| “ | There was one. He was Buford's favorite. | ” |
— Keron reveals Rodney's molestation to Morgan
| ||
Keron Bendor is a former molestation victim of Carl Buford and a suspect in Rodney Harris' murders. He appears in the Season Eight episode of Criminal Minds, "Restoration"
Background[]
As a boy, Keron was a regular visitor of the Upward Youth Center, a community center owned by Carl Buford that specialized in troubled youth and children living in high-risk neighborhoods. In secret, Carl would molest Keron and several other boys repeatedly, with each of the victims believing they were the only ones to suffer this treatment. As a teenager, he became a linebacker for the community center's football team, which was assembled by Carl and comprised of other molestation victims, including future SSA Derek Morgan. As an adult, Keron descended into emotional instability and drug use; he was arrested three times for domestic violence, twice for possession of methamphetamine, and once for aggravated assault. Despite Carl's arrest for three murders in 2006, Keron was never motivated to come forward about the sexual abuse.
Restoration[]
When four middle-aged men are murdered with the phrase "Look up to the sky" (a phrase Carl would tell to his victims before molesting them) left behind in at least two of the crime scenes, Morgan traces the connection and manages to get a list of names of molestation victims from Carl himself. Garcia cross-references the names with regular visitors at the community center, narrows the results down to physically-fit people who match the BAU's profile of the unsub, and finds Keron. The BAU and local police raid his apartment while he is smoking marijuana; he tries to escape, but is quickly caught. Morgan, having apparently deduced he wasn't the unsub from his behavior, assures him that they are not here because of the marijuana. Then, he has him look at Carl's list of victims and asks if there is anyone not on it that is around their age and was treated as special.
When Keron becomes defensive, Morgan implicitly says that he knows he was molested by Carl, and that he too was molested by him. This prompts Keron to examine the list. He eventually reveals that while he recognizes some of the names, there were other boys who weren't on the list; these boys lived in the Cabrini-Green neighborhood and were protected by Carl from the King Cobras, a street gang, because of his connections with it. Keron then says that there was one such boy who was Carl's favorite at the time, named Rodney Harris. By the end of the episode, Keron watches a live press conference about Rodney's crimes, led by Morgan and Captain Stan Gordinski.