| “ | I wanted to believe her. But I couldn't hear it. I couldn't hear it until she died. Now...it's all I can hear. | ” |
— Sands
| ||
Caleb Sands is a delusional serial killer, stalker, and one-time abductor who appears in the Season Thirteen episode of Criminal Minds, "Mixed Signals".
Background
Sands and his wife Sarah moved to Taos, New Mexico in 2015 so that Sarah could be part of the city's art collective, while Sands got a job working for a solar panel company. Sarah soon became a victim of the phenomenon known as the Hum, which caused her to hear a low-pitched ringing sound that only she could hear. This event made her erratic to the point where she and Sands unplugged and turned off every device in their home and moved to another district in the city in the hope that she would stop hearing the Hum. These attempts proved to be futile as she could still hear it. They were to leave Taos due to Sands' three-year employment contract.
In April 2017, unable to handle the Hum anymore, Sarah killed herself when Sands wasn't home by drilling into the part of her brain that controls sound. When Sands found his wife's body, the trauma caused him to have a delusion in which he began hearing the Hum as well. He decided to bury Sarah's body, presumably next to their home, and post on one of the message boards she was on regarding the Hum that she was on going on a vacation out of town to avoid any suspicion of her being gone. As Sands' delusion worsened, he began his own investigation into where the Hum was located in Taos, so that he could get rid of it. When he learned a local hobbyist named Steve Kante was selling Hum-cancelling boxes, he bought one from him. After realizing the box would not work, he snapped, went to Kante's home and killed him in the same manner Sarah killed herself.
Mixed Signals
Sands first appears when Stacy Uqalla searches through the clinic after hearing the sounds of him sifting through papers. She comes across him and he pins her down after a brief chase. He demands to know where "it" is. Presumably unsatisfied with her unheard answers, he kills her off-screen. The next day he goes to a construction site and ambushes Ben Montoya. Tying him up with duct tape, he turns on his drill to intimidate him and, like the previous day, he demands to know where "it" is. Unsatisfied with Montoya's ignorance of what he seeks, he further interrogates him by drilling holes in the wall next to him. Still not getting the answers he wants, Sands kills Montoya. He is next seen at his residence observing photos of his victims. He goes over to his laptop looking up four different people at the Taos Community Library while the Hum is heard in the background. He then goes to the library and asks Elizabeth Tappin, the head librarian, to give him the blueprints for everything between Route 68 and State Road 240. She tells him that he needs permission from the property owners, copies of the grand deeds, and more things he must do for the information (much to his irritation). Sands persists in his demands, eventually growing angry and starts to hear the Hum, irritating him even further. She demands him to calm down or leave. He then notices Alma Hernandez and asks her the same thing, but she completely ignores him. Enraged, he waits for her in the Library's parking lot and attacks her.
He releases her upon realizing she is deaf (calling her "lucky"). She later helps the BAU in their investigation of his crimes by communicating with Alvez in sign-language. While the BAU profile him to the police, Sands looks through the papers and finds Jake Owens' name. After abducting him in District One, Caleb takes him into another room and demands him to shut off the power. He does and Sands still hears the Hum, thus he murders Owens much more brutally than the previous three victims (stabbing him at least five times in the chest with the drill). Furious over this failure of his investigation, Sands has a flashback of Sarah and him in a happy moment together. He hears the Hum again and tears down numerous photos on his walls. He continues to have flashbacks of him and Sarah's torment, and eventually one of Sarah's suicide. He then takes an axe and goes to his old house (now owned Joe Mahoney and his wife Chikodili, who is seven-months pregnant) and begins chopping through the walls, looking for something to cancel out the Hum. Alvez and Lewis burst in and confront him. He is eventually talked down by Lewis and is arrested. He was presumably incarcerated or institutionalized afterwards.
Modus Operandi
"I need you to get me the building blueprints, for everything between Route 68 and State Route 240."
Sands targeted each of his victims in the hopes that each of them could help him get rid of the Hum, or find the source of it. He would stalk each of his victims, taking pictures of them and putting them on a wall in his house. He would blitz attack each of his victims and when his victims could not help him get the answers he needed, he would drill into the left temporal lobes of their brains using the same drill Sarah used to kill herself. In the case of Jake Owens, he stabbed him repeatedly with the drill when his plan to get rid of the Hum by forcing Owens to shut off the power in District One (where Sarah first experienced the Hum) failed.
Profile
The unsub is a physically fit male who is trying to locate the source of the Hum, a phenomenon that became known in Taos in the early nineties in which people hear low-frequency sound waves. Not everyone who hears the sound is going to react violently, but given the right set of preconditions, violence is absolutely possible. Prior to attacking his latest victim, he requested maps and blueprints to find out where the Hum is located. He will not stop trying find its source and anyone who gets in his way is in danger.
Real-Life Comparison
Sands appears to be primarily inspired by Craig Jacobsen - Both are murderers active in the southwestern United States, killed one victim each in relation to a novelty item service (Sands killed a man who manufactured homemade devices, Jacobsen killed a customer in the spy equipment store he himself worked in), and they resemble each other in appearance.
Sands is similar to Aaron Alexis (whose massacre was mentioned in the episode) - Both were killers who did work in a foreign country, had stressors involving some sort of perceived auditory attack (Sands was tormented by a delusional hum, while Alexis claimed he heard low frequency electronic waves and voices in his head), attacked people connected to them in some way (Sands killed a hobbyist he bought a hum-cancelling box from when it didn't work, while Alexis killed his own co-workers), and both their killings were (presumably in Alexis' case) perceived attempts to end their 'torment'.
Known Victims
- 2018
- April 17: Steve Kante
- April 23: Doctor Stacy Uqalla (incidental)
- April 24:
- Ben Montoya
- Alma Hernandez (attempted; released when he realized she was deaf)
- April 25:
- Jake Owens (abducted and stabbed several times in the head, neck, and chest instead of being lobotomized)
- Joe and Chikodili Mahoney (briefly held hostage)
Notes
- Sands seems to have been based on at least two unsubs from the show's past:
- Season Eight
- John Myers ("The Silencer") - Both were serial killers who began killing their victims after hearing very annoying noises in their ears, albeit for different reasons.
- Season Twelve
- Stuart Barker ("Taboo") - Both are serial killers and abductors who killed their victims by drilling holes into their skulls. It is worth noting that Barker was mentioned in Sands' episode as well.
- Season Eight