Schizophrenia is a long-term mental disorder of involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behavior, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into fantasy and delusion, and a sense of mental fragmentation. Schizophrenia is not a split or multiple-personality disorder, but a type of psychosis where a person cannot tell what is real from what is imagined.
Causes and Symptoms[]
The exact known cause for schizophrenia is not known, but developing this illness is very likely for individuals who have a long family history of schizophrenia and have increased immune system activity, such as from inflammation or autoimmune diseases. Symptoms can include disorganized along with thought disorder, delusion, amnesia, hallucination, paranoia, incoherent speech, rapid and frenzied speaking, fatigue, impaired motor coordination, and lack of emotional response.
On Criminal Minds[]
Non-Criminal[]
The following non-criminals suffer from schizophrenia.
- Season One
- Diana Reid - The mother of Spencer Reid and a recurring character throughout the series, she is known to be suffering from schizophrenia--to a point where her husband left her to raise their son alone (among other reasons) until she would later be committed for her increasing condition.
- Season Eight
- Nathan Eades ("Through the Looking Glass") - A drifter and suspect in the murders of Arthur Rykov who suffered from the disorder and was presumably institutionalized for it after he was deemed not the unsub
- Season Nine
- Bill Robbins ("The Inspiration" and "The Inspired") - The father of twin killers Wallace Hines and Jesse Gentry, had increasing schizophrenia that would later strain his relationship with their mother Carla and limit his ability to father the son he had left. He would later play a small but important role in identifying one of his sons.
- Season Fourteen
- Ally McCready ("The Tall Man") - An abduction victim of Ethan Howard whose schizophrenia resulted in her hallucinating the "Tall Man" abducting and torturing her friends.
Criminal[]
The following unsubs have/had schizophrenia.
- Season One
- Ted Bryar ("Derailed") - A cop killer whose schizophrenic hallucinations and delusions prompted him to murder a guard for his gun and hold a train full of people hostage.
- Eddie Mays ("Blood Hungry") - A cannibalistic spree killer, one-time robber, and one-time abductor whose schizophrenia was presumably induced by his use of heavy drugs, which ultimately led to his killing spree.
- Marvin Doyle ("A Real Rain") - A vigilante and serial-turned-spree killer who suffered from schizophrenic auditory hallucinations.
- Season Five
- Darrin Call ("Haunted") - A spree killer, one-time cop killer, and one-time abductor whose schizophrenia coupled with severe PTSD from the crimes of his father drove him to go on a killing spree after he couldn't obtain his anti-psychotic medication.
- Gina King ("The Performer") - A "vampirist"-type serial killer whose schizophrenia was exploited by Ray Campion, the manager of Paul Davies (a gothic singer who she idolized), who convinced her to start killing in order to promote Davies.
- Season Six
- Rhett Walden, Jr. ("Reflection of Desire") - A necrophilic budding spree killer and abductor who had a schizophrenic hallucination of his mother.
- Ben Foster ("With Friends Like These...") - An arsonist-turned-spree killer and robber whose schizophrenia culminated in hallucinations of his childhood friends (who he killed in an arson fire for unknown reasons), which bullied and pushed him to kill people.
- Season Eight
- Adam Rain ("The Lesson") - A "collector"-type serial killer and abductor whose schizophrenia was worsened by a car crash, causing him to revert back to a childlike mentality and start abducting 'actors' for his play reenacting the death of his father (with a different ending of the puppets saving them).
- Season Ten
- Donnie Mallick ("Nelson's Sparrow") - a "collector"-type serial killer, stalker, and abductor whose schizophrenia was inherited from his mother Zettie, and which was presumably a driving factor in his abductions of women to 'replace' his dead aunt.
- Danny Lee Stokes ("Protection") - A serial killer, vigilante, and abductor-turned-spree killer who had schizophrenia inherited from his mother Miriam. This resulted in numerous hallucinations, including ones of innocent people committing heinous acts which drove him to kill them (though two of his victims actually were).
- Season Thirteen
- William Lynch ("To A Better Place") - A stalker, rapist, and serial-turned-spree killer who suffered a schizophrenic hallucination of his deceased grandmother, who encouraged him to murder women.
- Mitchell McCord ("Bad Moon on the Rise") - A vigilante, one-time abductor, and serial-turned-spree killer whose schizophrenia was presumably induced by his use of heavy drugs, which he took to numb the pain of losing his son to a mugger.
Real-World[]
Real-world people who have/had schizophrenia.
- George Metesky
- Ed Gein
- Howard Unruh
- Juan Corona
- Edward Allaway
- Jerry Brudos
- Theodore Kaczynski
- Peter Sutcliffe
- Herbert Mullin
- Edmund Kemper
- Richard Chase
- Nikolai Dzhumagaliev
- David Berkowitz
- Mark David Chapman
- Dorángel Vargas
- Sylvia Seegrist
- James Swann
- Robert Napper
- Marcelo Costa de Andrade
- Ralph Tortorici
- Christopher Scarver
- Tsutomu Miyazaki
- Kipland Kinkel
- Dionathan Celestrino