Damaged (Season 3, Episode 14)
Premise: On the 20th anniversary of an unsolved double ax murder in Indianapolis, Rossi goes back to the case that has haunted him, and the team follows him to find the killer and the person who has been sending the orphaned children toys.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 3, Episode 14
- Unsub
- Joe (Matthew J Cates), Chester Hardwick (Michael Shamus Wiles)
- Location
- Indianapolis, Indiana; Connecticut
- Starring
- David Rossi (Joe Mantegna), Aaron “Hotch” Hotchner (Thomas Gibson), Derek Morgan (Shemar Moore), Spencer Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler), Emily Prentiss (Paget Brewster), Jennifer “JJ” Jareau (A.J. Cook), Penelope Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness), Kevin Lynch (Nicholas Brendon)
- Opening quote
- “Within the core of each of us is the child we once were. This child constitutes the foundation of what we have become, who we are, and what we will be.” (R. Joseph, read by Rossi)
- Closing quote
- “There is no formula for success, except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.” (Artur Rubinstein, read by Hotch)
- Guest stars
- Nicholle Tom as Connie Galen, David Tom as Georgie Galen, Scout Raskin as Alicia Galen, Dennis Christopher as Abner Merriman, John Gloria as Detective Willis
- Director
- Edward Allen Bernero
- Writers
- Edward Allen Bernero
Summary
The Case
“Damaged” marks the 20th anniversary of the day three children in Indianapolis, Indiana, found their parents killed with an ax. Rossi, who was among the first on the scene in 1988, tears through the old Galen file and flies off alone. When Morgan and Prentiss find his office in disarray, Garcia tells them where he went, and the team follows. Rossi, who bought the Galen house at auction, tells them about the children’s cries that still keep him awake and the Christmas tree he has never put up since, because the ax was bought to cut one. Meanwhile, the grown Galen siblings, Connie, Georgie and Alicia, keep receiving cheap toys every year and assume Rossi sends them. He does not, and Connie has noticed a pickup trailing her.
Morgan reads the childlike gifts as the apology of a guilt-ridden offender, probably a large man with a developmental disability whose parent cleaned up after him. Garcia finds petty incidents involving children around Indianapolis every spring, followed each time by similar incidents in Illinois and Iowa, a pattern that fits a carnival, and one of the sisters remembers a clown who followed her at a carnival the day before the murders. Rossi presses the carnival boss into admitting that his son, Joey, wandered into the house to see the girl, and attacked her parents after her father struck him with the ax. Every year the father brings Joey back and makes him leave toys for the children. Joey, calling for his father, is taken into custody.
In Connecticut, Hotch and Reid interview Chester Hardwick, a serial killer facing execution, who agrees to talk if a window is opened. With the guards out at evening yard, he turns on the unarmed agents, and Reid stalls him with an account of why he became a sexual sadist until the guards return.
The Team
Rossi turns up at Garcia’s apartment while Kevin Lynch is there, and Garcia worries about the bureau’s rules against dating colleagues; at work she threatens Kevin with a virus if he tries to confront Rossi, but he does so anyway at the end. Haley calls JJ trying to reach Hotch, and Hotch later tells Reid that Haley wants him to sign the divorce papers without a contest.
The ending
Spoiler: Rossi gives the Galen house back to the siblings so they can sell it and start over, along with keepsakes of their mother’s that their grandmother had left with him. One of the siblings gives him something in return and asks if it is all right to call him now and then; he says anytime.
Why it stands out
- Real-life twins David Tom and Nicholle Tom play the Galen siblings Georgie and Connie.
- Dennis Christopher, who plays the assistant warden, had played the serial killer “Jack of All Trades” on Profiler, a series with much in common with Criminal Minds.
- When Rossi and Prentiss question the carnival boss, a sign reading “(LE)GACY” is visible behind them, a nod to John Wayne Gacy, the “Killer Clown.”