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Boles

Robert "Bob" Boles is a serial-turned-spree killer and abductor who appeared in Future Perfect.

Background

Because of his inability to get along with other children, Boles was home-schooled in his youth by his parents and constantly had to undergo therapy. While he was still young, he and his parents visited a sickly uncle at a nursing home. Boles got lost in the building and came across a room that he thought was his uncle's; instead, it contained an elderly, wheelchair-ridden man. The man spotted Boles and bitterly told him that he would end up looking just like him one day. Shocked by this, Boles fled and was traumatized by the encounter ever since, having to look in the mirror every day to see if he was close to looking like the old man. As a teenager, he got a job at a gift shop near the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park in St. Augustine, Florida, which subsequently sparked a fascination with immortality. He was fired from his job after he tried to break into the park during after-hours. Afterwards, he developed an obsession with creating a method to extend the lifespan of a human.

Boles later attended medical school in an attempt to acquire the scientific knowledge he needed to pursue his theory. During his time there, he discovered an underground science club called The Mad Scientist Club and attended a couple of meetings. However, he disturbed the club's other members with his cryptic comments about the Fountain of Youth and the land they were standing on. After one year, Boles flunked out of school and he then landed a series of unsuccessful part-time jobs, including one at a private zoo. Finally, he got an apparently steady job as an orderly at a local Florida hospital specializing in advanced medical knowledge, and he began taking care of the hospital's elderly patients. In the meantime, Boles fervently continued to pursue experimenting with his theory. Setting up a makeshift laboratory at an abandoned medical facility, he stole several animals from the zoo he worked at, specifically those belonging to species noted for their extended lifespans, in order to further his research. After concocting a formula, Boles then decided to move on to human trials.

Future Perfect

After his first two test subjects, a young woman named Cheyenne Pravato and an elderly man named George Henning, both die, Boles disposes their bodies in a swamp and works to abduct two more victims. He seduces and lures Andrea Gambrell to a cemetery, then captures her by injecting her with a sedative after she declines to be blindfolded by him. He also abducts Harold McDermott, a homeless man, at some point before or after. He brings the both of them to his facility, being sure to gag Andrea before he goes to work, where he meets Eileen Kebler and her husband Ben. On returning to his facility, he contemplates his jellyfish tank. Suddenly, Harold goes into convulsions, and Boles tries to save him. Failing, he becomes enraged and starts beating his dead body before disposing of it. Infuriated by his failures, Boles smashes his jellyfish tank in his office, flooding the floor with water. After witnessing the Keblers discuss their future, he approaches Ben and offers a cure: an injection of his formula. While he is suspicious of Boles' formula, Ben ultimately agrees and Eileen gets the transfusion. Boles informs the Keblers that he will return three days later to give another transfusion before leaving.

The following night, he breaks into his superior's office and steals several pharmaceuticals, but he gets caught by Laura Braga, a doctor working at the hospital. When she tries to call security, he hits her over the head with a hammer, killing her. He is then able to sneak the body out of the hospital by putting it in a body bag, which is then placed on a gurney. Boles returns to the medical facility and talks to Andrea about his childhood incident with the nursing home resident. When she tries to tell him that aging is natural and normal, he talks about the Fountain of Youth and notices the water pooling around her. He then apologizes before drugging her with a syringe. Boles then gets a call from Ben, who tells him Eileen started having trouble breathing. He tells him to come directly to his lab for another transfusion, giving him the directions. Once the couple arrives, Boles has Eileen wheeled into a room and leaves both of them. He then approaches Andrea as she regains consciousness and preps her for surgery, ranting about the Aztecs and their understanding of surgery. He is abruptly confronted by an impatient Ben and then the BAU before he can cut her open. At gunpoint, Boles drops his scalpel and is led away, ranting about how he can continue his research in prison.

Modus Operandi

Boles targeted two types of victims for his experiments: young, healthy women and elderly men suffering from one or two degenerative neurological diseases. He would inject an unidentified drug into them and abduct them on the same day as each other. They would then be taken to the abandoned medical facility, where they were gagged, restrained to stretchers, and kept fed and hydrated with IVs. During his experiments on his first set of victims, he drained Cheyenne Pravato of her blood and transfused it to George Henning, who was also given L-DOPA (a drug used to treat Parkinson's disease), injections of Boles' formula, and the extracted DNA of jellyfish, turtles, sea urchins, and scarlet macaw (all animals with extended lifespans), believing it would extend the lifespan of a human. However, Cheyenne was exsanguinated, while George died from the lethal combination of transfusions. Afterwards, Boles cut out a piece of one of George's calf muscles for a tissue sample and then disposed of both bodies in a secluded swamp. He tried to repeat the process with his second set of victims, but Harold McDermott died after receiving his formula. In a rage, Boles beat Harold's body post-mortem and then disposed it at the side of a road. When he incidentally killed Doctor Laura Braga, he bludgeoned her with a hammer.

Profile

The unsub is a male between the ages of 25 and 35 who may have had some medical training and is able to obtain large quantities of controlled pharmaceuticals. He is searching for a cure to degenerative neurological diseases for personal reasons, as he or a loved one could be suffering from such a disease; and/or impersonal reasons, with him playing God and saving people in need, or holding greed for the financial rewards coming from medical breakthroughs. Two divergent methodologies are at work in the unsub: on one hand, he shows logic and reason and uses the scientific method of trial and error; on the other hand, he injected animal DNA into his first male victim and has an irrational and fantastical approach to achieving his goals.

This dichotomy would be present in his personal life; he appears charming and trustworthy, which allows him to capture his victims with little to no difficulty. However, he would also clash with authority figures, and from this, he may have had a conflict with the medical establishment in the past. It is believed his most recent victim is still alive, since he needs his younger victims to provide healthy blood. He will most certainly be looking for a new victim with an illness. His post-mortem violence on Harold McDermott is an indication that he is devolving, which is cause for concern as the violent side of his psyche will become dominant.

Known Victims

  • 2015:
    • December 4: Cheyenne Pravato and George Henning (both abducted and killed two days later):
      • Cheyenne Pravato (exsanguinated)
      • George Henning (suffered from hypertension and Parkinson's disease; unintentionally killed by medical experiments and cut out a piece of one of his calf muscles post-mortem)
    • December 7: Harold McDermott and Andrea Gambrell (both abducted):
      • Harold McDermott (suffered from epilepsy and corticobasal degeneration; unintentionally killed by medical experiments and also beaten post-mortem the next day)
      • Andrea Gambrell (later drugged, attempted to cut her open with a scalpel, and intended to remove her heart; was rescued two days later)
    • December 8:
      • Eileen Kebler (suffered from an unspecified neurological illness; gave a lethal dosage of his formula and died the next day)
      • Doctor Laura Braga (incidental; bludgeoned with a hammer)

Notes

  • Boles is extremely similar to Season Eight serial killer John Nelson. Like Boles, John was a narcissist working in some sort of medical field, and conducted lethal experiments on human test subjects in order to further his research on an outlandish, self-made scientific theory that he believed would cure humans of certain ailments.
  • The initial basis for Boles' case was an article about blood transfusions in mice, which reversed their aging process.[1]
  • According to his employment record, Boles's Social Security number is 974-00-0155.

Appearances

References

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