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| “ | They had at least a week before they died of thirst. I'm innocent. If they died, it was because they decided not to free themselves. | „ |
| ~ Kotchman rationalizing his murders |
Herman Kotchman is a supporting antagonist in the Criminal Minds novel “Killer Profile”. Kotchman is a serial killer of men motivated personal demons of trauma from his father’s violence.
Biography[]
Kotchman as born in California in 1948 and lived in a farm with his mother, brother, and stepfather. While the brothers’ mother would drive, the stepfather would violently beat and rape the brothers, the mother encouraging it so the stepfather wouldn’t brutalize her too. When Kotchman’s brother tried to run away, the stepfather killed him and forced the entire family to bury him in the backyard and swear to never tell of the crime, the stepfather brushing off the crime as “our family secret” and “a terrible accident”. Kotchman went into the military in 1966, as the Vietnam War resulted in lax requirements and less vetting, so Kotchman’s psych eval was smothered to enlist him. When Kotchman saw at least what he interpreted as a soldier leering at his genitals in the barracks showers, Kotchman jumped him and was later dishonorably discharged. Kotchmzn moved an apartment in Modesto, and when his mother called a year later to tell him his stepfather died from cirrhosis, she match Kotchman bury the stepfather in the backyard as well so she’d keep getting paid by social security.
Kotchman’s final traumatic flashback caused him to snap and want to kill men looking like his stepfather to repeatedly take his rage and trauma out on them in fashions relieving his childhood pain. In spite of being profiled as homophobic, Kotchman went to gay bars and nightclubs to find bears, gay men with burlier features, meeting similar traits of appearance to Kotchman’s stepfather: middle-aged, balding, and heavyset. Kotchman would blitz the men and throw them into coffins he constructed to be buried in the farm’s backyard. Kotchman would harass the men with a verse from the book of Matthew, “And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father”, before closing the coffin lid and filling the holes with earth. Each coffin had a breathing pipe, days of water, and a claw hammer for escape attempts, all to taunt, harass, and terrorize the men while they were captive. The first four men died while they were buried, but a fifth broke out and dug himself out of the hole, going straight to the police, resulting in Kotchman’s arrest. Kotchman was convicted for his crimes and imprisoned in the state penitentiary system, profiler Max Ryan mentioning him and his crimes by name in his book, as he and Agents Jason Gideon and David Rossi participated in the investigation. Kotchman himself acted as if he wasn’t a killer, that the men were responsible for breaking out of the coffins and died because they failed or gave up, not because Kotchman buried and suffocated them.
Serial killer Daniel Dryden took it upon himself to copy the murderers mentioned in Ryan’s book to become famous himself, burying a man named Grant Shuler at an abandoned farm in Indiana without any chance of escape. When Dryden was arrested, he tricked into believing Shuler was rescued to get him to spill details about the crime’s location, resulting in Grant being found clinging to life and resuscitated in time.
Trivia[]
- Kotchman is inspired by multiple real-life criminals:
- Werner Mazurek, the murderer responsible for the fatal kidnapping of Ursula Herrmann, a.k.a. "The Girl in the Box", where Ursula was trapped in a box in the woods with breathing pipes, food, and other materials, but died from poor air circulation in a poor attempt at a ransom kidnapping to spy off debts.
- The "Doodler", a serial killer of gay men in California who were met at public social venues, three living to tell the tale, but fearing coming out and releasing their names. The killer has never been identified.
- Robert Berdella, a.k.a. "The Kansas City Butcher", a serial killer/rapist of gay men, having had a history of physical abuse and sexual trauma, leading to him holding victims captive, raping them, and suffocating them dead.
- Jeffrey Dahmer, a.k.a. "The Milwaukee Cannibal", a serial killer/rapist of gay men and boys who were held captive, raped, and butchered alive, they’re remains being retained on Dahmer’s property, often in barrels filled with acid.
- Richard Kuklinski, a.k.a. "The Ice Man", a serial killer and hitman with a history of physical abuse with his siblings by their father, including one brother who was murdered by the father, which the family was forced to keep quiet about. Kuklinski killed as a hitman when he didn't kill his father, and he kept murdered victims in freezers to prevent their times of death from being determined.
External links[]
- Herman Kotchman on the Criminal Minds Wiki
