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| “ | We are Asclepius. We have begun the bloodletting. You will fear us, for you are the disease, and we are the cure. | „ |
| ~ Tavares' declaration of terror. |
Rafael Taveras is the main antagonist of the Criminal Minds episode "Cure". He is a serial killer who commits a series of murders using the online identity of the terrorist Asclepius to disguise his true objective - killing his father.
He is portrayed by Emilio Garcia-Sanchez.
Early life[]
Rafael's parents, Scott and Julia Tavares, sent him to a military boarding school when he was a teenager after he began acting out and getting in trouble. After graduating, he joined the U.S. Army, where he trained in electronic warfare. Ultimately, however, he was dishonorably discharged, and returned home to live with his parents and his younger sister, Olivia.
Upon his return home, Rafael learned that his parents had separated after Julia caught Scott cheating on her, something Rafael took very hard. Worse, Julia had been diagnosed with cancer, and Scott confided in Rafael that he considered her an emotional and financial burden. Julia's cancer eventually went into remission, but Javier, who already resented his father for breaking up their family, grew to hate Scott for treating his mother so callously, and began planning to kill him.
However, Rafael knew that if he only killed Scott, he would likely get arrested. He decided to use his electronic warfare skills to kill business executives as the revolutionary mastermind "Asclepius", claiming that the murders were acts of terrorism designed to destroy capitalism; in reality, these murders would merely be a smokescreen to obscure his true mission of killing his father.
Rafael's first victim was Marcus Powell, the family services director at the McNab courthouse, where Scott presided as a family court judge. Rafael stabbed him to death outside his home and left a cryptogram containing the rod of Asclepius in his mailbox.
In "Cure"[]
Rafael breaks into the offices of businessman Andrew Hirota while wearing a hood, mask, and military-grade armor. He ties up Hirota's secretary and stabs Hirota to death. He also inserts a miniature scroll in Hirota's throat containing a cipher that translates into a manifesto that he wrote to further the terrorist image. He then calls 9-11 and, using a voice modulating device, takes credit for the murder as Asclepius. He also re-routes his phone signal to Sloviansk, Ukraine.
The following evening, he attacks Douglas Carmichael in the parking lot outside his office, once again stabbing him to death, mutilating the corpse, and putting a cipher "manifesto" in his throat.
He then finally attacks the true focus of his rage, his father, stabbing him so severely that he nearly bleeds to death. Before Rafael can kill his father, however, Scott's girlfriend Elena Duran - the woman with whom he had cheated on Julia - walks in on them and calls 9-11, forcing Rafael to flee. He later visits Scott in the hospital alongside Julia and Duran, confident that they will not be able to identify him as the assailant because he had been wearing his "Asclepius" costume. Afterward, he attacks Duran in the hospital parking lot and kidnaps her.
Meanwhile, the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) investigates the murders, at first believing that they are being committed by a terrorist group. When Agent Spencer Reid and Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia decode the cipher, however, "Asclepius"' choice of words - condemning "impotent men" and their "betrayals" - leads the BAU team to theorize that one person, most likely a male narcissist, is responsible for the murders, and that he is disguising himself as a terrorist to conceal his real motive: avenging a personal grudge.
The cipher in Carmichael's throat, which references a third murder as yet undiscovered, leads the BAU to deduce that "Asclepius" had killed before targeting Hirota, so they research murders with similar characteristics and eventually discover Powell's homicide. They deduce from the cipher in the mailbox that Powell was "Asclepius"' first victim and theorize that the killer was familiar with the courthouse and had a personal connection to it, as serial killers usually commit their first murders close to home. At the hospital, meanwhile, Duran tells BAU Agent Matt Simmons that Rafael had asked her to come to Scott's house the night Scott was attacked. This information, along with Reid and Garcia's re-evaluation of the profile, points to Rafael as the killer.
Rafael stabs Duran several times, and then gets into the trunk of her car, his short stained with her blood; when he is found, he claims that a masked assailant attacked him and kidnapped her. Simmons and fellow BAU Agent Jennifer Jareau question Rafael, and alternately play to his ego by talking about "the assailant"'s cunning and his resentment of his father by bringing up his mother's suffering. Rafael admits that he wanted to kill his father after finding out about his affair with Duran, but says that Duran's blood is on Scott's hands, indirectly revealing his guilt. He reveals where he left Duran, but by the time the BAU finds her, she is already dead. Rafael is then imprisoned for life.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Rafael is inspired by multiple real-life and fictional serial killers:
- The "Zodiac Killer", an unidentified American serial killer in California obsessed with codes and iconography he sent to police and the press in letters.
- Heriberto Seda, a.k.a. "The New York Zodiac Killer", a serial killer emulating the aforementioned Zodiac Killer with a history of family problems, which including attacking his family before his arrest.
- John Lubbock, the main antagonist of The Fifth Cord, a serial killer disguising his murders as that of a madman in the interest of getting revenge for losing a friend he was in love with to someone else.
External links[]
- Rafael Taveras on the Criminal Minds Wiki
