| “ | You're a good man, Sean. You understand, we just don't want them shutting the place down. Club like this one closed a few days, we're finished for good. | ” |
— Peters
| ||
Jim Peters was a bar owner who unknowingly poisoned a number of people in the Season Eight episode of Criminal Minds, "Brothers Hotchner".
Background[]
Peters owned at least two bars and nightclubs, the Obsidian and the Edinburgh, in New York City, both of which condoned drug usage by customers and even allowed its employees to hand out drugs. On March 16, 2013, a customer, Megan Feretich, died of an apparent ecstasy overdose in the Obsidian, and her father Larry directly blamed Peters for her death. As a result, Larry began mixing PMMA with methamphetamine and leaving the mixture to be sold at the Edinburgh under the belief that it was ecstasy. However, Peters and some of his employees, Thane Parks, and Liz Leonte, spiked some of the Edinburgh's white wine with the mixture as a prank, not knowing about its lethal effects. This led to more poisoning deaths than Larry anticipated.
Brothers Hotchner[]
When a barfly named Anna Johnson dies from the mixture at the Edinburgh, Peters, and Thane are among those interrogated by a police officer. During the investigation, Anna's death is then tied to other poisoning deaths that occurred throughout New York City. As a result, this leads to intense scrutiny on the Edinburgh, which angers Peters, who vents it out on Thane. Later, another Edinburgh employee, Sean Hotchner, arrives late. When Thane chastises Sean for being late, Sean explains that the police had questioned him; this piques Peters' interest, and he asks what he said to them. Sean says that he lied to them, thus preserving the Edinburgh's public image. Peters praises him for what he did. When Sean mentions the police suspecting bad wine in the poisonings, Peters instructs Thane to dump the white wine. He then makes preparations to flee, but the moment he gets into his car in the parking lot, he is ambushed by Larry, who smashes his car into his. Then, Larry forces PMMA down Peters' nose and throat and leaves him to die.
Modus Operandi[]
All of Peters' killings were completely unintentional, since he believed he was committing a prank with a nonlethal drug. He and his accomplices spiked their white wine with a drug they received from drug dealers and traditionally gave to customers as part of their service. They spiked it by injecting it into the wine bottles with syringes. Unbeknownst to them, it wasn't ecstasy like they believed, but instead a mixture of PMMA and methamphetamine.
Profile[]
No profile of Peters was made by the BAU, who were focused on Larry and the Edinburgh as a whole.
Known Victims[]
- 2013:
- May 15-21:
- Linda Heying (Sean Hotchner's girlfriend)
- Erik Sullivan
- May 23: Bernard and Catherine Hatchitt
- May 15-21:
Notes[]
- Although Peters was a serial killer with no survivors, he is not listed as one of the few serial killers with no survivors because none of his kills were ever intentional.