| “ | What does it mean, anyway? (Rossi: What does "what" mean?) "Protect and Serve". We all say it every day. Protect who? Serve who? That piece of human waste in the other room: murdered at least two kids? You know what he is; you're the ones who found him. And that decent family, that decent, loving...How did anything that happened today serve anyone at all? Huh? Who won in the end? | ” |
— Lancaster
| ||
Detective Bill Lancaster is a minor character and criminal accomplice who appears in the Season Four episode of Criminal Minds, "A Shade of Gray".
Background[]
A detective serving Cherry Hill, New Jersey, for 23 years, Lancaster lost his two children in a car accident caused by a drunk driver three years before the episode, leading to a divorce from his wife. He was childhood friends with Dan Murphy, who later married a woman named Sarah and had two sons named Danny and Kyle (who regarded Lancaster as an uncle-type figure). On the night of April 9, 2009, 9-year-old Danny killed his 7-year-old little brother Kyle in a fit of rage after the latter broke the former's model plane. The parents called Lancaster, who, relating to the Murphys' pain due to the loss of his own children, and not wanting them to lose both their sons, decided to divert attention away from Danny by making Kyle's death look like it was perpetrated by a child killer who had been murdering boys in the area since 2008. Lancaster beat Kyle's body before disposing of him in the woods, the same place the killer disposed of his two known victims. Kyle's disappearance led to Cherry Hill authorities summoning the BAU.
A Shade of Gray[]
Lancaster is first seen holding a press conference outside of the Murphy house (which neighbors his), greeting Prentiss, Morgan, and Rossi (who tells him he should have held the conference off the Murphy property) to show them the crime scene. He gives Morgan a picture of Kyle, which has his signature on the back as "Uncle Bill", leading Morgan to question him, to which he reveals he was childhood friends with Kyle's father and is their neighbor. Morgan tells Lancaster that his involvement could be a conflict of interest in the case, but Lancaster refuses to back down and departs to check on Dan and Sarah. He later shows Rossi Kyle's bedroom, which the latter notes is more chaotic than those of the previous two victims of the child killer. Lancaster asks if the killer may have used a weapon to scare the boys, which Rossi acknowledges as possible before ordering him to have the techs look for any trace of blood or fibers. After finding signs of Kyle's presence in the kitchen and a broken window in the basement, the two and Morgan deduce the unsub (who would have to have been "real slim" to get in through it), broke in through the basement window, abducted Kyle from his room sometime after he came to the kitchen to get some water, and left with him through the back door. Lancaster is later present when the BAU (who had been narrowing down a list of over 400 sex offenders in the area as suspects) names Hugh Rollins as a suspect in the case. They arrive at Rollins' house, with Rossi checking his truck (finding nothing), Morgan and Prentiss finding child pornography and a toy he took as a souvenir from one of the boys, and Lancaster finds Rollins hiding in the backyard, leading to him trying to shoot him several times while he tries to escape. After Rollins is apprehended, Lancaster and Morgan have a tense standoff, with the former still refusing to back down from the case while the latter insists he does, since it's clear he's too close to it. The BAU notes inconsistencies between the circumstances of Kyle's disappearance and those of the previous two victims, leading to doubt that Rollins is the real perpetrator. Rossi interrogates Rollins at the station, who claims he doesn't know where Kyle is. Rossi points out that each of Rollins' victims is younger than the previous (the first was 11, the second 9, and Kyle 7), and tells him he won't survive in Trenton State Prison (where he will be sent if he doesn't comply), to which Rollins asks if he'll avoid going there if he tells them about Kyle and demands it in writing. Lancaster, Rossi, and Hotch discuss it, with the former eager for Rollins to confess to Kyle's murder, even though there still isn't enough evidence linking Rollins to it (his souvenirs were presented to Dan and the parents of another one of the murdered boys, with the former not identifying any toys belonging to Kyle). Hotch also points out that Rollins never delivered a TV to the Murphy house (which was how he gained access to the victims' homes), but Lancaster remains adamant that Rollins killed Kyle (even though his body hasn't been found). Under interrogation by Hotch, Rollins confesses to dumping Kyle's body in the Delaware River since he "didn't have enough time" to dispose of him like his previous two victims, but Hotch sees through his lie and realizes Rollins doesn't know where Kyle is (which is further proven when Reid and Rossi deduce Kyle's room was trashed to divert attention away from Danny's room, where Kyle slept in the bunk bed). Prentiss, Morgan, and Lancaster find Kyle's body in the woods, posed differently than the other two, only further proving Rollins' deceit. As Garcia digs into Lancaster's background, he is questioned by Rossi and Morgan, who begin suspecting he is involved in Kyle's death in some way. After a tense confrontation, where he is presented with a newspaper clipping about his children's deaths, Lancaster confesses to killing Kyle. Hotch tells Dan and Sarah about Lancaster's confession, which causes Sarah to break and finally reveal the truth: Danny killed his brother. Rossi, Morgan, and Lancaster have a final exchange in his office, where he asks who won today. Rossi tells him that they don't get to "pick who wins, even if that means no one does". Lancaster relinquishes his badge and gun and leaves the room while being escorted by an officer.
What exactly happens to Lancaster afterward is unknown, though he was most likely tried and convicted for his role in covering up Kyle Murphy's murder.
Known Victims[]
- 2009
- April 9: Kyle Murphy (beaten twice post-mortem and disposed of in the woods after being killed by Danny)
- April 10: Hugh Rollins (shot at several times, but missed)