| “ | They do it to me, they do it to me, they do it to me, they do it to me, they do it to me! Why do they always do that to me?! | ” |
— Hill muttering to himself as he's driving his car after viewing the first press conference
| ||
Norman Hill, a.k.a. "The Road Warrior", is a delusional spree killer, thrill killer, and one-time family annihilator who appears in the Season Four episode of Criminal Minds, "Normal".
Background[]
A quiet, all-around average man with an affinity for collecting model cars, Hill lived in the suburbs with his family and worked as an accountant at an insurance company in Orange County, California. In June 2008, Hill's youngest daughter, Jenny, was hit and killed by a car on the freeway, having wandered away while he was busy changing a flat tire. Hill never got over Jenny's death and came to believe everyone secretly blamed him for the tragedy. This added to his already considerable disenchantment with life, which stemmed from his dead-end job, his emasculating wife Vanessa and his other teenage daughters, Sasha and Britney.
Normal[]
"I tried to tell you, but you wouldn't listen! You just wouldn't listen!"
Hill after shooting Joe Karem and Timothy Calvert
Six months after Jenny's death, Hill, on his way to work and intended to drop off a Remington 870 Field Gun shotgun as a gift, is cut off in traffic by a woman named Judith Hannity, who resembles his wife. Hill pulls up next to Hannity, presumably to ask for an apology, but is blown off and insulted. Angered by her attitude, Hill pulls up to her again, pulls the shotgun out of its gift box, and opens fire, causing Hannity to crash, paralyzing and nearly killing her. Something having changed inside him, Hill later arrives at an office party, where his wife and coworkers notice that he is unusually happy and confident. Later that night, Hill is shown contemplating the unknown as he stares at each of his children's bedroom doors. He then goes to the garage and begins sawing the barrel off his shotgun. Killing two women in drive-by shootings with the shotgun in an attempt to achieve the same high he got from attacking Hannity, Hill finds he is unable to achieve as much satisfaction from shooting as he did before. As a result, he begins modifying his shotgun and starts role-playing, dressing as a 1950s style punk after the media dubs him "The Road Warrior".
Going over a week without killing anyone, Hill begins becoming more and more unstable. While at the office, he briefly contemplates committing a massacre when he envisions his coworkers are mocking him. Regaining his senses just as he begins reaching for his concealed shotgun, Hill spots Jordan Todd on a television in the lounge, releasing the BAU's profile of the Road Warrior to the public. Rushing to his car after seeing the broadcast, Hill, on his way home, has a psychotic fit. When two men pull up beside him and ask him if he is alright, Hill hallucinates they are laughing at him, instantly calms down, and murders both of them, shooting the two until the shotgun is empty. Arriving home, Hill watches another news broadcast, in which Todd pleads with the Road Warrior, whom the BAU had discerned had a family, to turn himself in peacefully. Seemingly moved by her speech, Hill tells his family that he is the Road Warrior, but is mocked by them. Changing his mind about giving up, Hill forces his family into the SUV and drives off. All the while, he rants about how he can fix everything and that he can no longer bear living in the house after what happened to Jenny, whom he accuses his wife and daughters of forgetting about.
Hill's erratic driving attracts the attention of the police and a chase ensues, with him alternating between firing shots at officers and bickering with his family, who begin blaming him for Jenny's death, saying they can never be a family again. Reaching the highway, Hill jerks the steering wheel to the left (thinking Vanessa had grabbed it) and crashes into the concrete barrier, causing the SUV to flip over. Crawling out of the wrecked SUV, Hill is surrounded by Morgan, Prentiss, Reid, and several officers, who he begins begging to help him save his family. However, Morgan, who had gotten a call regarding the fate of the Hills from Rossi, shows him the SUV is empty and tells him his family is gone. Then, Hill remembers the truth: he murdered his wife and daughters shortly after shooting Hannity. Realizing what he had done, Hill suffers a complete remorseful breakdown and does nothing but sob and say he is sorry as Morgan arrests him. Morgan tells him that it is over and promises to get him some help. Given his mental state, Hill was most likely institutionalized afterward. The events of the case would later lead Todd, who felt responsible for his killings of his family and the two men, to resign from the BAU after JJ, whom she replaced temporarily, returned to work.
Profile[]
The unsub is a white, middle-aged, married father with a wife who is believed to be blonde, approximately 40 years old, who resembles the victims and drives a luxury sedan. He drives a blue, small SUV and most likely lives in the area. It is believed the unsub recently suffered a personal trauma in his life. The hyper-masculine disguise, victim preference, and the emasculating trigger of the first attack points out that the unsub is suffering a masculine identity crisis; Judith Hannity was just the trigger. He appears to be suffering from a psychotic break, which means the world he sees around him has changed, and so has his role in it and that of his family. His perception of his home life is the key to his pathology. At home, he feels less than a man, a failure as a father and as a husband. He feels his children do not need or respect him and that he is unwanted and obsolete in their lives. As a husband, he feels emasculated and humiliated by his wife. These perceptions, real or imagined, have destroyed this individual's masculine self-image.
This unsub is delusional, as he is now dressing in this Road Warrior persona. It gives him feelings of power and purpose that he craves. It is now the single most important thing in his life and he will die before giving it up. His new fantasy persona cannot coexist with the everyday reality of his home life, which means that sooner or later, he is going to kill his entire family. Somebody out there knows this man but does not know it.
Impersonal killers are like drug addicts. The first time gives the ultimate high, and after that, no high is as good. Unfortunately, the addict doesn't know that. He will chase that high to the gates of insanity and death. Killing is all the unsub thinks about. He has set up the exact same situation, again and again, hoping to get the same result. He begins to think he is doing it wrong. He becomes obsessed with improving his skills, honing his M.O. and tailoring his weapon to a deadly purpose. He figures if he gets them all just right, if he can get his technique and his tools perfected, he will feel that first high again. He is becoming a more lethal addict and he will never accept that the high is gone and it will not come back. He will never stop.
It is difficult to officially classify Hill as either a spree or serial killer, as he seems to have characteristics of both. While his motives and profile fit the description of a spree killer, his actual killings more closely resemble serial killings: he had a specific M.O., specifically targeted most of his victims, and there was a week-long cooling-off period between his fifth murder and the double homicide.
Modus Operandi[]
While Hill's first freeway attack was spontaneous and committed out of rage, his next two murders were planned in advance, taking place at night (when there would be fewer witnesses) and being committed with company cars. Cruising on alternate merge sites on the freeway (sites where multiple lanes are funneled down into one, which cars must alternate to enter, at the drivers' discretion), Hill would drive extra slow, and when a middle-aged Caucasian blonde woman who reminded him of his wife inevitably cut him off, he would pull up next to them and open fire with a 12-gauge Remington 870 Field Gun pump-action shotgun.
Hill repeatedly modified the shotgun in order to create a "perfect" weapon. First, after his shooting of Judith Hannity, he sawed down the barrel of the shotgun to increase the spread of the shots. Next, he sawed off the stock to make the shotgun easier to conceal. Then, he attached a bracket to the pump handle, allowing him to hook the gun onto his car door when the window was rolled down and chamber new shots without having to take both hands off the wheel.
As he grew more mentally unstable, Hill fully embraced "The Road Warrior" persona coined by the media and began dressing as a stereotypical tough guy on his outings, wearing a dark leather jacket and mirrored sunglasses. When he killed Joe Karem and Timothy Calvert, he shot them both six times on a surface street during the day while driving his own car. When he killed his family, he shot them all once each with his shotgun while they were sleeping in their beds.
Real-Life Comparisons[]
Hill shows some similar characteristics to James Swann - Both are serial killers with mental problems, shot their victims with shotguns, shot at most of their victims from their cars, also killed victims inside of a building (a house in Hill's case, a barbershop in Swann's), their first victims survived, and were both given nicknames for their crimes.
Hill appears to be based on Mark Barton - Both were spree killers and family annihilators who lost family prior to their sprees (Hill's daughter was hit by a car, Barton's first wife and mother-in-law were killed), worked in white-collar positions in corporate financing, emotionally deteriorated into violent outbursts, killed their wives and two children while they slept, suffered great remorse after the familicides, attempted to commit workplace massacres (only Barton succeeded), got into violent altercations after their workplace shootings (Hill killed two motorists, while Barton accosted a girl before she fled), and were stopped at the end of police chases (though Hill was apprehended alive, while Barton killed himself).
He also appears to be based on John List - Both were spree killers and family annihilators who worked in numerous financial positions, shared similar personalities as family men with quiet and reserved personalities, were in mental decline from losses in their lives (Hill's daughter was killed by a car, while List lost his job), placed blame on their families for the decline of their daily and professional lives, killed their victims by shooting, each didn't kill one of their family members (though Hill's daughter died beforehand, while List's mother-in-law lived from being out of town), left their families' remains in their homes for a prolonged period of time before police discovered them, and tried and failed to escape authorities before they were arrested (though List was a fugitive for 18 years, while Hill failed to get away in a police chase).
He may have been based on Anatoly Onoprienko - Both were rampage killers and family annihilators who were married and had children, had family-related stressors (Onoprienko was put in an orphanage by his parents, while Hill lost a daughter and felt emasculated by his wife and surviving daughters), targeted both families and lone victims (though the only family Hill killed was his own), shot them with a 12-gauge shotgun, shot at least some of their victims in their cars, and were given nicknames for their crimes. Also, the way Hill had hallucinations spurring him to kill could be a slight nod to how Onoprienko alleged that voices and external forces urged him to kill.
Known Victims[]
- 2008:
- December 5: Judith Hannity (attempted, but barely survived; shot with a shotgun; paralyzed from the waist down)
- His family (all shot execution-style in their beds with a sawed-off shotgun at 5:45pm):
- Vanessa Hill (wife)
- Sasha Hill (eldest daughter)
- Britney Hill (middle daughter)
- His family (all shot execution-style in their beds with a sawed-off shotgun at 5:45pm):
- December 7: Linda Sicher (shot and killed with a sawed-off shotgun at 8:30pm)
- December 8: Marilyn Cohen (shot and killed with a sawed-off shotgun like the previous victim at 8:35pm)
- December 16:
- Burke Manning and numerous unnamed coworkers (intended to massacre; relented at the last second)
- Joe Karem and Timothy Calvert (both were shot six times with a sawed-off shotgun)
- An unnamed police officer (attempted; shot at three times as he pursued him, but missed)
- An unnamed police officer (attempted; grazed his SUV into his car while in a psychotic episode)
- December 5: Judith Hannity (attempted, but barely survived; shot with a shotgun; paralyzed from the waist down)
Notes[]
- Hill character is very similar to William "D-FENS" Foster, the main character from the 1993 action film Falling Down:
- Both were white collar workers with horn-rimmed glasses, short-sleeved white shirts and a tie, and both were stereotypes of the ordinary family man.
- Both embarked on a killing spree while driving: Hill because of a road rage, Foster because of a traffic jam.
- Both were driven to their respective psychotic break because of their paranoid perception of being underestimated at work, "emasculated" by their respective wives, and because of something related to their young daughters: Hill's daughter was killed in a car accident, Foster's was entrusted to her mother, who didn't want to let him see her.
- Both, at some point during their killing spree, sported a more masculine attire: Hill wore a leather jacket with mirrored shades, Foster wore a military-style jacket.
- Both employed a shortened shotgun at least once.
- The actor who portrayed him, Mitch Pileggi, also portrayed another serial killer, Horace Pinker, in the Wes Craven horror film Shocker.