Ryan Phillips

“	You don't know, do you... Who I am? But I know who you are...Lindsey. And now you know who I am...and what I can do...what I will do...if you don't shut up!	”
	— Phillips

Ryan Phillips was a budding serial killer, thrill killer, and the leader of a trio of abductors who appeared in Season Three of Criminal Minds.

Background

At an unspecified point, Ryan was kicked out of his Chula Vista, California, high school after being caught using drugs on the premises. This prompted him to become a petty criminal. Years after being expelled, Ryan met and befriended two seniors from Mayford High School, named Douglas Silverman and Taylor Coleman. They soon became his partners-in-crime. On January 5, 2008, Ryan, Doug, and Taylor approached a girl named Katie Owen, who had a crush on Ryan, outside a theater and offered her a ride, which she accepted, with her friend, Lindsey Vaughn, reluctantly tagging along. Taking both of the girls to an abandoned house on the outskirts of town, Ryan and his friends sadistically tortured Katie for hours, with the torture culminating in Ryan strangling her to death with a belt the next day. Katie's death caused Doug to panic and want out; when he tried to escape, Ryan stabbed him several times with a knife. Not knowing his attack on Doug was fatal, the boy having managed to run some distance and hide before finally succumbing to his injuries, Ryan believed he was going to the police, dumped Katie's body in a nearby construction site, destroying her face and hands to delay the identification process, and took Lindsey to the closed Mayford High School.

3rd Life

Trying to think of what to do next, Ryan decides to keep Lindsey alive for use as a bargaining chip and sends Taylor home to get his father's gun. When Taylor fails to return after some time, having been hospitalized by Lindsey's father, Jack, a former hitman who has discovered the identity of his daughter's abductors, Ryan begins advancing on Lindsey, intent on raping her, when he is bashed with a shotgun by the recently arrived Jack. Lying on the floor, Ryan begs for his life while Lindsey begins yelling at her father to kill her captor for what he did to Katie. Arriving at the scene, Reid begins trying to talk Jack down, stating, "Jack, your life has been about violence, and, if you do this, Lindsey's will be, too. Do you want that? When does it end, Jack?" After listening to the agent, Jack simply says "tomorrow" before blowing Ryan's head off. Due to being in the Witness Protection Program when he killed Ryan, Jack is able to get away with murdering Ryan. Ryan being killed in front of him also had an adverse of affect on Reid, causing his cravings for dilaudid to return over time.

Profile

"I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. It's something I've been meaning to do all along. See, I wasn't really that into katie. You. There's something special about you."

The dominant member of the unsubs is a man aged in his early to mid-twenties who has a flagrant disregard for the rules and a defiant attitude towards figures of authority. As such, the unsub likely flunked out of or was expelled from school and had a record of petty crimes, such as theft. The girls being taken from a well lit, alley-less, and crowded area also implicates they were acquainted with their abductor and went with him willingly.

Modus Operandi

Ryan abducted Katie and Lindsey at night from a theater with the help of Taylor and Doug and took them to an abandoned house. He killed Katie in the house by strangling her with a belt (torturing her for hours via beating and cutting beforehand) and killed Doug by stabbing him three times in the chest with a knife. In an attempt to delay the BAU and police's investigation, Ryan mangled Katie's hands and face post-mortem to make her harder to identify and connect to him. It is also safe to speculate that he, along with Taylor and Doug, raped Katie as well, as he later tried to rape Lindsey, and may have done so beforehand as well. Ryan also tied Lindsey up and held her captive in the school washroom, with Taylor's help.

Known Victims

2008:
- January 5: Katie Owen and "Lindsey" Vaughn (both abducted):
  - Katie Owen (tortured and raped with Douglas and Taylor, then fatally strangled with a belt the next day; her hands and face were mangled post-mortem)
  - "Lindsey" Vaughn (presumably raped; later attempted to rape her again, then kill; was rescued two days later)
- January 6: Douglas Silverman (accomplice; stabbed three times in the chest)

Appearances

Season Three
- "3rd Life"
- "Elephant's Memory" (mentioned)
Season Twelve
- "Unforgettable" (flashbacks)
- "Green Light" (flashbacks)
- "Red Light" (mentioned)