Alan and Judith Anderson are a couple responsible for several murders together in the Season Nine episode of Criminal Minds, "Mr. & Mrs. Anderson".
Background[]
See sections on the Alan and Judith Anderson articles
Mr. & Mrs. Anderson[]
In the beginning of the episode, 48 hours after killing their first mutual victim in four years, Alan picks up a hitchhiker from California named Maya Taylor, at a gas station and takes her to a motel where he and Judith are staying. There, Judith welcomes her inside the room and has her take a shower; after she finishes, Alan kills her before having sex with Judith. The two then visit Kathleen Benedict, their marriage counselor, the next day. They tell her that they have found a new process that has caused a spark to re-emerge in their relationship, which pleases Benedict, who then asks if they plan on committing to this process again, to which they respond, "Absolutely." The following night, they visit Benedict again, and she proposes that Alan give more attention to Judith's needs. They return home and dance, during which Alan allows Judith to choose a victim. Later that night, Judith brings a male prostitute named James Crayton to another motel, gets him to take a shower, and then, Alan ambushes him from behind when he emerges from the bathroom. James puts up a fight, but eventually dies, causing a satisfied Judith to remind Alan that she "told [him] she'd pick a good one". The next morning, the two visit Benedict once again and proclaim their wish to make their process part of their regular routine again. The next night, Alan returns home and presents Judith with a necklace, surprising her. He then watches TV before receiving a text that states he is approved for another job as a tow-truck driver, prompting him to leave; he promises Judith that he will return home in time to take her to the movies.
However, Alan fails to show up, and Judith leaves the house, sending him a voice message. Seconds later, she is arrested by the BAU, who have discerned her as one of the unsubs after interrogating a survivor. Blake later interrogates Judith, who requests to make a phone call to Alan, but Blake denies the request and asks about Alan's sexually-transmitted disease, to which she replies that she knew about it and that they no longer kept secrets. Blake then shows her photos of women that Alan killed alone, but she continues to protect him and asks for a lawyer. Meanwhile, Alan hears Judith's voice message, which also includes shouts from the BAU as they arrested her; he promptly decides to go after Benedict. Approaching her at her office, he says that he and Judith are going on vacation and asks for a session between them only before complimenting her hair. Once inside Benedict's office, she receives a phone call from Reid, who warns her of Alan as he is wanted for several murders. However, Alan, is able to discern the nature of the call, cuts the phone line and attacks her, but she stabs him in the arm with a letter opener and tries to escape, but is caught again by Alan. However, before he can rape her, the BAU arrest him. Later, Blake tells Judith that Alan tried to rape and kill Benedict before promising her that if she is cooperative, she will move to get her sentence reduced. When Judith refuses to take up the offer, Blake tells her that the necklace Alan gave her earlier was stolen from a victim that he raped and killed alone the same night he gave it to her. This enrages her, and when she sees him as he is being taken into the police station, she angrily slaps him, throws the necklace in his face, and declares that she hates him. She is stopped from further attacks by BAU before they are both taken away.
Modus Operandi[]
Alan and Judith usually targeted young Caucasian female hitchhikers or drifters for their killings, with the sole exception of their only male victim, James Crayton, who was a male prostitute hired by Judith instead of being chosen by Alan. Alan would find their victims at rest stops or gas stations, offer them a ride, and take them to a motel he and Judith were staying at. They would then lure the victims inside their motel room and have them take a shower. Once the victims finished their showers, Alan would then ambush them from behind and strangle them with a belt as Judith watched. He would allow them to breathe intermittently before finally killing them. Afterwards, the two of them would have sex. Before dumping the bodies of the women off onto the sides of highways, Judith would groom their nails and also wrap the bodies in a shower curtain from the motels.
Profile[]
The unsubs are a Caucasian married couple in their 50s who have been killing since 1994. The man is a sexual sadist, while the woman is a scopophiliac (a Greek word for "love of looking"), which means that she gains a sexual release from watching her husband kill. This couple's homicidal tendencies most likely surfaced once they met. It is possible that the use of a shower curtain is a sign of remorse on the part of the female unsub. Most of the victims were females until the murder of a male prostitute, so it is possible that the change in victimology could be the husband's way of subjugating his own needs to his wife's happiness, but a sexual sadist doesn't typically do so. He may have committed crimes on the side that have gotten him arrested, and without his female partner's influence, the male partner's M.O. should be presented differently. Now that the wife has gotten a taste of that control, she will crave that feeling again, and if the husband sublimated his needs for the last murder, his desire to fulfill his own will be what is driving him now.
Real-Life Comparisons[]
The Andersons seem similar to Ray and Faye Copeland - Both were elderly teams dominated by a male serial killer who targeted hitchhikers and drifters.
They are also similar to Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka and were even compared to them in the episode - Both teams consisted of serial killers and rapists in which the male was dominant, killed women by strangling them, and committed crimes without their wives (both being serial rapists).
Mutual Victims[]
- Dates further unspecified:
- 1994: Cheryl Donnellon
- 1995: Unnamed woman
- 1997:
- Unnamed woman
- Unnamed woman
- 1998: Unnamed woman
- 2000: Unnamed woman
- 2001: Unnamed woman
- 2006: Unnamed woman
- 2009: Unnamed woman
- 2010: Unnamed woman
- 2014:
- February 9: Tatiana
- February 11: Maya Taylor
- February 12: James Cantor (was picked by Judith instead of Alan)
Notes[]
- The Andersons share a similarity with Raymond Donovan and Sydney Manning ("The Thirteenth Step") - Both were married couples who murdered dozens of victims together purely for the thrill of it and then would have sex afterwards. Also, one of the members killed at least one victim alone, which would enrage the other once he or she found out about it.