Cradle to Grave (Season 5, Episode 5)
Premise: A couple holds runaways captive to bear children, killing each mother after she gives birth, while pressure from Strauss leads Hotch to step down as unit chief.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 5, Episode 5
- Unsub
- Robert Reimann (Erik Jorn Sundquist), Linda Reimann (Frieda Jane)
- Location
- Rio Rancho, New Mexico; Phoenix, Arizona
- 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), Erin Strauss (Jayne Atkinson)
- Opening quote
- “You don’t really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around and why his parents will always wave back.” (William D. Tammeus, read by JJ)
- Guest stars
- Mae Whitman as Julie, Hallee Hirsh as Carol, Diana Scarwid as Jane Winmar, Max Gail as Conrad Winmar, Lyn Alicia Henderson as Dr. Kathleen Dekeyser
- Director
- Rob Spera
- Writers
- Breen Frazier
Summary
The Case
“Cradle to Grave” centers on Kristie Taylor, a runaway who vanished from Farmington, New Mexico, and turned up dead beside a freeway outside Rio Rancho. Like two earlier victims, all blond women with records of drug or alcohol abuse, she was chained, raped and strangled, and the autopsy shows she was killed minutes after giving birth. Each woman was held about two years, nursed off her habit, given drugs to sustain a pregnancy and induce labor, and made to conceive again after miscarriages. The team suspects the babies are the real prize and checks for a black market in infants, but finds none.
With the consent of Conrad and Jane Winmar, the first victim, their daughter Monica, is exhumed, and an umbilical cord yields the DNA of the child she bore in captivity. Garcia traces the girl, now called Lisa, to Arizona, where she was left anonymously at a church and adopted from foster care. The profile shifts to a couple: a sexually sadistic husband who is allowed to abuse and kill the captives, and a wife who keeps the babies. Reid narrows the abandoned babies to three, Lisa among them, left at Presbyterian churches; all are girls, so the couple is keeping the boys. In a basement cell, a new captive, Julie, helps a longtime prisoner, Carol, deliver a boy.
Rossi works out that the drugs also treat breast cancer, and Garcia finds Robert and Linda Reimann near Phoenix. Linda has advanced breast cancer and lost a son, Michael, in her eighth month. Prentiss and JJ go in first, a young boy is led out and Robert is arrested. Julie and Carol are freed, and Linda, holding the newborn she calls Michael, is persuaded to hand him over.
The Team
Section Chief Strauss meets Hotch behind closed doors, and he begins loading Morgan with extra work: a preliminary profile, a rewrite of it and a written tactical arrest plan. Morgan resents it and, after JJ tells him about Strauss’s visit, confronts Hotch over his own recent risks.
The ending
Spoiler: Lisa’s adoptive parents agree to let her know her grandparents, and the Winmars learn that Monica also had a son, the boy the Reimanns raised as Michael, whom they can now take in. Hotch then tells Morgan that the bureau has questioned his leadership since Foyet’s attack. To keep the unit from being broken up, he will resign as unit chief and promote Morgan, temporarily, until Foyet is caught. Morgan protests, then sits down to learn the job.
Why it stands out
- Mae Whitman and Hallee Hirsh guest-star as captives Julie and Carol; both had been recurring guest stars on JAG.
- The episode ends with Hotch stepping down as unit chief and handing the job to Morgan until Foyet is caught.
- The team cites Gary Heidnik, who held women captive hoping to build a family, and Josef Fritzl, who had several children with the daughter he imprisoned.