| “ | I can't change this city without help. People need to be inspired. They need to see me, they need to hear my voice. | ” |
— Sykes
| ||
Will Sykes is a narcissistic cop killer and copycat who appears in the Season One episode of Criminal Minds, "A Real Rain".
Background[]
Sykes worked as a security guard at a boutique located in SoHo, Manhattan, New York City, and held narcissistic delusions. Any other details about his personal life are undisclosed. In 2005, he was the victim of a mugging and subsequently spent two days in intensive care.
A Real Rain[]
When a series of vigilante murders occurred, he saw it as a chance to become famous. Intending to take the credit for being the vigilante, he walks over to Central Park, carrying a handgun and planning to use it to kill any random criminal who approaches him. When he is approached by an undercover police officer, Sykes, mistakenly thinking the officer is a mugger trying to attack him, shoots him and flees, leaving the officer to die from his wound. Sykes then shows up at a police station and confesses to all of the murders. Suspicious, Gideon takes part in Sykes' interrogation. When Sykes is asked why he killed a cop, he claims he did it to prove to the police how futile and dangerous chasing criminals the legal way is, still unaware of the fact that the man he had killed had been a cop and not a would-be mugger. He also claims to have turned himself in so he can reach out to the public and inspire them.
When Gideon asks him about the murder of Walter Derbin, one of the vigilante's victims who was acquitted of spousal abuse, Sykes simply says it was because he was a wife beater, but doesn't elaborate further. When Gideon asks if he stabbed Father Patrick Breeman, a priest acquitted of child molestation and another victim of the vigilante's, in the genitals because he was a pedophile, Sykes says "it's what he deserved", revealing that he is not the real vigilante, for Father Breeman was only stabbed through the ear, like the other victims. Sykes is then charged with killing the undercover cop, while a man named Marvin Doyle, revealed to be the true vigilante, is shot and killed when he attempted to kill another victim.
Modus Operandi[]
Since Sykes only killed one person, the term "M.O." is misused. He killed his victim, an undercover officer, by shooting him in the chest using an M1911 pistol, mistakenly thinking the cop was a mugger trying to attack him. He had presumably intended to copy the rest of Marvin's M.O., but was interrupted. Unlike Marvin, Sykes wandered around aimlessly, waiting for a criminal to attack him; Marvin instead approached specific victims that he targeted beforehand.
Real-Life Comparisons[]
Sykes appears to be partly inspired by Bernhard Goetz - Both were victims of violent muggings, committed shootings in public in New York City, were active during crime panics in the city they operated in, targeted their victims when they approached them, used a handgun concealed on their person, turned themselves into the police, and claimed self-defense.
Known Victims[]
- March 21, 2006: Unnamed undercover policeman (shot in the torso)
Notes[]
- David Aaron Baker, the actor who portrays Sykes, would later reappear as Grant Nichols in "Devotion", and episode of the short-lived spin-off Suspect Behavior.