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"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."

Austin Chapman is an accomplice of serial killer Robert Johnson. He appeared in The Internet Is Forever.

Background

Not much is known about Austin, 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 Austin claimed they met when Robert 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 Robert 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 Robert as initiation, such as child pornography and torture videos.

The Internet Is Forever

Later, when Garcia tracks down the viewers of Robert's videos who lives in Boise, Austin 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 Austin doesn't fit the profile of the other voyeurs. Later, when Robert 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 Austin and confronts him. When Austin keeps denying any involvement, Rossi threatens to ensure that Austin's 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 Austin finally gives up the location. After Robert is caught and arrested, Rossi shows Austin an online article about his arrest, remarking that he didn't arrange for it to happen.

Appearances

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