"Shoot him! I don't want to! I said shoot him, you weakling. He's a Satan! He didn't do anything. I won't tell you another time, boy. ...Shoot him!"
Tobias Hankel was a delusional serial killer, hacker, and abductor who appeared in Season Two of Criminal Minds.
Background
Tobias originally had a happy upbringing and was a straight-A student. In 1984, his mother left his father, Charles, for another man, he became abusive towards Tobias, quoting biblical scripture and using the Bible as a punishment guide. On one occasion, Charles branded a cross on Tobias's forehead with a red-hot poker when Tobias was ten. On another occasion, he "baptized" Tobias by nearly drowning him in the bathtub. He would also take Tobias hunting against his will. Later, Charles became very painfully ill, eventually ordering Tobias to kill him in order to put an end to it. Tobias argued "Thou shalt not kill" which Charles countered with "Honor thy father". In the end, Tobias killed him on August 2006 and placed the body in a large walk-in freezer under their house. While his father had been around, Tobias had been addicted to the drug dilaudid and would cut it with psychadelic drugs. He later went to Narcotics Anonymous and, with the help of his sponsor, became clean. This substance abuse, combined with the moral dilemma of killing his father, caused Tobias' mind to fracture and split into three different personalities: his own, his father's as a way to keep him alive, and that of Raphael, a ruthless angel hellbent on doing God's will. At some point, he got a job as a tech support and would use his job to gain entry to the webcams of potential victims.
Season Two
The Big Game (Part 1)
Tobias is first seen at the house of a couple whom "Raphael" chose to kill because of their excessive wealth. While waiting for another couple present inside the house to leave, the Tobias and Raphael personalities argue over their right to commit murder, but the Tobias personality immediately submits to Raphael's influence. When the second couple leaves, Tobias gains entry to the house just as the couple goes upstairs. About to follow them, the Tobias personality takes dominant control as he calls 911, telling the 911 operator of the couple's impending doom in a panicked tone before the Raphael personality takes control and Tobias rushes upstairs to murder the couple, recording the entire scene. The couple's death leads to the summoning of the BAU. Tobias is later seen looking through the webcam of the aforementioned couple, as Morgan looks through the other end back at the crime scene, having deduced that the unsub was watching. Later, Tobias hacks into a computer Reid was using, sending a message: "THE ARMIES OF SATAN SHALL NOT PREVAIL".
When reviews of the posted video of the couple's grisly death aren't what he originally expected, Tobias later enters the home of a woman "Raphael" chose to kill because they witnessed her committing adultery via her webcam. Calling 911 as the Raphael personality, Tobias calmly tells the 911 operator of what he is about to do and then goes upstairs. The BAU arrives to find the man the woman was cheating with dead and the woman missing. Later, the BAU finds a posted video of the woman held captive, and they watch helplessly as she is torn apart by three dogs. One of the local policemen recognizes the dogs from another case in which a man, Tobias, was a witness. JJ and Reid go to Tobias's to question him, but he doesn't supply much important information to them and thwarts Reid's entry inside his house in a suspicious manner. When Reid spots Tobias's webcams, he concludes that he is the unsub and he and JJ split up when Tobias flees. JJ goes inside the nearby barn house to find herself standing on the remains of the adulterous woman and facing the dogs that killed her. Meanwhile, Reid, in the middle of a cornfield, hears Tobias arguing with his father's personality before slapping himself, thinking his father slapped him. Upon hearing JJ's screams, Reid attempts to run out of the cornfield, only to be overpowered by Tobias and held at gunpoint. Reid watches in shock as the Tobias and Charles personalities argue again.
Revelations (Part 2)
The rest of the BAU team arrives at the Hankel farm to find a traumatized JJ in the barn beside the corpses of the three dogs, all of which she shot, but no sign of Tobias or Reid. They set up a base at the farm to begin investigating the bank of computers, realizing they are the source of the live feeds showing the murders. They also realize that Tobias has taken Reid, but they don't know where. Tobias is later seen driving in his pickup truck with an unconscious Reid on the floorboards, reminiscing of a time in which his father took him hunting against his own will. He then deliberately stops and asks for directions, dropping a huge clue he knows the police will pick up on. He then drives in the opposite direction, effectively losing anyone who might follow. When Reid regains consciousness, it is evening and he is sitting in a wooden chair in the middle of a rustic cabin (later revealed to be near a cemetery). His wrists are handcuffed in front with a leather strap between them binding him to the chair. He is confronted by Tobias, who has been waiting for him to wake up. After introducing himself as the Raphael personality, he immediately shows him one bullet, calling it "God's Will." Tobias places the bullet in his revolver and spins the chamber, simulating Russian Roulette, and aims it at Reid and pulls the trigger, only to reveal it is a blank.
It is daylight when Tobias returns to the cabin with firewood gathered from the grounds. Reid realizes from one abusive exchange that he is not Raphael or Tobias, and his attempts to placate him fail when Reid is accused of lying. Reid denies this, saying he is neither a liar nor a sinner. Angered, Tobias strips Reid of his shoes and one sock, and tortures Reid by beating the sole of his foot to extract a confession of sin from him. This is the first step towards Tobias's justification of murder: once the sin is confessed, the sinner can be executed. Reid's attempts to stave off the inevitable by quoting Bible scripture don't succeed, receiving only the reply "The Devil knows how to read, too". When the Tobias personality takes control, he acts much kinder to Reid and implies that he intends to feed him with a sheep he had slaughtered. He gently answers Reid's questions and ultimately notices Reid's bruised foot from his father's abuse. Taking pity on him, Tobias tries to ease Reid's pain by injecting him with dilaudid. The drug causes Reid to have flashbacks of his childhood. However, the Charles personality briefly takes over and taunts the dilaudid-induced Reid, saying that no one was going to find him.
Later, the Charles personality forces Reid to choose someone for Raphael to murder and video tapes the session to the BAU in order for them to save the individual that Reid also has to choose to save. Tobias as the Raphael personality, kills another couple in their home, as the husband is a defense attorney who defends criminals, then returns to the cabin. As the Charles personality, he is angered when Gideon and Garcia create a virus for Tobias's videos so that no one will watch them. Blaming Reid for halting his 'message', he sets up a camera and beats Reid, streaming the video feed to the rest of the BAU team back at Tobias's home. Tobias as the Charles' personality then shoves Reid, still tied to the chair, to the floor. As a result, Reid begins convulsing and is unable to breathe. The Tobias personality takes over again and revives Reid. He (as Raphael this time) compares the BAU team to the seven Archangels of the book of Revelations in the Bible. He orders Reid to choose one of his teammates to die, simulating Russian Roulette again. Reid chooses Hotch, calling him a classic narcissist, and misquotes a verse from Genesis in order to send the BAU a clue to his whereabouts. The Raphael personality (apparently not noticing the error) raises the gun above Reid's head and fires the bullet.
After Tobias injects Reid with more dilaudid, he has a flashback about him sending his mother to the asylum, causing him to unconsciously repeat the dialogue spoken. Tobias, as Charles, overhears and tells him that he has dishonored his mother and broken one of the Commandments. Tobias then drags Reid to a cemetery and forces him to dig his own grave, but is distracted by the arrival of the BAU, who had realized where Tobias was keeping Reid due to the aforementioned tip-off. Realizing that they were there, Reid pretended to be too weak to keep digging the grave, causing Tobias to become frustrated, causing the Charles personality to take over again and snatch the shovel off of Reid, calling him weak. Then, when Charles was distracted, Reid grabbed his gun. The Charles personality, who apparently didn't know that the three personalities were not separate people, told Reid that he could not shoot all of them because there was only one bullet in the gun he was holding (it is also possible that he knew that the bullet was in a random chamber). However, Reid, knowing the error of that statement, pulled the trigger. The personalities of Charles and Raphael were "killed" instantly, while Tobias was still alive, thanking Reid for killing them and hoping that he would be reunited with his dead mother. Reid apologizes to him for what had happened seconds before Tobias dies. Just before leaving, Reid takes with him Tobias's dilaudid.
Two years later, a memory of Tobias inspired Reid to help an unsub who too had multiple personalities. Another two years after that, he was mentioned by Reid as they investigated an unsub obsessed with the afterlife.
Modus Operandi
The Raphael personality would target people he perceived as violating the laws of God, having spied on them in advance using the webcams of their computers, which he had gotten access to either through his job as tech support or by hacking into them. Striking at night, he would discreetly enter their homes, wearing latex gloves so as to not leave behind any prints, call 911 to tell them about the murders and use some biblical quote to explain what the victims were "guilty" of, and kill them by quickly slashing their major aortas, not unlike the way hunters kill their game. Having had the webcams record the killings, he would then post the videos online as warnings (though most viewers came to think of them as "cool", mistaking them for trailers for new horror films).
After killing his victims, he would leave pages from religious books, such as Revelations and Isaiah, with a highlighted passage relating to the perceived sins committed by the victims. When he killed Helen Douglas, he instead fed her to three dogs as a reference to the scriptural account of Jezebel, "The Whore of Baal".[1] The Raphael and Charles personalities then later tortured Reid through various methods, while the Tobias personality would drug him with dilaudid out of remorse. After killing his father, Tobias left his body inside a walk-in freezer, making him the only victim whose body was hidden.
Profile
The unsub is a white male in his late 20s to early 30s whose killings are clinically efficient, having the earmarks of the slaughtering or sacrifice of an animal. One or two of the unsub's personalities believe they are killing in the name of God, suggesting a psychopathy that should display extreme levels of disorganization, and yet, there are forensic counter-measures and somebody in control enough to do complicated computer work. One personality is organized, while another is disorganized. What is strange is that the one that is to be considered to be most in control is the one that cannot seem to prevent the other one from killing. Usually, the frenzied personality takes direction from the cooler head. While in captivity, Reid deduced the unsub to be a sadist suffering from some sort of a psychotic break.
Known Victims
- August 2006: Charles Hankel (his father; killed as an act of mercy and under his orders)
- 2007:
- February 4: Dennis and Lacy Kyle (both killed for their excessive wealth)
- February 5:
- Unnamed handyman (throat was slashed; killed for helping to commit adultery with Helen Douglas)
- Helen Douglas (abducted and later ripped apart by dogs in reference to Jezebel, the Whore of Baal)
- Spencer Reid (abducted, tortured excessively, drugged, and attempted to bury alive for sending his mother away; was rescued two days later)
- February 6: Pam and Mike Hayes (killed for defending accused criminals)
- February 7: Aaron Hotchner (intended to kill for his alleged narcissism)
Quotes
Note: Whenever Tobias speaks as either Charles Hankel or Raphael, he will be labeled as either to prevent confusion.
911 Operator: 911, what's your emergency?
Tobias: (quietly) I'm at 1527 Chestnut Drive.
911 Operator: I know where you're calling from, sir, what's your emergency?
Tobias: Th-they are too greedy. They have too much.
911 Operator: Too much what?
Tobias: Stuff, p-possessions, things they don't need.
911 Operator: Are you calling because these people have too much stuff, sir?
Tobias: No, I'm calling because Raphael-
Raphael: That's enough.
Tobias: I don't want to!
Raphael: (into the phone) He's calling because Raphael is going to kill the sinners that live here.
911 Operator: I'm sorry, did you say somebody is killing someone?
(No one responds)
911 Operator: Sir? Hello? Hello?
(Lacy Kyle screams)
911 Operator: 911, what's your emergency?
Raphael: Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and then commit adultery with her, into great tremulation.
911 Operator: Excuse me?
Raphael: 222 Smith Road. Raphael must teach more sinners the way of the Lord.
(Raphael hangs up, unplugs a nearby laptop, and takes it upstairs)
Tobias: (to Reid) I could've stopped them by myself.
Reid: Okay, okay.
Tobias: I tried to warn everyone.
Reid: Just relax, Mr. Hankel, all right?
Hankel: Shoot him!
Tobias: I don't want to!
Hankel: I said 'shoot him', you weakling. He's a Satan!
Tobias: (struggles to not cry) He didn't do anything.
Hankel: I won't tell you another time, boy. Shoot him!
Raphael (showing a single bullet to Reid) You know what this is? It's God's will.
(Raphael loads a revolver with the bullet, spins the cylinder, and points the gun at Reid's head)
Reid: You don't have to do this.
Raphael: I'm just doing this in the name of God.
(Raphael pulls the trigger and the revolver fires a blank shot)
(Reid watches as Hankel enters the house, carrying several logs)
Hankel: What are you staring at, boy?
Reid: You're not Raphael.
Hankel: Do I look like Raphael?
Reid: The Lord spake unto Moses saying 'speak unto all of the congregation of The Children of the Lord and say unto them, you shall be holy for I the Lord your God am holy.'
Tobias: You know Leviticus?
Reid: Every word of the Bible. I can recite it-
Hankel: The Devil knows how to read too.
Reid: I'm not a Devil. I'm not a Devil, I'm a man, my name is Spencer Reid. I have a mother and I have a father just like you and they taught me the Bible. Let me, let me just recite the Bible.
Hankel: It's time to confess, Spencer Reid. (whips Reid's foot repeatedly)
(Hankel watches as a dilaudid-induced Reid mumbles while unconscious)
Reid: I'm not weak...
Hankel: I don't give a damn whether you're weak or strong. You mumble, boy. Ain't anyone gonna hear you where you are.
(Hankel begins roaring out loud)
Hankel (to Reid) This ends now. Confess your sins.
(Reid doesn't respond, causing Hankel to punch Reid)
Hankel: Confess!
Reid: I haven't done anything!
(Hankel punches Reid again)
Reid: Tobias, help me!
Hankel: He can't help you, he's weak. Confess!
Reid: Tobias-
(Hankel punches Reid again)
Hankel: Confess your sins.
Reid: No.
(Hankel tips Reid over in his chair and he goes into a seizure)
Hankel: That's the Devil vacating your body.
(Reid grabs Hankel's gun as he is distracted by the distant BAU)
Hankel: (pointing his knife at Reid) Only one bullet in that gun, boy.
(Hankel charges forward, forcing Reid to shoot him)
Tobias: (dying, to Reid) You killed him.
Reid: (quietly) Tobias...
Tobias: You think I'll get to see my mom again?
Reid: I'm sorry.
(Tobias dies)
Notes
- Tobias's website, www.tobitnet.com, is actually a reference to the Book of Tobit (known as the Book of Tobias in Hebrew) of the Catholic and Orthodox Bible, where Raphael is sent from God as a human to heal Tobit, the father of Tobias.
Appearances
- Season Two
- "The Big Game"
- "Revelations"
- "Fear and Loathing" (flashbacks)
- "Jones" (flashbacks)
- "Ashes and Dust" (indirectly referenced)
- "No Way Out II: The Evilution of Frank" (indirectly referenced)
- Season Three
- "Elephant's Memory" (indirectly referenced)
- Season Four
- "Conflicted" (flashbacks)
- Season Seven
- "Epilogue" (mentioned)
- Season Eight
- "Broken" (referenced)