Joe Bachner and Daria Samsen are a killing team that appears in the Criminal Minds Season Nine episode, "The Edge of Winter".
History[]
See the Joe Bachner and Daria Samsen articles
Modus Operandi[]
After abducting a victim, Bachner would hold them in a toolshed alongside Samsen. During their periods of captivity, the victims would be tortured in a variety of ways, such as being brutalized, tied to a radiator, stabbed with an icepick (either by Bachner or sometimes Samsen), and raped (in the case of the female victims). Afterward, they would be finished off by Bachner, who stabbed them to death with the icepick.
Profile[]
The unsubs are a pair of sadistic killers who are trying to terrorize the community by torturing and displaying their victims. One of the partners is dominant and fulfilling an emotional need, while the other is submissive and displays obsessive-compulsive tendencies. The method of stabbing the chest is symbolic of unfilled sexual desire. However, their M.O. is deteriorating (evidenced by the fact that a victim successfully escaped them for the first time), so they are improvising now, breaking from their own rules and becoming even more reckless. This could cause a rift in this partnership, and it may result in changes or escalation to the torturous behavior. Daria Samsen was held for a total of ten months, much longer than the other victims, which means she held a very special place in the dominant unsub's fantasies, and by losing her, his anger will increase, which is why he feels compelled to display victims in a public way: he wants others to feel the full force of his outrage. Based on how quickly the latest victim was found, it is believed the killings are accelerating.
It was later revealed that Samsen was both a victim and the submissive partner of the killing team, having been fully subjugated by Bachner's domineering influence, up to the point where she suffered from Stockholm syndrome as a result. This is evidenced when she willingly inflicted at least some of the torture on Bachner's victims for him.
Real-Life Comparison[]
Bachner and Samsen appear to be inspired by Leonard Lake and Charles Ng - Both are serial killer, serial rapist, and abductor duos, including one with a preceding criminal record that included sex crimes against a woman under their respective influences, both duos targeted victims of both genders, the women were raped by at least one of the killers, the victims were tortured during captivity, and the duos operated in isolated cabins.
Bachner and Samsen also appear to be inspired by Cameron and Janice Hooker - Both are killer couples composed of a dominant male sexual sadist and a female partner who was brutally tortured until they developed Stockholm syndrome, they kidnapped victims and held them captive and the male raped them, they murdered at least one victim before disposing of their body in an open area, had at least one surviving victim, the females turned on the males to testify against them, and only the male partner was incarcerated.
They also appear to be inspired by the killers of Matthew Shepard, who Bachner and Samsen were compared to in the episode - Both cases involve killing teams originally suspected to be two white men (though this was only true in Shepard's case), at least one of the killers had a record of assault, the victims were white men (though Bachner and Samsen targeted other victims as well), they were tortured and killed, and the killers tied and displayed the victims to be found later.
Mutual Victims[]
The dates denote when the victims were abducted
- 2012:
- December 6: Marlene Godfrey (killed on December 29)
- December 15: Chloe Reynolds (killed on January 5, 2013)
- December 21: Ben Wilson (killed on January 8, 2013)
- January 1, 2013: Carrie (abducted, raped, tortured, non-fatally shot with a rifle, and stabbed in the stomach with an icepick; was rescued on January 10, but possibly died from her injuries afterwards)