Elias Voit

Elias Jasper Voit (born Lee Duval), a.k.a. "Sicarius", is a prolific serial killer, Proxy Killer, stalker, and abductor who appeared as the main antagonist of Criminal Minds: Evolution.

Background[]

Voit was born Lee Duval to Teresa Duval, who was also his half-sister, implying Teresa was raped and possibly groomed by her father and ended up pregnant with Voit. He was raised under court order by his uncle Cyrus Lebrun in Falls River, North Carolina, following the deaths of Teresa and their father in an apartment fire he caused. Cyrus, a an arms trafficker and a serial killer in his own right, kidnapped and murdered dozens of people, recruiting Lee as an accomplice by beating him, locking him in a closet for days, and otherwise abusing him to condition his dependence on Cyrus. Lee released one captive woman, Maria Jones, when she pleaded for mercy, hoping she'd leave, but she stabbed his shoulder with a hunting knife, which Cyrus then took from her to kill her with. Cyrus made Lee watch police investigate her murder to castigate his failures. He packed a Haberman suitcase to leave, but when Cyrus fought to stop him, Lee nearly killed Cyrus, but relented and left him behind. Voit became his new name, an alias derived from a father and son he read in the newspaper had died in a car crash. He began committing murder himself, while also marrying a woman named Sydney and taking pauses in his sprees with the births of his daughters. Voit singled Sydney out because her father abused her mother, which made her his type of woman to have as an unaware wife.

Voit kept most of his victims in a shipping container in Yakima County, Washington, with a second baes of operations being in a storm shelter in Whitfield County, Georgia. Voit used his job in network security as a cover for when he traveled for his murders. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Voit was losing funds for his murders and family, so he decided to construct a network of murderers, who would bankroll him so he'd get away with the money, while in turn he would teach them to hone their violent fantasies. He planted kill kits in different parts of the country, which he would later give the locations of to his picks from the serial killer network. He would use his experience in encryption to create chat servers to find candidates, primarily funded by senator's son and fellow psychopath Benjamin Reeves.

Criminal Minds: Evolution[]

Season One[]

Voit is first introduced in "Just Getting Started", in a flashback to 2005, where he butchered alive a man named John Harris. In 2022, his storage unit in Yakima is discovered, with more than a dozen murder victims and documented evidence of stalking them and honing his M.O. When two cases are revealed to be connected to the locker, with the presence of "kill kits" at each scene, the BAU makes the network top priority. Voit is scene burying yet another kit, then checking out his storm shelter to see the latest messages from his followers. Some of the killer's he speaks with message him for approval, which he gives.

In "Sicarius", one unsub, Robert Harris, is told to wait for his next murder so Voit can protect his remaining resources. When Harris breaks the rules, Voit makes him kill himself when the FBI get close, saying he'll kill Harris if he has to. He also stalks a hardware store operator, Tawny, to kidnap her German Shepard Moose.

In "Moose", Voit tortures Moose into being an attack dog, triggered specifically by classical music. His family is later introduced, when he has an argument with older daughter Holly about her going to a party with vape pens. Holly has a crush on classmate Chad Sparks, but his father Hal is aggressive, Voit constantly fantasizing about killing him. When Holly gets into an Ivy League school, then Voit gets laid off from his job, he loses it, as the FBI was already freezing his accounts. He calls Benjamin Reeves, another killer hopeful and a senator's son, telling him not to kill yet, but asking for more money. Reeves is apoplectic, but when Voit promises to only work with him once the network is disbanded, Reeves is left to chew on the options. Voit, in the meantime, plans to frame Reeves as the network leader to buy time. He gets his frustrations out by killing Brandon Jones, a victim bearing resemblance to Hal, by sicking Moose on him to maul him.

In "Pay-Per-View", Voit is seen cleaning his Georgia storm shelter, where he hallucinates Cyrus reminding him of rules Cyrus made him follow. Voit angrily throws the sponge he was using against the wall. He later kills Moose with a fatal overdose. Tyler Green later identifies his first name at birth from remembering how Voit dated and abused Tyler's sister before she disappeared, as Voit killed her and was never caught. The BAU were briefly distracted from believing The Bruneau Brothers were followers of Voit, but they redirected back to the case once the brothers were stopped.

Carrying into "Oedipus Wrecks", Voit pulls away heavily from his family, to which Sydney demands answers. It peaks when Voit swears out her and their daughters, when he hallucinates shooting them all dead. Voit tries to make it about him being laid off, or lie he's been having an affair, but as devastated as Sydney is from the accounts, she's still not fully trusting of his word and wants him to communicate more with her. Feeling the pressure of the authorities closing in on him, Voit leaves to clean up his tracks and promises Sydney everything will be better when he returns. Voit gives Reeves his kit, manipulating Reeves into falsely confessing to being the killer in interrogation. After giving Reeves the chance to kill his mother Martha, Voit shoots Reeves at the Georgia lair and stages it as a suicide. When JJ and Alvez arrives, Voit watches, waiting until they're safely enough out of the shelter to detonate bombs he rigged to destroy all the evidence there.

In "True Conviction", Voit watches the police response, content with D.C. authorities wanting to close the case with Reeves as the patsy. By the time Cyrus' murder of Maria is reinvestigated, and the wrongfully convicted suspect Silvio Herrera was released, Voit tracks Cyrus down. Beforehand, he's constantly haunted by flashbacks of Cyrus terrorizing him, then making him an accomplice. By the time Voit returns to Cyrus' house, he confronts the dying killer and overdoses him in a fashion meant to be disguised as kidney failure. Before Cyrus dies, he relishes in how Voit was recognized publicly as "Sicarius", taunting him by saying they're alike and murder is in their blood. The case is ultimately closed officially in "What Doesn't Kill Us", and Voit returns to Washington State, hoping to rectify his relationships with his family.

However, realizing the BAU's full dedication on the case, and worrying his homicidal rage will be turned on his family, he prepares to tell Sydney the truth about his crimes. Deciding he needs a practice run, Voit heads to Indio, California, where devout accomplice Arthur Kiel lives. Voit abducts real estate agent Ramona Havener during a scheduled appointment with her. Despite her terror, he warns her he's killed dozens of people and to cooperate with him. He struggles to withhold his rage each time she panics. He had her pretend to be his wife, encourage her to tell him they can work through it, so he knew how to be honest with Sydney and their daughters. Promising to release her, Voit warns his accomplices will kill her if she talks. Voit then sedates her and gives her to Kiel, who tries and fails to hang her. After Kiel commits suicide by cop to protect Voit, and Ramona refuses to talk from how terrified she feels from the danger Voit poses, Rossi goes door to door in Seattle to find Voit once his home area is narrowed down.

In "Memento Mori", once Rossi arrives at the Voit house and questions Sydney, he knows Voit is the unsub. Voit is rattled and lies to Sydney that Brandon Jones was killed because Voit is a white-collar federal witness. Pretending he doesn't know which law enforcement to trust, he makes Sydney relocate Holly and Harlow and refuse to engage with Rossi based on what Voit knows Rossi will try to gain Sydney's trust with. Voit then goes to the Seattle office to speak with Rossi personally. He says he's a fan of Rossi's books, knows his tactics, and taunts him about his publications having the risk of inspiring murder as much as educating on it. Rossi responds by saying he knows about Voit's real past and he doesn't commiserate with him anyway. When Rossi tries to speak with Sydney alone at the supermarket, he nearly convinces her Voit has been lying to and manipulating her, but she runs to Voit when Rossi tries to drive her to headquarters alone. Voit records the confrontation and releases it to a far-right extremist website to discredit the bureau. He then drives Sydney into further paranoia so she questions nothing, moving the family to a cabin in California. When Rossi confronts Voit at his house privately, Voit knocks him out and plans to kill him at where his Yakima storage container was. Tyler stops Voit, so Voit holds Rossi at gunpoint. Voit taunts Tyler by saying he hanged his sister under the threat of killing her daughter, then shot and critically injured Tyler before running off with Rossi. He then imprisoned Rossi in an undisclosed storage container buried underground.

By "Dead End", a manhunt was underway for Voit. The team hacking the unit's security cameras, and got the audio feed when Rossi tried to tell them where he thought he was. Rossi also tried to escape on his own, but he was dangerously low on oxygen the more he tried to dig and detonate his way out. By the time Voit returned to the cabin with Sydney and the girls, he demanded his ransom of no charges and a clean escape for him and his family. As additional leverage, he threatened Deputy Director Doug Bailey that he found a highly classified federal case known as "Gold Star", which would mean embarrassment for D.C. Bailey presided in the raid on the cabin, hoping to reason with Voit alone, but Voit shot him dead. Voit then made his family get back while firing on responding police, hitting William LaMontagne, Jr. in his bulletproof vest. When Holly and Harlow escaped, Sydney tried to as well, but Voit nearly shot her. However he couldn't shoot her because his gun was empty, so he surrendered to arrest, reciting his Miranda Rights as he is being cuffed. The season ended with Voit in FBI interrogation, where a mystery party opened a door to question him.

Season Two[]

In "Gold Star", it's revealed FBI Director Ray Madison negotiated with Voit, agreeing to a reduced prison sentence as a plea deal. In exchange, from that episode into "Contagion", Voit was privately hired by the Justice Department for answers on the Gold Star Killers. He refused to cooperate and negotiate, buying time and delaying the answers he gave. The BAU intervened and decided to put up different fronts between them all to shake up Voit's tactics, hoping he'd both help with the case and give up his crimes to throw the plea deal out. It went horribly wrong, as Voit set off Alvez from revealing a simulated porn site fixated expressly on JJ, which Voit used for his network's servers. Continuously throughout the case, Rossi is haunted by hallucinations of Voit from his PTSD, which he refuses counseling for.

When Voit wants to see his family, they accept they can break down his defenses, so in "Kingdom of the Blind", they reach out to Sydney and encourage her to confront him. In exchange for better home placement and therapy for the kids, they all go see him. Sydney confronts Voit first, chastising him for his crimes and how they destroy the lives of their daughters. Voit tries to be demanding and controlling, but Sydney says if he wants to see them, it's to say goodbye, so he reluctantly agrees. Holly is eager to see Voit, but Harlow, who's been cutting herself, is more distrusting of Voit. When Voit refuses to acknowledge her accusations of him in a letter, Harlow pulls out a knife disguised as lip balm and tries to stab him, but she's taken away. No one does anything to Harlow, and the family leave for their improved placement.

In "Conspiracy vs. Theory", with the desperation to catch the Gold Star Killers before they go underground, Voit is brought to FBI headquarters to help catch them. he tells the agents there's a difference between a conspiracy and conspiracy theory, but they don't crack his innuendo. It's revealed Voit contacted the killers through his network before he was arrested, and they were expecting a call from him. He reveals himself in a traced call and convinces them that he can be trusted, arranging to meet in a public park. All the while, he's tapping on the table, which revealed to be his Morse code message to them. By the time the call ends, it spells out "North Star", but he refuses to reveal what it means, as he says he's just encouraging the killers' to make them susceptible to capture. At the park, they try to get Eddie Dayton to run Voit down in a bulletproof van, then show he has a bomb strapped to him when the van is stopped. One killer, Jade Waters, calls Voit with a phone attached to the bomb. He convinces her that he needs her with cue phrases to pick apart her mind and past. After she hangs up the phone and the bomb is diffused, the other killer, Damien Booth, poses as a cop and privately speaks with Voit, asking about "North Star". The killers then go underground.

In "Message in a Bottle", Rossi finally confronts Voit after his hallucinations get worse. Voit leads Rossi on due to knowing he's decompensating, all to the central point he wants to finally shake Rossi up with realizing: "North Star", the coded phrase he gave to the killers to use their delusions. It's revealed he's manipulating their paranoia over the FBI, and their training and pathology were shaped deliberately by a white paper Rossi and Jason Gideon wrote, and later buried, on how to turn kids into murderous psychopaths.

In "Piranha" and "North Star", Voit solicits his lawyer, Vincent Orlov, to retrieve a Haberman with a GPS tracker after Orlov secures Voit's transfer to lower security. After Orlov refuses, Voit threatens his accomplices will kill Orlov's wife if he refuses. Orlov then meets with Jade and Damien to give it to them, telling them it's a gift from Voit to encourage their line of thinking driving them to kill, which they don't hear in so many words. Jill Gideon gets Damien to surrender, but he implores a concealed Jade to shoot him out of mercy before she flees, which sets off her rage. Voit is to be transferred in "Stars & Stripes", which Rossi warns will put him in danger of being killed by other inmates, but Voit doesn't care. It's by this point, once the GPS tracker leads to another storm shelter, a corkboard diorama of the agents reveals Voit wants the killers paranoid enough to hunt them specifically as revenge for arresting him.

When Prentiss is held captive in "Save the Children", Rossi confronts Voit to tell him he knows Voit's been hiding why the Gold Star case is highly classified: Bailey's brother Pete is one of the killers, and he's holding Prentiss captive. Voit is again transferred to the FBI offices to go to the barracks of cult leader Frank Church, where Prentiss is located. He tries to antagonize the agents, including JJ due to the porn site in her name. She hits Voit back by saying she knows she took nude photos of Sydney when she slept as a model for the porn the site used, which shut him up. Prentiss was eventually rescued, and the killers were peacefully arrested. Voit was later confronted in the laundry room of the more recent prison by other inmates. He tried to use his birth name to act like they had the wrong man, but when they wouldn't budge, Voit ran for a blade he hid while he was in the room. The two inmates jumped and stabbed Voit in his stomach when they got the upper hand. Voit's status is left unknown once the season ends.

Modus Operandi[]

Voit targeted various low-risk victims across the Pacific Northwest, and then high-risk victims across the Bible Belt, of different genders, ages, and races all across the U.S. He abducted them, held them captive in storage units he installed in multiple states, and tortured them to death in various fashions, including slashing, strangulation, burning, acid, and live dismemberment. Voit wasn't beneath animal cruelty, so he also kidnapped animals to train and torture them to kill. One recurring signature M.O. was forcing spiders down victims' throats to fatally poison them.

When Voit was low on funds and couldn't keep his murders going, he targeted numerous other profiles of killers, which he handpicked based on how they could pay him and so they wouldn't compromise his operations. Tracking candidates he profiled on encrypted forums using the Psychopathy Checklist, Voit buried "kill kits" in numerous isolated locations with equipment needed for the murders. He would strategically tell his chosen psychopaths where the kits were for his demanded fees, making them swear to his rules of operation, including murdering in secondary locations, pacing themselves, and committing suicide to take their involvements to the grave.

As Voit was being closed in on, he improvised to cover his tracks. Voit solicited accomplices wither as distractions or to kill witnesses and liabilities. To frame a patsy, he seduced Benjamin Reeves, the primary provider for his servers and D.C. intel, into a spree and false confessions for Voit's crimes so that he might get away from scrutiny by pressuring D.C. to not go after him. He then shot Reeves and staged the murder as a suicide, blowing up his Georgia lair with explosives in the presence of FBI agents, while leaving Reeves easy to find nearby. Voit watched all operation activities, preparing to relocate his family and erase his history. When he grew desperate to convince Sydney to side with him once he found out, he lured Ramona Havener through her real estate work and abducted her. Threatening her with a gun and his accomplices if she didn't cooperate, he made her convince him he could still keep his family despite his crimes. Voit failed to have Arthur Kiel kill her, but he did make a getaway.

From there, Voit's cat-and-mouse M.O. came from isolating and brainwashing his family, lying he had nothing to hide by showing up at FBI offices and giving devices to analyze as distractions, and making scenes to discredit them when they got too close. Seeing Rossi and Deputy Director bailey as liabilities, Voit got them alone and planned to shoot them, which only worked with Bailey. Rossi was abducted, but Voit failed to kill him and stage the murder as a suicide when Tyler stopped him. Voit continued to use firearms for armed assaults and attempted murders, but for leverage to never face charges, Voit held Rossi captive in another storm shelter, threatening to abandon him if he couldn't escape with Sydney and the girls. He used the Gold Star as his leverage to embarrass D.C. When he was near killing his family out of rage and hopelessness during his family annihilator breakdown, he tried to shoot them, but he was out of bullets and surrendered.

Voit then used the Gold Star Killers as proxies due to his previous contact with them. While negotiating his deals using threats of defaming the FBI, he communicated conspiracy theories to killers from direct innuendo to Morse code on calls. Voit used Vincent Orlov for providing trackers to Voit's other storm shelters, where he prepared dioramas to set off the Gold Star Killers and make them all the more dangerous to the FBI. This ultimately failed, but he did mislead the Justice Department and manipulate the FBI with subtle hints, evading questions, and revealing secrets and scandals to turn them on each other.

Profile[]

TBA

Real-Life Comparison[]

Voit appears to be primarily inspired by Israel Keyes - Both are prolific (suspected in Keyes' case), psychopathic, "omnivore"-type serial killers and career criminals with deceased father figures who raised them, had dangerously complicated relationships with father figures (Voit's uncle held him captive and tortured him, Keyes' grandfather gave him his first gun), had daughters with romantic partners who later left him, committed animal cruelty crimes, killed victims in multiple states, and set up "murder kits" for themselves across the country to prepare for their crimes.

Voit also appears to be inspired by Adam Worth - Both were organized crime leaders with problematic childhoods, had exposure to career criminals encouraging them to their own crimes, had at least one point in their life where they were against violence, used their jobs as covers for their crimes, and used numerous aliases and networks to build their criminal timelines.

Voit also appears to be inspired by Richard Kuklinski - Both are psychpoathic, (allegedly in Kuklinski's case) prolific serial killers who were physically abused by father figures, had some relation to organized crime (Voit'd uncle was an arms trafficker before Voit made his own criminal network, Kuklinski was a freelance hitman for mobsters), tortured animals to make them violent, fantasized about killing their abusers (though Voit was successful), stored remains of victims hide their deaths, and were connected to dozens of murders they confessed to once in custody.

Voit also appears to be inspired by David Parker Ray - Both are (suspected in Ray's case) prolific serial killers who were raised by relatives in their extended families, had failed marriages resulting in births of their daughters, utilized containers as lairs for their crimes, had accomplices, abductsd their victims and held them captive in their lairs, equipped their lairs with restrains, torture weapons, and anatomical diagrams, killed at least one victim by asphyxiation (by proxy in Ray's case), were suspectsd of dozens of murders across the country, and eere investigated by the FBI.

Voit also appears to be inspired by Rodney Alcala - Both are prolific (presumably in Alcala's case) serial killers targeting victims across the country, had criminal records prior to their sprees, had storage units they kept in the Pacific Northwest, killed victims by various means, while favoring certain M.O.s (Voit forced spiders down victims' throats to kill them with venom, Alcala repeatedly choked victims until they died), and were investigated bynthe FBI in efforts to track all their murders.

Voit also appears to be inspired by Ted Bundy - Both are prolific, psychopathic, nationwide serial killers whose mothers were also somehow their sisters (Voit's mother/half-sister was raped by their father to get her pregnant with Voit, Bundy was adopted by his grandparents when his mother had him out of wedlock), had failed relationships with women, including women with children and future wives, killed dozens of victims over the coursed of decades, were primarily active in the Pacific Northwest and Bible Belt, kept remains of their victims as souvenirs, buried remains of victims in isolated nature, and were interviewed for the purpose of tracking other serial killers, which each tried to manipulate with lies and for their own escapes and legal defenses.

Voit also appears to be inspired by Edmund Kemper - Both are sociopathic serial killers who murdered married older relatives before their primary sprees (Voit's parents and Kemper's grandparents, respectively), were abused by parental figures, including through locking them in confined spaces, fantasized about killing their abusers, were active in California (though Voit was active in other states as well), and killed their abusive relatives and primary focuses of their rage as their sprees came to an end.

Voit also appears to be inspired by Richard Ramirez - Both are psychopathic, prolific serial killers who were physically abused by older relatives, had father figures (Voit's uncle and Ramirez's cousin, respectively) who were also serial killers, were taught techniques by their father figures later incorporated in their own respective murders, were active in California (though Voit was active in other states), and were nearly killed by vigilantes before they were arrested.

Voit also appears to be inspired by Randy Weaver - Both are patriarchs who brainwashed their families to be in their paranoid orbits, retreated to homes in the mountains with them, were raided by federal law enforcement, who they forced away from the house and engaged in gunfights with, and put their families in the line of fire as consequences (though Voit's family survived).

Vpoit also appears to be inspired by Ward Weaver III - Both are murderers with fathers who were (suspected in the Weavers' case) serial killers, were influenced in their M.O.s from exposure to their respective fathers' crimes as children, used industrial equipment to dispose of victims' remains (Voit had a cargo container and IEDs, Weaver II had concrete and oil drums), and had daughters who were later arrested on charges of assault.

Voit also appears to be inspired by Larry Davis - Both are serial killers (suspected in Davis' case) with careers involving technology specialties, operated in organized crime networks with accomplices, injured and attempted to kill law enforcement officers once they were to be arrested, defended themselves by arguing the police were corrupt, got their sentences significantly reduced as a consequence of their defenses, received nationwide media attention, and were shanked to death in prison.

Known Victims[]

Notes[]

• Voit seems to be based on at least three unsubs from the show's past:
  • Paul and Johnny Mulford ("Open Season") - All three were serial killers (budding in Johnny's case) who following their parents' deaths were raised by their uncles, who were killers that raised them away from civilization in wooded areas and taught them how to kill.
  • David Roy Turner ("The Apprenticeship") - Both were serial killers who were mentored by a more experienced serial killer on how to avoid getting caught, would eventually tutor a younger inexperienced killer (killers in Voit's case) who would disobey their mentor's orders, and both eventually murdered their proteges.

Appearances[]

• Criminal Minds: Evolution
  • Season One
    • "Just Getting Started"
    • "Sicarius"
    • "Moose"
    • "Pay-Per-View"
    • "Oedipus Wrecks"
    • "True Conviction"
    • "What Doesn't Kill Us"
    • "Forget Me Knots"
    • "Memento Mori"
    • "Dead End"
  • Season Two
    • "Gold Star"
    • "Contagion"
    • "Homesick"
    • "Kingdom of the Blind"
    • "Conspiracy vs. Theory"
    • "Message in a Bottle"
    • "Piranha"
    • "North Star"
    • "Stars & Stripes"
    • "Save the Children"

Trivia[]

• Voit's actor, Zach Gilford, is married to Kiele Sanchez, the actress who portrays Sydney.
• Voit is the third unsub to recite bookend quotes in two episodes, the first being Ian Doyle, who recited the closing quote in the Season Six episode "Coda", the second being Everett Lynch, in Season Fifteen's "Family Tree".
• Voit is the third unsub in the show's history to have ever been inside the BAU's jet, the first two being Antonia Slade and Everett Lynch.
• With Zach Gilford upgraded to a main cast member in Criminal Minds: Evolution Season Two, Voit is the first unsub in the history of the franchise to be credited as a main character.