| “ | This is a crime! I would never do what you're describing. And even if you don't believe me, my wife knows, my kids, my grandkids. | ” |
— Chapman
| ||
Austin Chapman is an accomplice of serial killer Robert Johnson. He appears in the Season Five episode of Criminal Minds, "The Internet Is Forever".
Background[]
Not much is known about Chapman, other than that he worked as a businessman and store owner in Boise, Idaho, was a closet voyeur and had a wife, adult children, and grandchildren. At some point, he met Robert Johnson, a narcissist who later killed a number of women and posted videos of it online. The details of their first encounter, which preceded the killings, are vague at best, but Chapman claimed they met when Johnson came into his appliance store. Apparently interested in being able to watch live murders (although he later claimed that he strongly disliked computers and didn't know how to operate them), he gave Johnson access to a walk-in freezer he owned for him to use as a hiding place for his victims. This would serve as his "collateral" in order to prevent him from informing the police, while the other local voyeurs who watched the videos received illegal videos from Johnson as initiation, such as child pornography and torture videos.
The Internet Is Forever[]
Later, when Garcia tracks down the viewers of Johnson's videos who live in Boise, Chapman is among the three arrested, since witnessing a murder and not reporting it makes one an accessory to murder; he claims not to have watched the murders. When his computers are checked, the investigators find no collateral of any kind. Rossi, who questions him, figures that Chapman doesn't fit the profile of the other voyeurs. Later, when Johnson prepares to kill again, streaming live, the BAU discover that he is using a freezer as a hiding place. Rossi figures it is given to him by Chapman and confronts him. When Chapman keeps denying any involvement, Rossi threatens to ensure that his arrest would be publicized all over the Internet for everyone, including his family, to see and that the next time his grandchildren search for their grandpa online, they will find out what kind of a monster he is. It is then that Chapman finally gives up the location. After Johnson is caught and arrested, Rossi shows him an online article about his arrest, remarking that he didn't arrange for it to happen. It's safe to presume he is incarcerated for his role in the murders afterwards.