Tara Rios is a survivor of serial killer Johnny Ray Covey. She appears in the Season Eight episode of Criminal Minds, "Nanny Dearest".
Background[]
Rios was once a nanny in Los Angeles, hired by the Perez family to watch over the son Jake. One day, on May 9, 2010, she and Jake were lured in and abducted by a man named Johnny Ray Covey, who also abducted a nearby woman vacationing from Dallas, Texas, named Allison Astor, presumably because she saw Rios' abduction and tried to intervene. Covey spent the next two days torturing and raping Rios and Astor, while he released Jake unharmed. On the second day of her captivity, Rios managed to escape, possibly because Covey couldn't keep an eye on two victims at once. She had an opportunity to free Astor and bring her along, but fled without her out of fear. A garbage truck driver found Rios passed out in an alleyway in the Hollywood district, with no memory of who took her or where she was held, having dissociated from the event.
JJ and Morgan, investigating Covey's killings with the rest of the BAU at the time, questioned her repeatedly and even tried to do a cognitive interview, but they were unable to get any results since she was too traumatized by her abduction. For the next three years, Rios was contacted by the BAU, who was trying to get more information about the Unsub, but she refused to speak to them any further. At some point, she moved to Seattle, Washington, where she got a job as a waitress and started seeing a psychiatrist, Doctor Jerry Berneman. At the time, she was officially diagnosed as having PTSD and insomnia, as well as occasionally having suicidal tendencies. Rios eventually developed a habit of snapping her wristband as a form of aversion therapy, whenever she is exposed to external stimuli triggering her memories. However, by the events of the episode, she was starting to move on from the trauma of the event, even recently having a date.
Nanny Dearest[]
In 2013, Covey abducts another nanny and child, Gina Mendes and Phoebe Payton (who has asthma). Realizing this, JJ and Morgan head off to Seattle to interrogate Rios. When they find her at her workplace, she initially tries to send them away and tries redirecting them to Berneman, but they insist and she eventually caves in. At another table, JJ and Morgan assure her that her memories are not lost but locked away, and also tell her about the serious situation Mendes and Payton are in. At the same time, Rios overhears a baby crying, which starts to bring back memories of her abduction. As a result, she loses focus and starts snapping at her wristband. JJ manages to regain her attention, but when she urges her to help them, Rios is overcome with fear and refuses to divulge any more information. She quickly leaves, dismaying JJ and Morgan. As a result, the two agents contact Berneman, who tells them about Rios' experiences in therapy and advises them to give her some space. When the BAU deduce that the unsub had seen something special in Mendes and Payton, they hold a press conference, where they release their profile of Covey before allowing Payton's parents, Shane and Melody, to speak.
Rios sees the conference, has a change of heart and allows JJ and Morgan to interview her. During an interrogation process referred to as EMDR (eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing), they use a blinking device to provoke Rios' mind into uncovering hidden pieces of information. It is partially successful, as Rios is able to recall Aster before she caves in under the pressure and flees from the room. JJ convinces her to continue and Rios is able to inform the BAU of how she escaped her captivity, Astor's physical description, and the fact that her abductor has a dog. With Garcia's help, the team traces down Astor's body, and the coroner holding it tells them that she had been bitten savagely by a dog; this gives the BAU the leeway to narrow down their list of possible suspects. Eventually, the BAU is able to find Covey, kill him, and rescue both Mendes and Payton. The following night, as Shane and Melody reunite with with them, JJ congratulates Rios for helping to save two lives, then allows her to view Covey's corpse in contempt. Melody spots Rios and hugs her, thanking her for her assistance.