8 Criminal Minds Unsubs That Made Our Skin Crawl (Voit Didn’t Even Make The List)
Those who can do the worst without remorse seem inhuman. So, Criminal Minds profilers (including Spencer Reid, played by Matthew Gray Gubler) try to burrow into their minds. They attempt to slip into their skins in order to catch them before they kill again. Criminal Minds has been on the air since 2005, and the twisted killers featured below are the worst of the worst.
Right now, the revival Criminal Minds: Evolution is focusing on Elias Voit – a serial killer that everyone should fear. However, he’s not on this list of the worst Criminal Minds unsubs. These picks are from the original series that started it all.
8.Dr. Stanley Howard
Michael O’Keefe
Stanley is insane in such a brutal and disheartening way. He’s intensely sadistic – a man who poses as a helper. When Ted Bundy hunted for victims, he’d wear a fake cast to appear vulnerable. He’d ask young women for help, and the nicer ones would agree – all died but one, who managed to escape.
In Stanley’s case, he flips the script, pretending that he’s going to help his future victims.
The worst fears they have, he exploits. Most people don’t revel in the pain of others. However, psychopaths are emotionally stunted. Their hollow centers make it impossible for them to feel love – guilt is as alien as joy. So, they fill up the empty spaces with sick games. In Criminal Minds season 3, episode 3, Stanley shows ruthlessness that’s truly appalling.
Michael O’Keefe plays the doctor, who’s a psychiatrist. He uses his education to find the most needy and frightened people and prey on them. He knows the signs – he knows how to hurt them more than they’ve ever been hurt before. They trust him, seeing him as a potential healer in their lives. And then he shows them what horror really means.
The doctor kills his own patients – the ones who came to him in distress and confided in him, believing his office was a safe space.
His misdeeds were featured in an episode called “Scared to Death.” In Portland, he tortured and killed victims with specific anxiety disorders, and the crimes weren’t sexual. This sort of ice-cold approach to terrifying and murdering others makes him particularly repugnant and scary.
7.John Curtis
Mark Hamill
Is it jarring to see Star Wars‘ Luke Skywalker in a serial killer guise, really leaning into the dark side? Sure, and that’s probably exactly why he was cast. Was Mark convincing in this role? Yes, he actually was. He showed range that might surprise some people who haven’t tuned into his Criminal Minds episodes.
Mark’s ability to sink into a scary role is the reason why he’s one of the worst villains ever featured on the series. This unsub is seriously creepy.
Imagine being poisoned with a glass of wine out on the street after being kidnapped. That’s the kind of punishment that The Replicator doles out. Such is the fearsome menace of John, who has killed people in so many diabolical ways. He will stalk, hack, and murder. He will taunt his enemies while he does it.
6.Benjamin Cyrus
Luke Perry
He played a character reminiscent of cult leader David Koresh, who ended up in a deadly standoff with the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) after barricading himself in a compound with his devotees. On that terrible day, four ATF agents lost their lives, as well as 76 Branch Davidians.
What did Benjamin do? Well, he created a situation where he controlled the minds of followers, just like David did. The Criminal Minds character rationalized his evil the way that real-life psychopaths always do.
In their view, people who are gullible enough to believe in them deserve what they get. It’s a dog-eat-dog mentality that has led to untold suffering on Criminal Minds, and out in the world. He said, “No one had to follow. God could have stopped me.”
His past is checkered, possibly leading him to store up rage. He used to be part of a Libertarian commune, La Plata, but he was exiled due to allegations that he molested children. So, he went his own way, but he eventually returned. He re-branded the community as the Separatarian Sect.
He continued to abuse underage girls, marrying one who was only 15 years old. Then, he planned an event that calls to mind the mass suicide that real-life cult leader Jim Jones planned, where he coerced Peoples Temple followers into drinking poisoned Kool-Aid.
The compound was filled with bombs, and his brainwashed young wife decided to defy ATF agents by detonating them, killing many people who remained, including some children.
5.Cat Adams
Aubrey Plaza
The sultry brunette Aubrey Plaza played a real psycho, Cat Adams, on Criminal Minds. Her nicknames on the show are “Miss.45” and “The Black Widow Killer.” She appeared in seasons 11, 12 and 15. As her returning installments prove, she really delivered the mayhem onscreen. Producers wanted to offer viewers more of Cat’s evil manipulations.
Cat didn’t operate on her own, like some serial killers do. She was aligned with a gang and her crimes were committed in the USA and abroad. In season 12, she had a specific mission.
To bring down the profiler, Spencer, whose knack for understanding predators like her is extremely impressive.
She tries to con the astute Criminal Minds agent Spencer Reid from day one, meeting him under a ruse – she pretends she wants to become his client. This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of her prolific lying.
To get what she wants, Cat will sink to any depths, and since she’s female, while a lot of ubsubs on Criminal Minds are male, she really stands out.
Cat had an extraordinarily high “kill count” on the series, murdering at least 204 people. Two of her victims were killed by proxy, while another couple of murder attempts were doomed to fail. Thousands of murder by proxy attempts were also unsuccessful.
4.The Reaper
C. Thomas Howell
During season 4, C. Thomas Howell, who appeared in 80s cult classics like The Outsiders, appeared as George Foyet, who committed spree and serial murders. After an episode, ‘Omnivore,” he reappeared in an array of seasons (5, 9, and season 15). Overall, he was a part of six Criminal Minds episodes.
This bloodthirsty killer had two nicknames – “The Reaper” and “The Boston Reaper.” Over the course of his Criminal Minds run, he committed a range of crimes, including mass murder. He seemed to resent other human beings’ relationships, as he often attacked couples who were spending time together in their vehicles.
Sometimes, killers feel a sense of power when they’re taking lives. In those moments, they’re in control of everything. However, the rush they feel doesn’t last, pushing them to kill again. This is why they become serial killers. Pressure builds in their lives, and the desire to kill again becomes too strong to resist.
In George’s case, the rushes he felt after murdering people became less intense over time. He wasn’t getting the same feeling of power he did at the start. Often, this makes serial killers escalate – their crimes become sicker, probably because they’re chasing the feeling they had at the start.
Killing wasn’t all that George was addicted to – he also took medications that strongly influenced his mood, including Oxycontin, which is also known as “hillbilly heroin.” The desire for fame seemed to be something that motivated The Reaper. His kill count was 20.
3.Rhett Walden
Robert Knepper
Robert Knepper’s a master when it comes to portraying villains, and he worked his usual black magic while appearing on Criminal Minds. The seasoned actor, who went on to appear in Twin Peaks: The Return, rose to fame as “T-Bag” on Prison Break.
On that diverting series, he camped it up like nobody’s business, really glorying in his evil. He’s definitely one of the great “baddie” character actors.
What could be scarier than a woman-hating maniac who abducts females and then cuts their lips off? As Rhett Walden, Robert really went to the dark side, showing a deranged mindset that was, even within the context of such a dark show, disturbing. Criminal Minds activates the deepest fears in people.
Women often feel unsafe in society, and men like this are part of the reason why. They’re the reason why women feel edgy out on dark and lonely streets at night. People like this are always out there, waiting to hurt women. So, this character’s actions have a lot of resonance, and not in a good way.
Like many woman-hating men, Rhett had a bad experience with his mother. He then took out his rage and bitterness on innocent females. His tactics were scary, to say the least – he’d incapacitate the women, using chloroform to knock them out. Then, he’d abduct them and imprison them. He once suffocated a woman.
He appeared in the episode, “Reflections of Desire,” in season 6, episode 8, which aired in 2010.
2.Ben “Cy” Bradstone
Andy Milder
Ben “Cy” Bradstone, played by Andy Milder, is a parent’s worst nightmare. This Criminal Minds unsub brags about what he’s going to do a person’s daughter, really putting the fear of God into them. It’s classic psychopathic mind games – these types instill fear before they attack, just to weaken their victims and the people who care about them.
While taunting a man about his daughter’s fate, as discussed above, Ben goes one step further, referencing something awful that he did to the person’s wife, which, Ben explains, was all videotaped.
Yes, he’s a sicko who feeds on the suffering that he inflicts. However, a traumatic birth may be the reason why he became so diabolical. Ben didn’t get enough oxygen while his mother was in labor, and his childhood was marred by poor academic performance. He also abused the family pet, but people assumed he was doing that due to his mental disability.
Ben used a hapless, wimpy vibe to trick his victims. His helpless demeanor reeled them in, and then he turned on them, rewarding their kindness with torture and murder. He tied them up and used acid to inflict pain before ending their lives. Ben’s kill count was 22,
1.Frank Breitkopf
Keith Carradine
This Criminal Minds creep has one of the highest body counts of all, as he murdered 176 people. Frank Breitkopf, played by Keith Carradine, had an insatiable appetite for mayhem, and his bloodlust makes him one of the most chilling Criminal Minds villains of all time.
Frank used to live in the Big Apple with his mother – he’s of German descent. He was a smart child but couldn’t really connect socially or emotionally. His mom worked hard to support him, but eventually, she had to sell her body to pay the bills, and her son heard some of the sexual encounters, which probably greatly disturbed him.
All killing styles are sick, but he really escalated in terms of torture, inflicting almost unimaginable suffering on his victims. He would inject them with a horse tranquilizer (ketamine).
