Josh Martin

“	Ladies and gentlemen, listen up! I realize you're confused, you're scared. You're wondering "What the hell is going on here?" [Laughing] Right? Well, a lot is going on here. Because today is a special day. Today is the day that all of you get to become a part of history!	”
	— Martin

Josh Martin was an unclassified killer and member of The Horsemen who appeared in the Season Thirteen episode of Criminal Minds, "Ex Parte".

Background

Josh Martin was the illegitimate son of Leonard Hagland and Gabriela, a Mexican woman that Hagland snuck into the United States to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, where she gave birth to him. Hagland was hardly around and it wasn't until years later that Josh found out he had a whole other family in Virginia. At some point in his life, Josh joined the white supremacy group known as The Horsemen despite his origins. When his father was arrested in April of 2015 following the killing of two Virginia state troopers and was scheduled for execution by lethal injection in 2018, Josh began planning a hostage situation at the ALDC law firm in a bid to get the federal government to release him.

Ex Parte

The episode begins with Josh instructing Jasper Talbot and Dalton McCann to gain access to the ALDC law firm by tying up two maintenance workers, taking their badges and uniforms, and killing them. Talbot and McCann succeed in obtaining the uniforms and badges, but leave the two maintenance workers alive.

The next day, Josh enters the law firm by pretending to be a client who had scheduled an appointment with a lawyer that day while his compatriots disable the law firm's security systems. Once that is done, the three men take out their firearms and begin to hold everyone in the law firm hostage before placing C-4 bombs on the doors to prevent anyone from busting them down.

This results in the BAU to be called in to take charge with the negotiations, but it becomes personal to the team when they are informed that the ALDC was where Matthew's wife, Kristy, started working two weeks ago and that there is a possibility that she is one of the many hostages in the building.

Meanwhile, on the inside of the law firm, Josh and his accomplices demand the hostages give them their cellphones and any other personal devices so they wouldn't call for help or use them to show their captor's faces. One of the hostages, Steven Onishi, tries to trick the men into thinking that he left his phone at home, but the lie backfired when Josh calls it and the phone rings, revealing its location. Josh, unsatisfied with Steven’s lie and believing that he thought he was an “idiot”, attacks him and nearly beats him to the point of death before Dalton pulls him off of him and chastises him for his outburst. When they catch wind that the FBI and the police are waiting for them outside of the building, Josh grabs Lillian Forsythe and forces her into her office with the intention of her selecting one of her representatives to pick up the phone and speak with the "hostage negotiator” on his behalf. She refuses to help him and calls him out on his actions, saying that she won’t be intimidated by men like him. Josh briefly asks who is really the one being prejudiced in the building before shooting her in the head with his gun and shocking her employees and sending her corpse down the elevator to the first floor where the FBI are waiting for them. Tara picks up the ringing cellphone being held by the deceased Lillian Forsythe and asks who she is speaking to. Josh answers and commends her for her style before stating that his only demand was for the federal government to release Leonard Hagland from incarceration before threatening to kill the other hostages every fifteen minutes should the demand not be met.

The BAU decide to bring Hagland in for questioning and send a message by text to Josh that they’ve talked with the prison, but that Hagland’s release will take a little bit of time. Once Hagland arrives at the FBI headquarters and into one of the interrogation rooms, Rossi enters the room and interrogates him to see if he was involved with the hostage situation in any way, in which Hagland denies.

While Josh is distracted, Kristy runs over to a satchel she had kicked aside and hid earlier, activates the phone she had intended to give to Matthew, and calls for help. The BAU answers and Matthew, concerned for his wife’s safety, asks if she is okay. She responds that she is and that she identifies the hostage takers as young men in their twenties and that there are three of them. Matthew asks her to use the phone‘s camera to give him and his team a look into what is happening in the building. She tells him that she isn’t using the phone she used , but the one that she was going to give to Matthew because the trio had taken away their phones, but that she was still able to make an emergency call despite the phone not being completely activated. Prentiss asks if Garcia could activate the phone and Garcia responds that she can. Kristy and Matt continue talking and proclaim that no matter what happens that they love each other. Josh returns and Kristy, in a panic, hides the phone and goes back to her position.

Josh informs the hostages that he believes that no one on the outside of the law firm cares whether or not the hostages live or die before grabbing Ian Watt, killing him, and sending his corpse down the elevator to the first floor. Tara answers the phone to inform him about Hagland being released into FBI custody, but that him killing the hostages isn’t going to give him what he wants faster. He tells her to spare him the “boring details” and to just release Hagland. Tara says that she’ll see what she can do, but asks for Josh to do an act of good faith in return and asks for the release of at least one hostage before he hangs up the phone.

As Josh and Jasper wander about and leave the room with the hostages, Kristy returns to the phone and says that she’s ready to initiate the plan that Matthew and the team set into motion whenever they were, starting with the phone’s activation. The phone activates and both Kristy and Matthew are relieved to see each other again before they begin the plan to hide the phone. Kristy successfully hides the phone and goes back to her position.

With the help of Kristy’s phone, the BAU is able to identify Dalton and Jasper as being two of the three hostage takers by looking into their histories from their army discharges to their suspected involvement in a series of bank robberies in Florida. Rossi also adds that they’ve developed a lead on their third suspect by speaking with some friends of Hagland before showing the visitor log footage of Josh visiting him under the alias of “Roland Cole” and believing that the behavior shown was an intimacy between a father and a son despite Hagland having no son. They then come to the assumption that Hagland has an illegitimate son from a different relationship who is trying to gain legitimacy, resulting in Rossi going back to the interrogation room to seek answers from him. Hagland tells Rossi about how the lord worked in mysterious ways and how he didn’t get custody of Josh like he had intended before telling him to spare him the “sanctimonious crap” and asks if Rossi wants to help the hostages or not and tells him that he can speak with Josh, but only if the BAU gives him a favor in return. Hagland asks to not leave jail, but to get off of death row and to live the rest of his life sentence in a federal facility. Rossi asks Hagland if he is afraid to die and Hagland responds that the team does not have much time. Rossi then leaves the room and tells Hagland that he isn’t here to negotiate as Hagland threatens that the blood of the ALDC employees will be on the FBI’s hands.

The team comes up with a plan to end the hostage situation by undermining the belief that the hostage crisis is just a ploy of getting Hagland’s withheld approval and getting inside the mastermind’s head by using his real name.

Inside the law firm, Josh fiddles with the switch to activate the C-4 bombs before he notices that something is off when he sees Erol Altan arguing with Kristy. He enters the room and confirms his suspicions when he finds the phone. However, he believes that Erol was the one who planted the phone and is working with the cops despite Erol’s protests. Just as Josh grabs Erol and attempts to drag him away to shoot him, Kristy offers to take his place instead and reveals that she was the one who hid the phone. Angered by this response, Josh punches Kristy and drags her into the office by her hair as she screams in terror. He sets up the phone on a nearby desk and prepares to record Kristy’s execution asking the BAU if they want to watch. Kristy braces for the inevitable, but Tara sees this moment as an opportunity to use Kristy as a mouthpiece to get Josh to back down and asks her to repeat everything she says. Kristy does so at the confusion of both Josh and his associates. When she reveals Josh’s upbringing, Josh tells Kristy to shut up and becomes emotionally unstable. This leads to Jasper and Dalton questioning Josh’s identity and if this whole hostage crisis was really worth risking their lives.

While the trio is distracted, Matthew makes his way to the ALDC law firm against the team’s wishes.

When Jasper tells Dalton that the whole questioning of loyalty matters and calls Josh out as a “half breed”, Josh shoots him out of anger and tells Dalton to not say another word. Josh then noticed Matthew around the corner and tells him to get down.

Both Josh and Dalton try to shoot Matthew, but Matthew runs away. Josh asks if they hit Matthew, but Dalton tells him that they didn’t and that they needed to plug up the vents. Josh says that while he takes care of Matthew, Dalton goes to the vents and seal them. While Josh searches for Matthew, Dalton goes to the room with the vent and attempts to seal it up, only to be confronted by Matthew and shot.

Alerted by the gunshots, Josh calls out to Dalton and gets ready to activate the switch when he doesn’t receive a response. He hesitates and decides to go after Matthew again, searching the rooms for him. Matthew approaches Josh from behind and Josh attempts to shoot him, only for his gun to jam. Enraged at his actions, Matthew attempts to shoot Josh, but misses. Matthew enters the next room, only to get disarmed when Josh hits him with a metal pipe and resorts to hand to hand combat. Josh hits Matthew with a book and attempts to activate the switch again, only to get knocked down and have the switch slide away from him. Matthew lays a couple of blows on Josh before he shoves him away and he attempts to grab the switch. Josh grabs the switch, but Matthew knocks it out of his hand, throws him to the ground and places him in a chokehold.

Before Matthew could kill Josh, Kristy enters the room and tells him to stop what he’s doing and claiming that what he’s about to do is not what he would do. Matthew lets go of Josh and runs over to his wife and embraces her as the remaining hostages are rescued and Josh is cuffed and taken away.

Given his actions, it is assumed that Josh was executed by lethal injection alongside his father following the end of the ALDC hostage situation.

Profile

No official profile of Josh has been made by the BAU as they were mostly focusing on the hostage situation he perpetrated. What is known, however, is that Josh had held white supremacist beliefs despite his mixed origins, that he was prone to anger/violence when either his identity is questioned (as evident by his shooting of Jasper) or when things don't go the way he planned and that he absolutely craves attention (especially recognition from his father). He wants to talk to the feds; he needs to if only to show off.

Modus Operandi

Josh had held up the ALDC law firm by first pretending to be a client who had scheduled an appointment with a lawyer while Jasper and Dalton deactivated the security systems. When they finished, they took out their firearms and demanded the hostages to give the group their cellphones and other personal devices so they wouldn't call for help or use the phone's cameras (if they had any) to identify them before placing C-4 bombs on the doors to prevent anyone from escaping or getting busted down. When the group caught wind that the police and the FBI were coming for them, Josh took Lillian Forsythe and asked her to talk with the hostage negotiator. When Forsythe refused to help him, he shot her and sent her body down the elevator as a message to the police and the FBI that if Leonard Hagland wasn't released from incarceration, more of the hostages would die with every fifteen minutes that passed.

When his plans were beginning to unravel, Josh became more and more unstable when he nearly beats Steven Onishi to death due to him hiding his cellphone and lying about its location and shot Jasper Talbot when both he and Dalton began to question their loyalty to him.

Known Victims

April 4, 2018:
- The hostage-taking at the ALDC law firm:
  - Lillian Forsythe (boss of the firm; shot in the head after she rejected his offer and sent her body down the elevator)
  - Ian Watt (shot in the head in execution-style and sent his body down the elevator)
  - Steven Onishi (attempted to beat him to death after he disobeyed him, but stopped by Dalton; later tried to bomb)
  - Erol Altan (attempted to shoot in execution-style, but Kristy offered herself instead; later tried to bomb)
  - Kristy Simmons (attempted to shoot in execution-style; later tried to bomb)
  - Jasper Talbot (his associate; shot)
  - Matthew Simmons (attempted; shot at repeatedly, but missed; later assaulted with a pipe and attempted to bludgeon, then bomb)

Appearances

Season Thirteen
- "Ex Parte"
Season Fourteen
- "Rule 34" (mentioned)