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"No, she hurt me. Then she ate me!"

Wallace Hines is a psychotic serial-turned-spree killer and serial rapist who appeared in Season Nine of Criminal Minds.

Background

Wallace was one of two twins, the other being named Jesse. Before the two of them turned three years old, Jesse was chosen to be put up for adoption by their mother Carla after she found raising the both of them difficult. When Wallace was in high school, he stalked a fellow student named Heather Clarke after she broke up with him. Her parents eventually filed a restraining order against him after he began smashing her car with a baseball bat. As a result of the incident, Wallace was placed in and out of multiple institutions for at least a decade, and was diagnosed with acute delusional disorder, apparently inherited from his father, a schizophrenic man named Bill Robbins who was cut out of Carla's life (although he still managed to see and partially raise Wallace). During that time, he would be left under the partial care of his aunt, Carla's sister. However, every time Carla sent Wallace away, he would always return to harass Heather more.

At some point in his life, he developed a morbid fascination with the praying mantis, particularly the aspect of the females killing and decapitating the males directly after or sometimes during copulation before eating the heads. As a result, he purchased one as a pet. On July 2013, he moved out of Carla's house and into an apartment, and also received a job as a cook at Wheeler's, a restaurant at a local shopping mall. On September 5, 2013, he learned that Heather, who had grown up to be successful, was about to marry another man. Wallace subsequently snapped, tracked her down, killed her, decapitated her post-mortem, and took her severed head with him. Becoming haunted by recurring hallucinations of Heather as a result, Wallace began killing women who resembled her, fearing that they were out to get him, much like how a female praying mantis would kill a male. He would feed them pieces of Heather's head before killing them.

Season Nine

The Inspiration (Part 1)

After killing two women within three days, Wallace abducts Emma Coleman and takes her to his apartment. He is nearly caught after Corin Todd, a woman who lives downstairs, investigates the noises Emma makes when she begins banging herself on the floor, but Wallace tells her that it is his roommate and a girlfriend having sex. When Corin leaves, he enters the apartment and pulls out a meat cleaver, which he uses to intimidate Emma. Later, Wallace takes her to a forest, where she vomits up a tooth belonging to Heather, which she was force-fed. He then kills her when she yells at him. The following morning, Wallace chats up a female coworker named Mia Rivera, trying to ask her to sit by him at a fountain, but she kindly turns him down, telling him she has a date. Mia then leaves with her boyfriend, while Wallace begins hallucinating Heather's voice talking to him, and he tells her to shut up. The following night, he attacks Mia in her home, force-feeds her with pieces of Heather's head, and then kills her. The next day, Wallace is visited by Carla, who starts asking him questions about Heather's disappearance, which he denies having any involvement in. Then, he hallucinates Carla coughing up a tooth, prompting him to shut the door on her in terror.

Wallace later purchases a snake from the mall and feeds it to his pet praying mantis. Then, he hallucinates Heather mocking him, telling him she loved him and would've left her fiancé for him. This prompts Wallace to attack her projection; the noises attract an annoyed Corin, who tries to tell him to stop. However, he threatens her before shutting the door on her.

Hines Gun

Wallace during the standoff at Wheeler's.

Later, Wallace goes to his workplace, where he is antagonized by his boss Erik Cole and increasingly agitated from serving food to the customers. Finally, he snaps, places several pieces of Heather's head on several foods he is serving, and spies on a number of customers, most of them women. When they all begin to notice that something is wrong with their food, Wallace holds them all, plus his boss, at gunpoint. He begins to hallucinate a taunting Heather being among the customers (even assuming some of their identities) and tries to kill one of them using his meat cleaver as a result, at Heather's urging, but he is confronted by a mall security guard, who orders him to drop the gun. Wallace drops the meat cleaver and fatally shoots the guard before fleeing. By the end of the episode, Wallace is seen at a gas station, about to purchase a drink when he sees a news report about the arrest of a man who is physically identical to him, for the killings. Shocked, Wallace leaves the gas station, just as Hotch cites a quote by Josh Billings, which reveals that it was Jesse who was arrested.

The Inspired (Part 2)

Wallace later drove to his mother's house, hoping to find answers about what he saw in the news report. However, he is suddenly ambushed and knocked out by Jesse. He wakes up tied to a chair in the house of one of the partners of the law firm Jesse works at and is interrogated by him about the murders. After telling him what he did and why he did it, Wallace fakes swallowing a sedative given by Jesse and feigns sleep as he unties his bonds. However, upon realizing that Jesse wants to become like him, Wallace decides to stay in the house and agrees to cooperate as long as he doesn't take any more sedatives or be tied up again. While browsing through the channels, Wallace comes across a news conference featuring Heather's parents, who beg him to turn himself in. He shuts the TV off and begins hallucinating Heather once more, fleeing outside. He encounters a neighbor named Elizabeth Nash, who mistakes him for Jesse, and when she comments that Jesse isn't like his brother, Wallace flees back inside after projecting Heather onto her. When Jesse returns, he tricks Elizabeth into coming into the house, and Wallace joins him in raping and killing her at Jesse's request.

The two then go on the run, and Jesse asks if there is a place where they can meet with Carla; Wallace tells him to go to St. Mary's Church, the place where Jesse was put up for adoption. They meet Carla there, and Wallace asks Carla for money and a car so they can escape. Carla apparently agrees, and hugs Wallace and kisses his forehead, telling him that she loves him so much that she wants to "eat him". When she begins walking away, inferring Jesse to kill Wallace, Jesse instead grabs Carla, holds her at knifepoint with Wallace's meat cleaver, and threatens to kill her, stating that she abandoned him. Utterly devoted to his mother, and unwilling to believe that Carla wanted him to be killed, Wallace picks up his handgun and threatens to shoot Jesse, ignoring his claims. The twins then begin fighting, and Wallace gains the upper hand before murdering Jesse, just as the BAU storm in. Carla tries to pass him off as Jesse, but Wallace's father Bill is brought to the scene and identifies him as Wallace after seeing his hand tremble (a technique that Bill taught Wallace to counter his hallucinations). Wallace is taken into custody, crying out for his mother as she shakes her head in disappointment.

Modus Operandi

"Dinner time."

Wallace initially targeted blonde Caucasian women, all of whom resembled Heather (his first victim), were single, lived low-risk lifestyles, and aged in their late 20s, but when he began to devolve, he targeted other women as well, seeing all of them as potential threats. In the case of his fourth victim, Emma Coleman, he targeted her because she was married (as a reference to how Heather was to be married) and threw away her wedding ring after killing her. He would abduct them from random locations, take them over to his apartment (although he stopped after the murder of Emma Coleman), and tie them up to a chair. His signature was torturing them by force-feeding them pieces of Heather's head (with the sole exception of Elizabeth Nash, who was force-fed her own severed finger since Wallace left the head behind at Wheeler's). He would then mutilate their genitalia with a meat cleaver (although he stopped after the murder of Mia Rivera), and also rape them repeatedly.

After a while, Wallace would take his victims to local parks at night, where he would shoot them once in the heart with a 9mm Beretta 92FS pistol. Then, he would pose their bodies in a way that they resemble a female praying mantis, which he accomplished by putting the victims in a kneeling position, tying their hands together with zip-ties, and keeping the bodies held up with pieces of wood. It is unknown as to how he killed Heather, since her body was never found, but after he did kill her, he decapitated her post-mortem and used the head in his later crimes.

Profile

"Get away from me!"

The unsub is a white male aged in his early 30s. Initially, he targeted white, blonde women in their 20s, but he is expanding his victim pool. His M.O. is to rape his victims and then fatally shoot them in the heart. At the disposal sites, he poses them as if they are praying, possibly an attempt to convey a message that only he understands. Before he kills his victims, he forces the women to consume human flesh, known as projected cannibalism. Typically, cannibalism is a willing choice, but the act of forcing someone to engage in it is a form of torture, which means the unsub is sadistic and likely delusional. The emergence of those delusions would have caused difficulties in his relationships and jobs in the past. He may have been briefly institutionalized or incarcerated as a result. He sees himself as an enforcer and is punishing his victims for their sins; he also may have an overly developed sense of morality and therefore feels the need to superimpose this on others. He prefers to shoot his victims in the heart, suggesting that he has been hurt by somebody who is clearly the center of his rage. He is devolving rapidly and could resort to even more extreme measures to punish his victims.

It was later realized that based on the rape, force-feeding of pieces of a human head, and superimposing prayer position of the victims, the unsub is obsessed with the praying mantis. The female mantis engages in sexual cannibalism, in which she will decapitate her mate by biting its head off once copulation is complete; this is what the unsub feels has happened to him and also explains why he shoots his victims in the heart. The center of the unsub's anger is a woman who hurt him terribly, and she is all he can think about. He sees his victims as female praying mantises out to destroy him, so before they can get to him, he rapes them and forces them to engage in cannibalism, thus taking away their control of the situation by essentially walking them through the mating behavior of a captive praying mantis, but entirely on his terms. He even actually mirrors the decapitation of the insect by forcing the victims to eat pieces of a human head, very likely that of the woman the unsub's rage is centered around. At this point, he believes that all women are his enemies and they are out to get him.

Real-Life Comparison

Wallace may have been based on Ed Gein, a.k.a. "The Plainfield Ghoul". Both were mentally ill, disorganized killers who targeted women who resembled the women they were obsessed with, had mothers who were highly involved in their lives, killed their victims by shooting them, decapitated at least one of their victims post-mortem, had sexual components in their crimes (Wallace raped his victims; Gein performed sexual acts with his victim's corpses), and would be institutionalized after they were arrested for their crimes. Wallace killing his brother is also an allusion to the possibility that Gein killed his own brother.

Wallace also has some similarities to Ted Bundy. Both were serial killers who devolved, were rejected by their ex-girlfriends and later targeted women who resembled them, would abduct and rape their victims, and would perform post-mortem rituals on their victims.

The scene of Wallace placing pieces of Heather's head into restaurant meals that are served to unknowing customers seems to be an allusion to rumors that serial killers Fritz Haarmann, Robert Pickton, Karl Denke, Carl Großmann, Zhang Yongming, and Joe Metheny did the same thing.

Known Victims

  • 2013:
    • September 5-11 (disappeared): Heather Clarke (his ex-girlfriend; killed by unknown causes and decapitated post-mortem; her body was not found)
    • September 21: Sarah Beck
    • September 24: Jill Elks
    • September 25: Emma Coleman
    • September 26-27: Mia Rivera (also choked on Heather's tongue)
    • September 27: The Wheeler's restaurant standoff and shooting:
      • Held the following hostage:
        • Erik Cole (his boss)
        • Several unnamed patrons (threatened several with a meat cleaver and attempted to kill one of them)
        • An unnamed waitress
      • Unnamed mall security guard (incidental; shot in the torso)
    • September 29:
      • Elizabeth Nash (killed together with Jesse; cut off her own finger and force-fed it to her)
      • Jesse Gentry (his twin brother; shot in the chest during a struggle for his handgun)

Notes

  • Wallace is somewhat similar to Season Three criminal Nathan Tubbs. Both were spree killers who operated in Arizona, targeted women as surrogates for women who rejected them (for Wallace, it was his high school girlfriend; for Nathan, it was his wife), killed their victims by using weapons on their hearts, posed their victims post-mortem, and their crimes were the basis of copycat murders.
  • Wallace and Jesse are actually the second pair of identical twins in the history of the show. The first pair are Patricia and Cheryl Davenport, both of whom appeared in the Season One episode Broken Mirror; like Wallace and Jesse, they were both played by the same actress, Elisabeth Harnois.

Appearances

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