or personal ties instead of being out of convenience, will assist in geographical profiling of the unsub's home and other familiar locations. The sites share similar real estate activity, which led the BAU to believe there were business or political reasons, until it was revealed Senator Martha Reeves, the owner of every property, only informed her inner circle about the locations, which narrowed the profile to her family and staff.

It's revealed the profile was what Sicarius wanted to manipulate into dying, but as a spoiled narcissist, the unsub wanted full information on the Sicarius network, as well as a promise to torture and murder the focus of his rage, before falling for the ruse. In return, Sicarius was provided a discreet, encrypted server regularly erasing data, with fail safes in case the law would investigate and close in, as the unsub would have the money and connections and be too tantalized to refuse the agreement. The unsub likely planned to meet Sicarius, and taking the fall for being Sicarius was a part of the plan as setting the unsub up as a patsy. A high-profile, brutally sadistic unsub would be too much an embarrassment that D.C. would fall for the pressure of accepting the unsub as a red herring and fall guy.

Real-Life Comparisons[]

Benjamin appears to be partly inspired by Stephen Port - Both are serial killers and rapists with previous histories involving public media (Reeves founded a dating app, Port appeared on a reality show), targeted victims on dating apps, drugged their victims and raped them before killing them (though Port used roofies as murder weapons), left them dead at outdoor locations, and killed four victims each in total.

Benjamin appears to be inspired by Edmund Kemper - Both are rapists and serial killers of women who had abusive, domineering mothers, committed previous violent crimes prior to their sprees (Benjamin assaulted numerous people and raped and attempted to murder a sex worker, Kemper shot and killed his grandparents), were in close proximity to the law in some fashion (Benjamin's mother was a U.S. senator, Kemper applied to be a cop and was rejected), targeted Caucasian women as surrogates for their mothers (though Kemper targeted other victims as well, used some lure to get their victims alone, mutilate their victims in some fashion postmortem involving a sexual element (Benjamin continued to bite victims after raping and murdering them, Kemper dismembered victims and violented their remains), left the remains of their victims near their mothers' respective properties, and killed their mothers to end their sprees (though Kemper murdered his mother's friend as well in that attack).

Victims[]

Unspecified dates:
- Numerous unnamed victims (assaulted only)
- An unnamed stepfather (assaulted)
- Jessica Sayer (a prostitute; attempted)
2022:
- Sandra Hart
- Claire Durham
- Rose Clark
- Jessica Sayer (attempted; held at gunpoint; relented when the BAU arrived)
- Senator Martha Reeves (his mother; fatally bit off her face; also held at gunpoint by Elias Voit)