"You're right. Let me show you what it feels like to be sick like I am!"
Leo Jenkins is a delusional abductor and killer who appeared in The Itch.
Background
Leo was a low-level lab assistant at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. After he somehow contracted the shingles virus, he was given a vaccine, which deadened the nerves in his arm. Since his brain was still sending stimuli signals to his arm, Leo, who was now developing delusional parasitosis, believed CDC officials put cockroach larvae inside the vaccine they gave him. Doctors tried all they could to convince him otherwise, but failed. His paranoia escalated and he eventually believed that the U.S. government was conspiring to infest Americans with cockroaches and the like. Leo eventually joined a support group for sufferers of the Morgellons syndrome, founded by fellow sufferer Lisa Randall, so he could share his beliefs and sympathize with its other members. However, when that wasn't enough, he abducted a journalist named Albert Stillman, who was writing a story about vaccinations, in the hopes of convincing him to write an exposé about his condition. However, Stillman, secretly a heroin addict, had been using at the time of the abduction and was uncooperative. Becoming increasingly agitated, Leo demanded if he could see the 'insects' inside him, to which Stillman suffered a psychotic break due to severe opiate withdrawal, prompting Leo to release him.
The Itch
Leo releases Stillman, who is later found by a driver. The driver tries to get him some help, but Stillman, still in a psychotic break, doesn't respond and is fatally run over by a car. Leo is then seen in the basement. While the recording of Leo's torture of Stillman continues playing, Leo hallucinates that he has insects inside him, so he extracts a sample of his blood, which he hallucinates as black, and places it beside other vials of his blood. While the BAU are called in, Leo abducts Doctor William Suri, an entomologist, and ties him to a chair. When Suri regains consciousness, Leo shows him a vial of his blood, claiming that it is black and hoping that Suri would believe him. Suri sees nothing wrong with it, but Leo insists there is something wrong with him. He then snaps, claiming that Suri corrupted the sample. When Suri tells him that he is mentally ill, Leo misinterprets his response and decides to demonstrate his belief to Suri. He ties him to a metal tube and covers him with cockroaches. Afterwards, he shoots him and dumps his body in an alleyway where the BAU find him.
Later, Leo attends Lisa's support group and becomes impressed by the anti-government statements of another attendant, Jane Posner. He takes her out to a restaurant, where they have a conversation about their sicknesses. They both go to Jane's apartment, where Leo gets a sample of her blood with her consent and examines it. They both start to kiss and go to bed. The next morning, they both wake up from a knock on the door by Lisa; Leo hallucinates a deep male voice demanding them to open the door. Jane tells Leo to calm down, but he tells her that Lisa is one of them and instructs her to get rid of Lisa. Leo then hears Lisa's phone ringing and discovers that she is talking to the FBI. Later, Leo goes to Lisa's house, abducts her, and demands to know what she told the BAU. Lisa claims that she didn't tell them anything but Leo doesn't believe her. Tying her up in the basement, he asks Lisa if she is afraid of spiders, to which she answers yes. Leo then takes out few spiders from a case and puts them on Lisa. While Leo demands Lisa to know who she works for, the BAU show up and try to talk him down from shooting Lisa. While they do, Rossi shows Leo his own reflection to convince him that there is nothing wrong with him. He then calls Leo by name, distracting him long enough for Rossi to subdue him and rescue Lisa.
Modus Operandi
Leo initially abducted people he believed would help him of his condition: he targeted Albert Stillman in the hopes that he could write an exposé about his condition, while Doctor William Suri was targeted because he hoped he, as an entomologist, would believe him when he tried to show him what he was suffering. Later, as his paranoia escalated, he began targeting people he believed were associated with the U.S. government. With Albert Stillman and William Suri, he lured them in by contacting them with a disposable cellphone, telling them about his illness. After abducting his victims, he would take them to his basement and restrain them to a chair by their arms and legs with duct tape. The last two victims were tortured by being covered with some sort of insect: Suri was covered with cockroaches while trapped in a metal tube, while Lisa was covered with spiders while restrained to a chair. In the case of Albert Stillman, he videotaped his interrogation, and released him after the former had experienced a psychotic break due to an unrelated heroin withdrawal. After torturing Suri with the cockroaches, Leo then killed him by shooting him in the head with a handgun after he found the doctor's reaction to the torture to be unsatisfactory and dumped his body in an alley.
Profile
The unsub is a man who suffers from delusional parasitosis, a condition in which the sufferer believes that he is being attacked or infested by bugs. He takes his victims and covers them in cockroaches, likely to convince his victims that they share his condition. He is not trying to make his victims sick so he can kill them. Murder is not his goal, but the attention to the condition is; he is essentially crying out for help. He abducted an investigative journalist because he wanted him to write a story about the bugs inside of him. Unfortunately, because the victim was experiencing opiate withdrawal, he was already hallucinating insects, and this led to a psychotic break, so the unsub had to changed tactics. As a result, he abducted a controversial research scientist who he thought would be more willing to believe him. Unfortunately, the doctor recognized his condition for the mental illness that it is, which is why the unsub killed him so quickly.
He is not to be labeled as crazy or insane to the media or press, as he is desperate to confirm his own self-diagnosis. As a result, he will be violent towards those who do not, and this kind of delusion goes hand in hand with conspiracy thinking. He probably believes that the bugs are part of a plot involving the U.S. government to keep him sick. When he is alone, he will be paranoid and disorganized, while his body will be mutilated from self-harm. However, his search for a fellow believer will give him focus and allow him to appear calm and rational. He may be visiting the entomology and infectious disease fields, as well as hospitals, for anyone with similar beliefs. This unsub has searched high and low for treatment for his condition, and he will return to one of these locations for his next victim.
Known Victims
- 2014:
- October 16: Albert Stillman (abducted and held captive; had a psychotic break from unrelated heroin usage and was subsequently released three days later; killed by an oncoming car)
- October 20: Doctor William Suri (abducted and tortured by covering him in cockroaches, then fatally shot him in the head with a handgun the next day)
- October 22: Lisa Randall (abducted, tortured by covering her in spiders, and held at gunpoint; was rescued)
Notes
- Leo has some similarities with Ted Bryar. Both were killers who suffered from psychoses that caused them to have hallucinations, worked in science-related fields (Ted was a physicist; Leo worked as a lab assistant), believed that items were being implanted underneath their skins (Ted believed that computer chips were planted by a "higher authority", while Leo believed the government had infected his skin with insects), and killed their victims by shooting them. Both were also subdued by the BAU after a struggle when hostage negotiations failed and would later be institutionalized.
- Leo also has several similarities to Anton Harris. Both committed their respective crimes to gain some sort of attention, abducted and tortured their victims in some particular manner (Leo covered his victims in insects, while Anton performed lobotomy on his victims), and killed their only fatal personal victim by shooting them in the head with a handgun.