Natural Born Killer (Season 1, Episode 8)
Premise: A Baltimore triple murder leads the BAU to a mob hit man who tortures his victims, and to an undercover FBI agent who has gone missing.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 1, Episode 8
- Unsub
- Vincent Perotta (Patrick Kilpatrick)
- Location
- Baltimore, Maryland; Glen Burnie, Maryland
- Starring
- Jason Gideon (Mandy Patinkin), Aaron “Hotch” Hotchner (Thomas Gibson), Elle Greenaway (Lola Glaudini), Derek Morgan (Shemar Moore), Spencer Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler), Jennifer “JJ” Jareau (A.J. Cook), Penelope Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness)
- Opening quote
- “There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else.” (Ernest Hemingway, read by Gideon)
- Closing quote
- “The healthy man does not torture others. Generally, it is the tortured who turn into torturers.” (Carl Jung, read by Gideon)
- Guest stars
- Gonzalo Menendez as Josh Cramer, Francesco Quinn as Michael Russo, Joseph Sikora as Jimmy Baker, Val Lauren as Freddy Condore, Larkin Campbell as Detective Brady
- Director
- Peter Ellis
- Writers
- Debra J. Fisher & Erica Messer
Summary
The Case
“Natural Born Killer” opens in Baltimore, where undercover agent Jimmy Baker, out with low-level mobster Freddy Condore, is recognized by a detective who once arrested him. That night Condore’s aunt and uncle, the Dimarcos, are murdered at home: the wife is killed quickly in a chair, while the husband is tortured in the shower. Condore is dismembered, and his remains turn up in trash cans two blocks away. The BAU sees a methodical, experienced killer, and Garcia links more than 100 unsolved torture killings across Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., over 15 years, many tied to organized crime.
Josh Cramer, who heads organized crime in Baltimore, moves to take over the case. Hotch and Morgan visit Condore’s boss, scrap-yard owner and mob chief Michael Russo. Combing Condore’s associates, Elle, Reid and Garcia find that Baker’s criminal record makes no behavioral sense, and a search of his empty apartment turns up a police-issue pistol. Cramer admits Baker is his agent, inside Russo’s crew for nearly two years, and that he never arrived for a pickup after finding the bodies.
Hotch and Morgan unsettle Russo by suggesting his hit man kills for pleasure and cannot be controlled. A laser bug on Russo’s window catches him calling someone named Vinnie, and Garcia narrows Russo’s associates to Vincent Perotta, a violent youth who vanished from every record as an adult. Agents take Perotta alive, along with a bloody van, Baker’s jacket and videotapes of other victims. When Gideon questions him, Cramer storms in and blurts out that Baker is a federal agent, then confesses he told Baker to stay under for another day. The tapes suggest Baker is being tortured with rats.
The ending
Spoiler: Gideon draws out Perotta’s childhood: a father, Frank, who beat him and his mother, which explains why Mrs. Dimarco alone was killed quickly and why the killer grew careless afterward. Pizza boxes in the van and airplane noise on the tapes point to Glen Burnie, near the airport, where Perotta still lives in his late father’s house; the father died in a suspicious hunting accident while out with his son. Agents raid it and find Baker alive. Gideon tells Perotta that some abused children grow up to kill and others grow up to catch them.
Why it stands out
- Patrick Kilpatrick guest stars as hit man Vincent Perotta, with Francesco Quinn as mob boss Michael Russo.
- The bars seen as the episode begins, Jackson’s Hole and Third and Long, are actual bars, not sets.