The Boogeyman (Season 2, Episode 6)
Premise: As the BAU hunts a killer of children in a small Texas town, Hotch presses Elle over the shooting of the man who attacked her.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 2, Episode 6
- Unsub
- Jeffrey Charles (Cameron Monaghan)
- Location
- Ozona, Texas
- 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
- “We can easily forgive a child who’s afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” (Plato, read by Hotch)
- Guest stars
- Sean Bridgers as James Charles, Elle Fanning as Tracy Belle, Robert Knott as Chief Jones, Geoffrey Lewis as Coroner
- Director
- Steve Boyum
- Writers
- Andi Bushell
Summary
The Case
“The Boogeyman” sends the BAU to Ozona, Texas, where a hunter has found the body of Nicholas Faye, the second boy in two months, after Robbie Davis, bludgeoned in the woods. Gideon leads the team while Hotch stays behind. A girl is soon found dead a quarter mile away, beaten again after death. The team sees no sexual motive and an unsub the children trust enough to follow deep into woods he knows well. James Charles, the school guidance counselor, introduces Gideon at a meeting where children are taught the buddy system.
Local children say old Joseph Fennigan watches them from a haunted house on the hill and eats them. When eight-year-old Matthew goes missing and a child’s secret points to a dare at Fennigan’s door, the team searches the dark house and finds Matthew hiding in a stairwell, unharmed. Items tied to the victims turn up there, but Fennigan is found in the woods, dead of apparently natural causes since before the later killings, his body covered in leaves. Someone has been living there, eating the church’s meal deliveries except the duct-taped creamed spinach. The trays carry a child’s prints and those of Charles.
Charles, who delivers the trays and whose wife left six months ago, flees from agents carrying the red cap Nicholas wore and denies entering the house. An EpiPen and taped-up dairy products in his kitchen point instead to his twelve-year-old son, Jeffrey, who is allergic to milk. Tricked into confirming the allergy, Charles admits he found the cap in Jeffrey’s drawer. Jeffrey has offered to walk eight-year-old Tracy Belle home under the buddy system; the team realizes its own safety advice let him approach children unnoticed. They find the pair in woods by a park and stop Jeffrey before he kills Tracy. Asked why he hurt the children, he says he wanted to.
The Team
The Bureau accepts Elle’s claim that she shot William Lee in self-defense, but Hotch doubts her and orders a psychological evaluation, which she skips. He follows her when she leaves with an overnight bag; she tells him she was alone when she needed the team, and he says he would arrest her if he had evidence. Reid blames himself for not reporting that he saw Elle drinking in Ohio and is told the choice was hers. JJ invents a grisly summer-camp tale to explain her fear of the woods, and Reid admits he is afraid of the dark.
The ending
Spoiler: Elle tells Hotch she would not change anything about that night at Lee’s, insists her departure is no admission of guilt, and leaves the unit, asking him to say goodbye to Gideon for her. Each says they will miss the other.
Why it stands out
- This is Elle Greenaway’s final appearance; Lola Glaudini left the series after deciding to move back to the East Coast from Los Angeles.
- Tracy Belle is played by Elle Fanning, the younger sister of Dakota Fanning.
- The episode aired on October 25, 2006, exactly 28 years after the original “Halloween,” whose killer Michael Myers is often called the Boogeyman, was released.