| “ | I've finally made something of myself. | ” |
— Rask calling his mother.
| ||
Emmanuel Rask, aka Gone Postal, is a narcissistic, psychopathic spree killer, stalker, and abductor who appears in the Season Fourteen episode "Rule 34".
Background
Born on August 28, 1991, in Hillcrest Heights, Maryland, Rask was a music prodigy as a child and became the valedictorian of his high school. This allowed him to earn a college degree to attend Hallridge University. He favored women as friends, likely stemming from an unspecified healthy, loving relationship with his own mother, seemingly in part from his father dying. But being gay, in 2015, he began a relationship with a man named Duane Vann. It was during this year that he also began seeing Doctor Nicholas Kauffman, a psychiatrist who had difficulty diagnosing Rask because he had shown signs of being both histrionic and narcissistic, two personality types that conflict with each other. At some point in his life, he began a friendship with Galina Kadlec, an owner of a dark web website which allows anyone who goes on the site to post disturbing and horrific videos meant for sexual pleasure.
He was later accepted into medical school, but the school's administration soon found out that he had been making videos in which he had been recording himself crushing small animals. When he believed another student had told the administration about his crush videos, he went after the student, putting him into a choke hold and repeatedly stabbed him with a ball-point pen. He was arrested by police and sentenced to six years in prison for aggravated assault but was released on good behavior in two. While Rask was in prison, Vann broke up with him and began seeing another man named Rory Stevenson, whom he then married in July 2018. When Rask discovered Vann's marriage, this caused him to snap and go after him and Stevenson. He abducted them both, taking them to an abandoned armory that Kadlec used for her websites (which she told him about and provided him with), and killed them both. He then decided to send their severed limbs and torsos to women who were nice to him throughout his life in some way out of gratitude.
Rule 34
The delivery of the packages, especially when they reach official buildings, to six different women lead to the BAU being called in from suspicions of terrorism. Rask can't be traced because the packages were mailed when the post office in the shipping addresses was closed, and cards in each of the packages say when out together "All the king's Porches and all the king's Benz couldn't put this bitch back together again. Forever yours, Gone Postal." Both men's heads and hands are missing, and the morgue reveals they were paralyzed during the torture and were disarticulated at joints, implying medical anatomy. Later on, Rask is standing over a paralyzed Dr. Kaufmann, caressing his body, dancing to rock music, and preparing his torture tools.
It's not long before Garcia finds live-streamed footage on Kadlec's website of Kaufmann's conscious mutilation. When the team traces the servers, they find it leading back to Vann's house. The BAU barge in and siege the property, but they realized they've been duped when a speaker blaring the audio of the torture is in the guest bedroom, and in the master bedroom and Vann's and Stevenson's head mounted on the bedposts. Another note card with another dare reads "Take that, bitches. I win. GP."
Rask is later seen dropping the packages off at the doorsteps of four more women, before calling his mother from a payphone and hinting at his infamy in the same breath of reminding her he loves her. He then, by Kadlec's direction, abducts her ex-husband, Byron Maddock, so Rask can torture him to death live for her own sake of revenge. Before it starts, he stands over Maddock and taunts him with he doesn't want a ransom, but fame. When Maddock protests, he grabs his head and shouts at him to get him to be quiet, then says in a low voice "Galina says hi, bitch." before licking his forehead.
The team's en route to the warehouse after finding Rask in Kaufmann's records and getting into Kadlec's server to trace the armory where the tortures were held. The agents catch Rask in the process of cutting Maddock with motorized blades, where Rask responds by turning to Rossi and recognizing him from reading his books. When Rossi sweetens the deal of his surrender with the fame he can have from giving himself up, Rask smugly says to Maddock that he also had a story to tell from his experiences, before Rask and Kadlec are eventually both arrested and incarcerated for crimes.
Modus Operandi
Rask targeted the men in his life he found degrading or traitorous and the women he deemed some of the most courteous people he knew. Starting with his ex-boyfriend and his ex's new husband, then moving to his psychologist, he would take them to an old armory Kadlec leased to Rask where she shot many of her X-rated fetish videos. Drugging them with rocuronium bromide to render them immobile but conscious and stripping them to their underwear, he would torture and mutilate them in extremely vicious and gruesome ways, most noticeably by cutting them with motorized blades. Once the torture ended up killing them, he would dismember the men's limbs and heads as well as bisect their torsos with precision anatomical accuracy. Gift-wrapping the dismembered parts in plastic, styrofoam, and preservatives to keep their condition and mask their smell, he would mail them to women he knew who treated him with kindness, first through a closed post office with security cameras off, then dropping the boxes off right at their doors once he escalated.
He also left taunting cards with the signature word of "bitch[es]", degrading the victims and investigators for being better than him and daring the police to catch him. When he was ready to seek attention, he livestreamed his third torture-murder from Kadlec's website, having the server bounce the location to his previous victims' house, to find a setup of technical equipment and the missing heads and hands of his first two victims. When he hoped for more success, and to owe Kadlec a favor, he abducted her husband and started to torture him alive with superficial wounds, but he was stopped before he could get any worse. When he tried to kill the student in his college, he rendered him helpless in a chokehold while stabbing him repeatedly with a ballpoint pen.
Profile
Due to the organized and strenuous nature of the M.O., the unsub is a male aged somewhere between his mid-twenties and thirties. He has demonstrated surgical skills that suggest a significant amount of medical training as well as proficiency with computers indicative of a graduate education. Although it is not yet clear how he is selecting either his male or female victims, the violence and psychological sadism suggests that he does have some kind of affiliation with all of them. It is believed that the unsub is being driven by mixed motivations and because of his particular M.O. with the male victims, coupled with the linguistics he has used in his messages to law enforcement, it appears likely that one motivation may be deeply rooted in a need for retribution. Whether it is real or imagined, this unsub believes that the men he is targeting have harmed him, either physically and/or psychologically, making their pain and suffering and death justified to him.
The unsub is craving validation through a sense of superiority and if through nothing else, superiority through fear itself. He will continue to try to reach out to any and all social media outlets that might provide him with a platform, which is especially true now since the BAU has seized control of the website to which he uploaded the video of his third victim's murder. Because his ultimate validation will come through fame, the crowning of celebrity offers our unsub a sense of dominance over others that quite possibly satisfy all of his motivations. So as his psyche feeds off the frenzy he is creating, like a spree killer, he will stop at nothing to burn as brightly as he can for as long as he can.
Real-Life Comparisons
Rask seems to have been based on Andrew Cunanan - Both were gay, narcissistic spree killers and stalkers who were popular in school despite their sexuality, starred in disturbing films, committed an assault prior to their killings, their killings were seemingly triggered when their lovers left them, and as killers they targeted men (including said lovers, who were their first victims), killed them in a variety of ways (including torture and mutilation with sharp tools), were both profiled as being narcissistic attention-seekers, and were hunted by the FBI.
Rask may have also been based on Jeffrey Dahmer - Both were gay, sexually sadistic killers who killed animals and were arrested and jailed prior to their killings, targeted men, their first victims were killed after attempting to leave them in some way (Rask's husband divorced him and re-married, while Dahmer's fist victim simply wanted to leave Dahmer's home after drinking with him), drugged them in order to incapacitate them before torturing them to death (though only a few of Dahmer's victims were actually directly killed by the torture they endured) and then skillfully dismembered their bodies, both recorded the entire process in some way (Dahmer photgraphed his victims' dismemberment, while Rask recorded his murders and uploaded the videos to an X-video site), and both were apprehended while in the process of attempting to kill a final victim.
Rask may have also been based on Hiroshi Maeue - Both were sexually sadistic serial killers who previously served time in prison for strangulation assaults, were influenced by some for of media (Rask enjoyed violent darknet videos, Maeue read a mystery novel as a child), began killing shortly after their releases from prison, used darknet websites for their murders, transported their victims' remains to other locations after killing them, and each had three murder victims. Also, Rask's affiliation with Galina Kadlec appears to be an allusion to Maeue being executed on the same day as serial killer Yukio Yamaji.
Rask is also similar to Sean Vincent Gillis - Both are repeat murderers with absent fathers and close relationships with their respective mothers, had obsessions with violent videos, had homosexuality in their family histories (Rask was openly gay, Gillis' father was openly gay), were proficient with computer technology, had problematic romantic relationships, dismembered their victims postmortem as their signature, stalked at least one of their victims before killing them, recorded their murders, and had a woman in their lives they felt protective of even in spite of their spree (Rask's mother and Gillis' girlfriend, respectively).
Known Victims
- Unspecified date in c. 2016: Unnamed student (assaulted; put into a choke hold and repeatedly stabbed with a ball-point pen)
- 2018
- October 15:
- Duane Vann (his ex-boyfriend; left his head on a bedpost and technical equipment at his house)
- Rory Stevenson (Duane's husband; left his head on a bedpost and technical equipment at his house like the previous victim)
- October 16:
- The first delivery of body parts in the day:
- Six women, including:
- Patricia Sorrells (his high school chemistry teacher)
- Geena Raptis (an IRS agent; assisted Rask with his tax returns)
- Six women, including:
- Dr. Nicolas Kauffman (his psychiatrist; livestreamed his murder through Kadlec's website)
- The second delivery of body parts in the evening:
- Four unidentified women
- The first delivery of body parts in the day:
- October 17: Byron Maddock (attempted; Kadlec's ex-husband, abducted on her orders and livestreamed his torture; was rescued)
- October 15:
Notes
- Rask appears to be partly inspired by Owen Reilly, the main villain in the 2007 thriller movie Untraceable, a young prodigy with technological expertise using it to kill victims by making viewers tune in and watch the murders live, all the while being in a cat-and-mouse chase with the FBI Cybercrimes division.