| “ | It won't work. It's not the same! | ” |
Dorothy Elgin was a serial killer and poisoner along with her husband Karl Elgin, who appeared in the Season Fourteen episode of Criminal Minds, "Starter Home".
Background
Dorothy was a recluse who lived in rural Varnville, South Carolina with her husband Karl. They had a daughter named LeeAnne, who they were very protective of and would not let interact with others her age. As LeeAnne got older, she started to rebel against her parents by sneaking out of her house to visit Steve Milburn, a boy who lived nearby. Eventually, LeeAnne got pregnant with Steve's child.
After becoming pregnant, Karl and Dorothy became even more protective of LeeAnne, forcing her to give birth in their home. Eventually, LeeAnne ran away, this time permanently. However, the Milburns made her leave her son with them.
After this, Karl tracks down the Milburns, shooting Steve along with his parents and staging it to look like a murder-suicide. He then abducts his grandson, taking him back to his home to raise him.
Since Dorothy was extremely distraught over the loss of their daughter, Karl began to abduct high-risk victims that physically resembled LeeAnne. They would each become surrogate mothers for his grandson, and the Elgins would force them to write letters to their family that stated that the couple treated them like their own daughter and that they were happy. Eventually, though, all seven of the girls they abducted were poisoned, and their bodies were then mummified and kept behind the walls or in the floorboards of their home.
Starter Home
Three months prior to the episode, Dorothy was committed to a nursing home after she was found wandering on the outskirts of town in the middle of the night and was diagnosed with dementia. She's sewing as Tara and Reid tried to talk to her, but picks her finger and calmly kisses it. The second time they tried to talk to her, she began ranting, 'It won't work! It's not the same!' before calming down again. After the third time, when they questioned her about it, realizing what she said, she commits suicide by striking a fork at her throat. Despite Reid and Tara's attempts to save her, she died, but not before Reid and Tara look through her room and find letters, which become vital into finding the unsub.
Modus Operandi
Karl and Dorothy would keep runaway female teens and young women at their house. The teens usually stayed willingly. Karl and Dorothy would coerce the victims to write letters to their family to make sure the family wouldn't report them missing. Dorothy would later poison the victims as they reminded her of her own runaway daughter. Karl would then hide the victims in the walls and floors of their house as a forensic countermeasure and to keep Dorothy happy as their "daughters" were still with them.
Profile
No official profile of Dorothy was made, as they were more focused on her grandson.
Known Victims
- Unspecified dates from 1988 to 2008
- Laura Burgess
- Delta Coughlan
- Penny Cumbre
- Daria Underwood
- Three unnamed women
Notes
- Dorothy is similar to Antonia Slade ("Devil's Backbone" and "The Storm") - Both were serial killers who targeted runaways who acted as surrogates for someone, were in relationships with men who acted as their partners-in-crime, allowed their victims to live in their homes before killing them, and hid the bodies of the victims in their homes.