Eddie Mays

Eddie Mays is a delusional and cannibalistic spree killer, one-time abductor, and one-time robber who appears in Season One episode of Criminal Minds, "Blood Hungry".

Background[]

Described as a generally pleasant boy in his youth, Mays was born in the small town of Harringtonville, Tennessee, the son of a doctor and a woman named Mary Mays, who descended from one of the oldest families in the state, a fact in which she took great pride. His father died in 2003, and sometime later, he moved to Boston to attend college, where his major was Comparative Religions. Despite the distance, Mary continually tried to exert control over her son's life, calling him at least three times a day, and, at one point, travelling to the campus in order to break him up with a girlfriend of whom she disapproved. In an attempt to rebel against his mother, Mays began partying rather excessively, regularly using drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine. His drug use caused him to suffer a psychotic break, which resulted in him being placed in a mental institution in 2005. Held for six months, Mays checked himself out later that year and called his mother, who had never visited or contacted him during his stay in the facility, to pick him up, but the call was ignored. Somehow, Mays made his way back home, where he, still unbalanced, grew fixated with Wally Brisbane, a neighborhood boy who he began to see as a messianic figure, presumably due to his exceptional singing voice. On December 12, Mays's delusions caused him to murder a man named Paul Thompson, whom he stabbed to death in his yard and stole a shotgun from him.

Blood Hungry[]

The next day, Mays tracks down Wally to the home of Annie Stuart, Brisbane's music teacher. Briefly spotted outside by Domino Thacker, a local drug addict, Mays enters the house after Brisbane and Stuart's son, Charlie, leave, and bashes her head in with Thompson's shotgun. After killing her, Mays cuts her open and takes her liver and stomach, putting them in food containers (which left bloody circles on the floor) and taking them to his mother's house, where he places them in a refrigerator. The following night, Mays goes to the home of Lynette Giles, Brisbane's grandmother. While the boy is watching TV, Mays breaks inside and slashes Giles's throat, removes her heart with bolt cutters, and forcibly abducts Brisbane, taking him to the Mays house, where he informs his mother the boy was an angel. Though horrified by her son's actions, Mary cleans up after him and hides Birsbane in a storage shed, hoping to protect him and her family name. By this point, in rare moments of lucidity, Mays begins to feel remorse for his crimes and leaves Stuart's stomach in a container on the porch of her house. A short time later, Mays drives to a local church, presumably to ask for forgiveness, and is arrested by Elle and Morgan, who had been staking out the building and had seen him approaching, carrying a wet sack, which presumably contained Giles's heart. While being subdued, Mays briefly hallucinates a statue of the Virgin Mary is the mutilated Giles and starts screaming as he is being dragged away.

Placed in a cell at the police station, screaming and shaking Mays is unresponsive for the first few minutes. Reid points out to the local sheriff that Mays is mentally ill and could use the insanity plea in a court of law. To find out where Brisbane is taken, Mays is given anti-psychotics after his mother, who feigns obliviousness, signs the medical release forms. Somewhat lucid now, Mays is interviewed by Hotch and Reid, who attempt to find where Brisbane is. Over the course of the interrogation, Mays grows increasingly agitated, especially after being shown pictures of his victims, and begins talking to himself, loudly screaming "I just wanna know... when will you leave me alone!" to the ceiling as Hotch and Reid, realizing that they will be unable to get anywhere with him, leave. Shortly after the agents exit the cell, Mays tries to commit suicide by hanging himself but is spotted in the midst of doing so by a Deputy, who yells for help. Rushing into the cell, Hotch and Sheriff Hall manage to save him, who is sent to a hospital, and then presumably an institution. After Mays's hospitalization, Brisbane is found by Hotch and Elle, who discern Mary's involvement in the crimes.

Profile[]

The unsub is a twenty-to thirty-year-old disorganized, psychotic white male, due to the use of blitz attacks, the level of violence present in the murders, the differing M.O.'s, and the killer making no attempt to move the bodies or clean up evidence. He engages in anthropophagi (cannibalism), a psychotic addiction where he must drink human blood and possibly even consume human flesh. Anthropophagi suggests an extreme level of psychosis and disorganization, meaning that he couldn't have ventured very far from home to commit the crimes. He lives or has lived in Harringtonville; he knows the territory. He has been seen before, possibly at the ballpark or riding his bike home from the grocery store. He wasn't always a threat; he might have been someone's neighbor or friend. Something about his delusion is keeping him in town. Medication stolen from Annie Stuart's house indicated a drug addiction (while this turned out to be true, it was later discovered that the medication was actually taken by Domino Thacker, not the unsub). Unlike organized killers, most disorganized ones are driven to murder by delusions and do not follow the patterns when it comes to killing, making them unpredictable, but usually easier to find, as they make no real effort to hide or cover their tracks, and also do not stray far from home.

The unsub's fixation with Wally Brisbane, who was present at two crime scenes and abducted, plus the organs he took having major significance as the place of the soul in different societies, also implicates his delusions are religious in origin. He views Wally as something akin to a messianic figure, which he may feel compelled to sacrifice, and by eating his victims' organs and drinking their blood, he believes he is encountering the divine. Psychotics are usually nonviolent, but when they do get aggressive, by the nature of the psychotic delusions, they are excessively brutal. If caught, the unsub may not be able to properly recall his crimes, and like most psychotic killers, he could return body parts to the scene of the crime during moments of lucidity, either as a sign of remorse or simply as a means to manipulate the body further.

Modus Operandi[]

A disorganized killer, Mays's victims were apparently chosen at random (though his victims were coincidentally Caucasian and middle-aged or older). They were all blitz-attacked and murdered through excessively violent means, which included stabbing, bludgeoning, and throat slashing. After he killed Annie Stuart and Lynette Giles, he eviscerated them, posing the latter's body to look like an angel, and took organs that he believed contained the soul, such as the former's liver and stomach, and the latter's heart, placing them in food containers and bringing them to his home. In the case of Paul Thompson, his blood was collected from his stab wounds and put in containers. He would ingest his victims' blood and organs, believing he would see God if he did. Mays used bolt cutters to crack open Giles's rib cage, then posed her body to look like an angel, and presumably used a knife or some other bladed instrument to cut Stuart open.

Real-Life Comparisons[]

"For Richard Trenton Chase, the Vampire Killer, he drank his victims' blood because he believed that aliens had invaded his body and were slowly drinking his blood.
And if he didn't get the blood he needed... He'd die.
-Reid and Hotch while profiling Eddie

Mays was possibly based on Richard Chase, being compared to him in the episode - Both were schizophrenic and cannibalistic spree killers who had strained relationships with their mothers, were severely delusional and former drug addicts, were former college students, and were institutionalized prior to their killings. They both targeted random victims of opportunity, mutilated their victims with knives post-mortem, and collected their blood and other body parts in food containers (which left bloody rings at their crime scenes) for later consumption. Both also attempted suicide after being interviewed by FBI agents (though only Chase was successful).

He may have also been based on Herbert Mullin - Both were schizophrenic rampage killers who were raised by a strict parent (Mays's mother and Mullin's father, respectively), broke up with a girlfriend while in college (where they studied religion), used amphetamines and other drugs (which worsened their schizophrenia), and were institutionalized prior to their killings. As spree killers they had religious fixations which they implemented into their killings (Mays believed he could see God if he ate his victims' organs and could see their souls, while Mullin became obsessed with reincarnation and holy sacrifices), had a parent who influenced their crimes in some way (Mays's mother cleaned his crime scenes and even hid a victim he abducted, while Mullin alleged his father's voice told him to kill), they targeted random victims, stabbed or bludgeoned them to death (though Mullin also shot some of his, while Mays used a shotgun to bludgeon a victim to death but never actually shot anyone), their second victims (both women) were eviscerated post-mortem (though Mays mutilated all his victims), their last murder victim was elderly, they targeted a victim closely associated to them who they fixated on (Mullin's former drug dealer and Mays' child neighbor gifted in music, respectively), both visited a church at some point during their sprees (Mays was arrested outside of one, while Mullin's third victim was a priest he killed inside one), and were arrested easily and unsuccessfully interrogated afterwards. Furthermore, their crimes coincided with those of an unrelated criminal initially thought to be them in some way (Mullin was active at the same time as Edmund Kemper, while Mays's second victim had her home burglarized by Domino Thacker after her murder).

Mays is loosely similar to Japanese serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki - Both were psychotic serial killers and abductors who had influential families in their hometowns, had a father figure in their family who died, had troubling relationships with their mothers, cannibalized and kept some of the remains of their victims, posed their victims postmortem, kidnapped at least one child victim, and had a surviving child victim who was saved by the intervention of an adult.

He is also similar to Brazilian serial killer Marcelo Costa de Andrade - Both are schizophrenic and cannibalistic serial killers with abusive parents (though Andrade was abused by other relatives as well), had stints in facilities from which they later escaped (Mays checked himself out of a mental hospital, while Andrade escaped juvenile detention) and returned to live with their families, developed paranoid religious delusions about boys regarding their innocence (Mays developed delusions specifically about his neighbor Wally Brisbane from his singing, while Andrade believed children go to heaven when they die from a preacher), killed their victims by bludgeoning before cannibalizing their remains (though both used other methods), stored their victims' blood in containers and took them home to drink later (though Mays also took organs to cannibalize), and abducted their last victim, a young boy, before he was rescued (though the boy Andrade abducted died from wounds Andrade afflicted on him, and Mays was briefly assisted by his mother).

Known Victims[]

• 2005:
  • December 12: Paul Thompson (stabbed eighteen times in the chest and neck with an unknown instrument; also took some of his blood and stole his shotgun)
  • December 13: Annie Stuart (Wally's music teacher; bludgeoned with Paul Thompson's shotgun; cut her open with a sharp instrument, removed her stomach and liver post-mortem, and took both organs)
  • December 14: The attack at Lynette Giles's home:
    • Lynette Giles (Wally's grandmother; slashed her throat with her own knife; opened her up with bolt cutters, removed her heart and took it, and posed post-mortem)
    • Wally Brisbane (abducted from his grandmother's home; was rescued the next day)

Notes[]

• It's interesting to note that he shares his name with a real-life New York murderer executed in 1963.

Appearances[]

• Season One
  • "Blood Hungry"