Owen McGregor

CRIMINAL
Name	Owen McGregor
Gender	Male
Birth Date	December 8, 1981
Occupation	Sheriff's Deputy
Pathology	Serial Killer Proxy Killer Gangster Drug Trafficker Arms Trafficker Human Trafficker Cop Killer (once) Copycat (once)
Signature	Torture by knife wounds
Modus Operandi	Shooting Proxy murder by poisoning (once)
No. of Victims	10+ killed 1 killed by proxy 2 attempted 10+ attempted by proxy
Status	Deceased (shot by Hotch)
Portrayed By	Michael Trucco
First Appearance	Angels
Last Appearance	Demons

“	Kill them.	”
	— McGregor in "Demons"

Deputy Owen McGregor was a serial killer and the leader of a group of corrupt Sheriff's Deputies, with whom he conspired to kill their Sheriff. He appeared in Season Nine of Criminal Minds.

Background

"Next time you tell your whores to keep their mouths shut."

McGregor became a Sheriff's Deputy at some point of his adult life. However, he was corrupt, and he came to found and lead a wide variety of criminal businesses that came to employ even his own colleagues in the Sheriff's office. His enterprises specialized in a variety of trafficking methods, such as humans, drugs, and arms. When he came to view the Sheriff as a potential threat to his activities, he had his Deputies attempt to orchestrate his death during a shootout, but that failed, and a Deputy was forced to fatally poison him instead. However, the entire conspiracy was witnessed by a group of prostitutes employed by Justin Mills, with whom McGregor offered a deal in exchange for his silence, as well as those from his prostitutes. In 2013, he and his Deputies began systematically torturing and killing Mills's prostitutes. They partially intended to silence them, one after another, but the murders were also part of a larger scheme to orchestrate the death of Peter Coleman, a former Texas Ranger who by that point had taken over the position of Sheriff.

Season Nine

Angels (Part 1)

"In Heaven or in Hell. Which one are you gonna go to, huh? You got anything you wanna get off your chest, 'cause the hour of reckoning is upon you, Preacher-man!"

Unnamed and his true occupation unknown at the time, McGregor briefly appears in the beginning of the episode, killing Abigail Jones. He and other Deputies later kill Tabitha Ryerson and pose her body. Due to the killings, Mills begins to feel the heat and threatens a drug addict named Travis Henson into finding McGregor (in reality, Travis was an informant for McGregor and the other Deputies). When Travis does, McGregor instead offers him drugs in exchange for getting Mills to meet up at the local El Lobito's Diner. Travis does so and Mills takes the bait, to which McGregor murders Travis. Then, he kills two more of Mills's prostitutes and sets their bodies, alongside Travis's, in wait for Mills at the bar.

McGregor during the shootout between Mills and the BAU and Sheriff's Deputies.

When Mills discovers them, McGregor calls him and taunts him before saying that he left weapons for Mills to use against the police when they confront him, citing that they would never believe a pimp. Not knowing that the BAU discerned his innocence, Mills equips himself with the weapons and prepares to ambush them and Sheriff's Deputies as they arrive. However, McGregor fires first, hitting Coleman and tricking Deputies (as well as signaling his accomplices who are present) into firing at Mills, which in turn prompts him into firing back. After killing Coleman in order to further fuel the gunfight, McGregor then flees as Mills continues on firing, being briefly spotted by Blake and JJ.

Demons (Part 2)

"Knew I should've handled this myself!"

The shootout ends after Mills is forced out of the bar by Morgan and JJ and then shot and killed by the former. Reid, who was shot in the neck by Mills, witnesses McGregor escape the shootout before going to the hospital to recover. McGregor later orders Marty Bennett, Vicky Lorenzana, Greg Baylor, and the other corrupt Deputies to kill the BAU. He personally tries to kill Reid, but is cut off by Garcia, who heads into his room and shuts the door in his face, locking it. As a result, he orders Baylor to kill both of them. Later, when he approaches Bennett and Lorenzana, finding the both of them wounded after trying to kill Rossi and Blake, he murders them in a fit of rage. He then heads off to a junkyard he owns, where three of his colleagues are present. Hotch, JJ, and Morgan arrive at the junkyard and are engaged in a shootout. All three of his colleagues, plus another corrupt Deputy, are shot and killed by JJ and Morgan, while McGregor attacks Hotch and tries to shoot him with his gun, but is shot and killed by him in return.

Profile

"Oh Preacher, what have you gotten yourself into?..."

McGregor is never profiled by the BAU directly, as their profiles were more consistent to the ring of corrupt Deputies as a whole. However, he was deduced to be the strong leader of the ring due to his power and influence over the other Deputies, as well as his authoritative control over situations. Also, the original profile provided by the BAU of the ring (which assumed the unsub was working alone) was partially accurate to McGregor: he was a strong white male in his early 30s who was good with his hands and drove a large vehicle.

Modus Operandi

McGregor killed his victims by shooting them with either a .45-caliber M1911A1 (likely the same one he later supplied Mills with during the El Lobito's Diner shootout) or a 9mm Beretta 92FS pistol, usually execution-style. Before killing the prostitutes, he would use a ruse, which involved him performing consensual S&M on them, take them to an unspecified location and restrain them. His and the other Deputies' shared signature was carving knife wounds to the prostitutes' backs, the number and deepness increasing with each victim. In the case of Tabitha Ryerson, he shot her in the back of the neck before carving the knife wounds to her back, not after. He then washed her legs in lavender (as a reference to spikenard, which is mentioned in the Gospel as the ointment used for Jesus's feet) and then posed her body. This deviation in M.O. was meant to convince the BAU that Tabitha's murder was more religion-oriented than the previous ones and therefore lead to suspicion being placed on Mills.

Real-Life Comparison

McGregor may have been partially inspired by Gerard Schaefer, a double murderer, suspected serial killer, and possible necrophiliac, who also worked as a Sheriff's Deputy. McGregor also has some similarities to Robert Lee Yates, a serial killer who also worked in law enforcement and had the same M.O. of targeting prostitutes, soliciting sex from their victims as a ruse, and shooting them once in the head.

Known Victims

Personal Victims

• Presumably killed numerous unnamed victims prior to "Angels" as part of his criminal activities
• 2013:
  • June 21: Lucas Wagner (tortured by five knife wounds to the back by him and other Deputies before being killed)
  • November 27: Hanna Kelly (tortured by nine knife wounds to the back by him and other Deputies before being killed; dumped her body in a different jurisdiction)
• 2014:
  • May 4: Abigail Jones (tortured by twelve knife wounds to the back by him and other Deputies, then shot in the back of the head)
  • May 6: Tabitha Ryerson (shot in the back of the neck inside her home; washed her legs in lavender and mutilated her back with at least twelve knife wounds post-mortem)
  • May 7:
    • Travis Henson (his informant; shot in the chest)
    • Belinda Clark and Jesse Moore (both shot)
    • Sheriff Peter Coleman (shot twice in the chest and head during the shootout between Mills and Deputies)
  • May 8:
    • Spencer Reid (attempted; he escaped)
    • The road shooting:
      • Deputy Marty Bennett (his second-in-command; shot twice in the torso and the back of the head)
      • Deputy Vicky Lorenzana (his accomplice; shot in the torso)
    • Aaron Hotchner (attempted; shot at, but missed; later assaulted and tried to shoot again)

Victims by Proxy

• March 20, 2013: The unnamed previous Sheriff (died from an allergic reaction from medication administered by an accomplice while hospitalized)
• May 7, 2014:
  • The El Lobito's Diner shootout committed by Justin Mills:
    • An unnamed Deputy (attempted, but barely survived; was shot)
    • Spencer Reid (attempted, but barely survived; was shot in the neck with a pistol)
    • Alex Blake (attempted; shot at, but missed)
    • Jennifer Jareau (attempted; shot at, but missed)
    • Several unnamed Deputies (attempted; shot at, but missed)
    • An unnamed Deputy (attempted, but barely survived; was shot)
    • An unnamed Deputy (attempted, but barely survived; was shot)
    • Derek Morgan (attempted; was shot twice with a MAC-10, but he was protected by a bulletproof vest)
  • The building shootout committed by Justin Mills:
    • Jennifer Jareau (attempted; shot at, but missed)
    • Derek Morgan (attempted, but survived; was grazed in the arm with a MAC-10)
  • The attempted hospital shooting committed by Greg Baylor:
    • Spencer Reid
    • Penelope Garcia
  • The attempted shooting during the pullover by Marty Bennett and Vicky Lorenzana:
    • David Rossi
    • Alex Blake

Notes

• Until Demons, McGregor was the fourth unsub in the show's history to not have his name revealed by the end of the episode, despite being credited by said name. The first is Billy Flynn, whose name wasn't revealed at the end of his debut episode Our Darkest Hour even though he was credited by it (although his name was then revealed in the episode's follow-up The Longest Night). The second is Steve, whose name was never disclosed in Sense Memory, the episode he appeared in. The third is John Nichols, whose name was never disclosed in The Black Queen, the episode he appeared in.
• According to a file on McGregor, his Social Security number is 449-24-9047.

Appearances

• Season Nine
  • Angels
  • Demons
• Season Ten
  • Burn (indirectly referenced)