  |
This article's content is marked as Mature The page contains mature content that may include coarse language, sexual references, and/or graphic violent images which may be disturbing to some. Mature pages are recommended for those who are 18 years of age and older. If you are 18 years or older or are comfortable with graphic material, you are free to view this page. Otherwise, you should close this page and view another page. |
| “ | Sinners must be punished! Sinners like YOU! | „ |
| ~ James O'Neill as he prepares to behead one of his victims. |
James O'Neill, also known as "The Beantown Beheader" and "The Beheader", is the main antagonist of the Criminal Minds episode "Drive". He is a fanatically religious serial killer who preys on women he sees as "impure", punishing them for their sins by torturing and beheading them.
He was portrayed by Eric Nenninger.
Biography[]
Early life[]
A native of South Boston, O'Neill went to a private fundamentalist Christian school, Aldren Academy, where severe corporal punishment was standard punishment for even the most minor infractions. The school's principal, Brendan Burke, meted out particularly brutal discipline for O'Neill and his classmates, trying to correct their behavioral problems by beating them with a yardstick, and then taking their pictures and putting them on a bulletin board to shame them in front of the entire school. While he hated Burke for what he did to him, he nevertheless grew up believing in his abuser's twisted brand of Christianity, and that God had commanded him to punish sinners.
As an adult, he studied medieval torture and execution methods used against people found guilty of heresy and witchcraft, his favorite being the guillotine. He supported himself as a ride-share driver for a company called Zimmer, but was eventually fired after receiving several negative reviews from passengers because of his habit of aggressively sermonizing to them and becoming angry if they asked him to stop, with the last straw coming when he attacked a passenger with a hammer.
A month before the events of the episode, Burke was arrested for sexually abusing several Aldren students and committed suicide. This served as the trigger for O'Neill's long-simmering homicidal rage; he was incensed that Burke would never be punished for his crimes. He began kidnapping, torturing, and murdering women (and occasionally men) he saw as sinners. He hacked Zimmer's app to locate people who had called and cancelled ride shares, and picked them up before their actual drivers got there. After hearing them talking on the phone about something he considered sinful, he would render them unconscious with a taser. He would then take them to his basement and torture them until finally beheading them with a homemade guillotine. After killing them, he kept their heads in a safe in a macabre imitation of O'Neill's "wall of shame", and left their headless bodies in highly visible public areas to shame them even after death.
"Drive"[]
O'Neill picks up Amy Gibb and carries her bags to her door. He then remarks upon her "expensive tastes", which he views as immodest, and tasers her unconscious. After burning her with the taser, he beheads her.
His next victim is Anthony Simmons, who he overhears talking to someone over the phone about cheating on his wife with a woman named Tanya, and who he kidnaps and tortures by beating him with a yardstick. Simmons begs O'Neill to let him call a friend, but O'Neill decides to call Tanya herself. After leaving her a voicemail, he tells O'Neill he will kill him unless she calls back in the next 10 minutes. When he overhears Simmons reciting the Serenity Prayer, O'Neill tells him about the abuse he suffered at Burke's hands and condemns Burke and O'Neill both as sinners and hypocrites. Just as he is about to cut off Simmons' head, however, Tanya calls back and tells O'Neill that Simmons, a recovering alcoholic, had lied about having an affair with her to hide the fact that he had relapsed from his sponsor. O'Neill nevertheless condemns Simmons as a liar and a cheat, and prepares to execute him.
Meanwhile, the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) begins investigating the murders, profiling the killer as an "injustice collector" who is punishing his victims for real or imagined slights he has suffered throughout his life, and who finds his victims by putting a Zimmer sticker on his car and trolling through neighborhoods with target-rich businesses like restaurants and bars.
Simmons' wife goes to the BAU, convinced that the killer has kidnapped her husband. Technical analyst Penelope Garcia traces Simmons' credit card purchases and intuits that he has been cheating on his wife. Agents David Rossi and Spencer Reid, meanwhile, research the other victims and find out that they had all committed ethical and legal offenses, from cheating on tests to fraud and embezzlement, and theorize that the killer is selecting victims who he believes have sinned and must be punished and shamed for their transgressions. They find that the victims had all been talking to people involved somehow in their crimes just before they were kidnapped, meaning that the killer must have heard them in an environment in which the victims would have been oblivious to him, like a cab or a ride share.
They then revise their profile to include a background of harsh discipline in a strict, religious atmosphere, giving Garcia the lead she needs to uncover Burke's arrest and suicide. They theorize that the killer is a former student at Aldren and is trying to emulate Burke's harsh punishment for sinners. Garcia cross-checks Aldren students with ride-share drivers who have been fired or suspended, and finds O'Neill. The BAU finds O'Neill just as he is about to behead Simmons, and stall him by saying they know what Burke did to him, and that killing Simmons will not undo what he suffered. O'Neill lets go of the rope holding up the blade, but Rossi manages to catch it before it can cut off Simmons' head, while Agent Derek Morgan tackles O'Neill and takes him into custody. O'Neill is then imprisoned for life.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- O’Neill is inspired by multiple real-life criminals:
- Dyonathan Celestrino, a.k.a. “The Cross Maniac”, a Brazilian, religiously fanatical serial killer responsible for strangling and posing various people not meeting his moral standards.
- Alexander Elistratov, a.k.a. "The Bloody Taxi Driver", a Russian serial killer and career criminal running an unlicensed taxi service to rob and murder victims with. Papers suspected he was a xenophobe from choosing international citizens to target as passengers.
- Edmund Kemper, a.k.a. "The Co-Ex Killer", a serial killer of women and girls he lured to his car while posing as a cab driver, butchering them to death and keeping their heads as human souvenirs.
- Albert Fish, a.k.a. “The Gray Man”, an American serial killer and cannibal of children who was beaten by nuns at a convent for kids, then grew into paranoia and religious mania before he started raping, and eventually murdering, numerous kids and keeping their remains to eat. Opposite to O’Neill, Fish started by killing boys, then killed a girl before he was caught.
- Brendan Burke is inspired by Derek Slade, the former headmaster of Finborough School, disgraced by reports of corporal punishment and convictions of child sex offenses.
External Links[]
- James O'Neill on the Criminal Minds Wiki
