CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: VALLEY OF THE DOLLS !

5x12
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       "RITA STUART, 25, SECOND VICTIM IN ATLANTIC CITY." JJ was presenting a case to the team after they had been notified of a dead body of a girl, that looked like she was dressed as a doll and was placed on a Merry-Go-Round at the mall.

"Pretty public spot for a dump site." Rossi comments. "You know, technically, I think it would qualify more as a disposal site. You don't leave a body on a Merry-Go-Round out of convenience." Reid tells. "He took some time with her appearance, didn't he?" Emily spoke.

"Yeah. Her nails were polished, he hair was cut, clothes were brand-new." JJ added. "Wants her to look her best when found. That's a lot of remorse." Morgan says. "Who's victim number one?" Hotch asks. "Stacia Jackson, 29. She was found at a local playground." JJ informs.

"A change in victimology." Casey says. "What's the connection between these women?" She asks and JJ shakes her head. "There is none. Rita was married, Stacia was single. Rita worked at a diner, Stacia was a corporate lawyer. According to their credit cards, they never came within 10 miles of each other."

"Both women were taken two months ago?" Hotch asked. "Yeah. They lived such completely different lives, the police didn't tie their abduction together until now." JJ told.

"Was there any evidence of sexual assault?" Reid asks. "There was no evidence of violence of any kind." JJ says. "So, how did they die?" Emily asks. "Rita had a stroke, Stacia had a brain hemorrhage."

"Look at this, the unsub gave them a battery of drugs-- atracurium, doxacurium. These are neural inhibitors. They block signals from the brain to the muscles." Reid explains, looking over the file. "He put them in medical comas for two months?" Casey questioned. "Actually, they weren't in a coma. You'd need phenobarbital to keep them unconscious and they didn't have that." Reid corrected, causing Casey to nod her head in understanding.

"So, wait a minute. These victims were paralyzed but they were still conscious?" Morgan asks. "They could open their eyes, hear, probably even feel stimulation." Reid stated.

"Physical immobility, but mental awareness. This unsub wants total domination over them." Rossi tells. "And he turns their bodies into prisons to do it." Hotch added.

Soon enough, the team was on the jet and they were ready to debrief over the case. Casey was in her seat, reading over the case. "Keeping women in a conscious paralysis reads as sadism." Rossi spoke. "Definitely dehumanizing, reducing them to objects." Morgan tells. "But there's nothing else about this profile that takes us down that path." Rossi told.

"These women were found in excellent condition. There was no evidence of bed sores, they were well fed through an IV." JJ listed. "If he has access to IVs and drugs-- he almost certainly has medical training." Reid tells.

"Are we sure this is a he?" Emily questions, making everyone else question next. "The care this unsub shows these victims, although, they are dehumanized, the profile says female."

"What about the postmortem posing? That's a lot of dead weight for a woman to carry." Hotch says. "These women are petite. They're under 100 pounds." JJ tells. "Adding onto the fact that there's no violence of any kind on these women." Casey added on.

"All right, if we reconsider the gender of the profile, what changes?" Hotch asks. "Nothing," Morgan spoke. "If anything, it fits better." Rossi nods, "Men kill to fulfill a sexual compulsion. Women don't."

"You see this in Angel of Mercy killers, like Genene Jones and Amy Archer. They didn't care about race or hair color. It's men that do." Reid tells.

"Damn, straight. Men do." The computer screen flashes up and Garcia is on screen and Casey and Morgan are the first to take notice of Garcia's new hair color. "Well, hello, Red. Look at you." Morgan speaks. "Wowza, red's a good color on you." Casey compliments. Morgan shows the team Garcia's new hair color and they are all just as stunned.

"Garcia, what did you find out about the clothing the unsub's dressing the victims in?" Hotch asks. "At first only that both garments were made from chiffon, but with the wonder twin powers of the Atlantic City police and my impeccable eye for fashion, we have also determined that these garments fit ridiculously well. They're super flattering to each victim's exact measurements, kind of exactly like the unsub whipped them up herself." Garcia explained.

"Maybe that's what connects the victims." Emily theorizes. "How so?" Hotch asks. "Maybe she isn't just killing petite women because they're easier to abduct and pose but because of a physical type. She wants a specific body type." Casey tells.

"Sewing clothes for a specific size of woman." Morgan tells. "Please tell me she is not killing these women because she needs human models. I mean, there's gotta be more to it than that." JJ says. "There probably is. But at least we have a start on the victimology." Rossi added.

"Prentiss and Morgan, I want you to interview the victims' families. Talk to them about lifestyle choices. Any body image issues these women may have had." Morgan and Prentiss nod at their partnering.

"Reid, Willows, go to Rita Stuart's autopsy, see if the drugs point to any specific medical training the unsub might have had." Reid and Casey look at one another and nod.

"Dave and I will go to the disposal site." Hotch finishes and looks at the screen. "And, Garcia..."
"Sir."
"I want you to check missing persons reports for the last two months. See if any abductions match what we know. We need to find out If the unsub's already taken another victim."

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Once the jet landed, the team went their separate ways and Casey and Reid went down to the morgue to talk with the technician. "Once I have the knees bent, I can get leverage under her." The technician lifts the girl towards the slab. "Normally, an assistant helps me. But I can do it by myself if I need to."

"I'm assuming the unsub would have this training, too. Let me ask you this — is there anything specific about it?" Reid asks. "No, any caregiver out there can do this -- docs, nurses, orderlies." The technician lists.

"Where do you think she's getting the drugs that she's using to put them in a doll-like state? Do you think she could be manipulating a doctor or a pharmacist, maybe?" Casey questions.

"He'd be criminally negligent if she was." The technician tells. "But it is possible. I mean, doctors order things through residents, nurses forge signatures, prescriptions fall through cracks." Reid adds. "That's a lot of drugs and a lot of cracks. She keeps these women paralyzed for two months."

"Your report said both of them had hair extensions clipped in." Reid looks down at Rita's story. "Yes, to hide the fact that clumps of their real hair had fallen out."

"But if they were fed through IVs, that wasn't from malnutrition, right?" Casey asks. "You see this a lot in bedridden patients. Loss of motor function. Especially in a young woman like this."
"Of course, psychic shock. The mental effects take a physical toll." Casey added.

"One last question — in your professional opinion, do you think the hair extensions were clipped on before or after death?" Reid asks.
"Before."
"And you're certain of that?" Casey asks.
"You know the old wives' tale about your hair and nails growing after death. What's really happening is that dehydration is shrinking your skin, pulling it back. Based on where she put these extensions, they were definitely still alive."

After getting the answers they needed, the two headed to the station to inform the team with what new information that they had. The two stood in front of Rossi and Hotch and discussed.

"Now, we know this unsub is stuck in a rich fantasy, right? An incredibly detailed delusion. We don't know what the delusion is, but we know that it involves remaking these women and it begins the moment she has them drugged." Reid explains.

"So, she has them paralyzed and she can do whatever she wants, why is she killing them?" Hotch asks.

"We don't think she means to. She's keeping their brains awake but their bodies aren't so strong when it comes to that and after two months, everything's shut down." Casey explains.

"So, death isn't this unsub's goal, It's an unfortunate side effect." Rossi says. "Exactly." Reid nods. Morgan and Prentiss walk in. "What'd you find out?" Hotch asks as Morgan crosses his arms.

"Both Rita Stuart and Stacia Jackson were clothes hounds, but because they were petite women, they had a lot of their stuff altered." Morgan tells. "Could be how our unsub is finding her victims. She gets her hands on their measurements." Emily adds.
"But we already exhausted tailors, alteration shops. There's no overlap." Morgan added. "The tailors might send specialty items out to third parties. Dig deep into extended employment records And see who they might be subcontracting to." Hotch informs once JJ walks in.

      "Garcia needs to talk to us." Hotch presses a button on the phone. "Go ahead, Garcia." Hotch starts. "Hello, my pretties. I have finished my missing persons sweep. I've got nothing on the medical vehicle, but two new matches on the clothes make the woman front. Cindy Admundson. She was abducted outside a thrift store and Maxine Wynan was last seen at the Hillridge Mall." Garcia informs.

       "That sounds like our girl." Morgan says. "Any surveillance footage at the mall?" Rossi asks. "No, it was an outside parking lot. So sorry."

      "The new abductees — what's their physical type?" Hotch asks. "They look pretty tiny to me. I'm gonna send you pictures. Also, if it pleases the court, I would like to direct your attention to Exhibit A, the calendar map."
      "What about it?" JJ asks.
      "Both of these new victims were abducted one week ago, exactly one day before the bodies of Rita Stuart and Stacia Jackson, respectively, turned up." Garcia says and it clicks. "She doesn't let a body go until she has a replacement."

The next day, another body had been found and Reid and Casey had decided to go and check the scene out since she had been found like the previous victims in the same way they had been found. "Victim is Mary Newsome. Abducted two months ago. She was found on this bench first thing this morning." The detective told.

"Looks like our gal." Casey told as she examined the body. "It's chiffon and it's sewn to fit." Reid continued, "If she's disposed of this body, it means she's recently taken a new victim."

"We'll call Hotch and we'll comb through missing persons reports from the last 48 hours." Casey tells. "I'll start pulling them." The detective begins to walk away as Casey thanks him.

"Hmm." Reid examines the body next, pulling something out of his pocket as he does so. Casey sees that he has his thinking face on and asks: "What?"

      He examines the woman's hair: "These aren't hair extensions." Reid tells. "Maybe her hair was too brittle." Casey assumes. "Maybe, I don't know. You know what? This is a wig. Kanekalon, I think."
"What's that?"
"Uh, synthetic hair. There's nothing special about it. It's used in wigs all over the world. But look at this." Casey looks closely and sees that the hair was sewn into the woman's head. "Are those stitches?" Casey asks. "On her scalp." Reid nods. "She sewed this in."

The team had put two and two together and came to realize that she had been a collector. Another woman had gone missing and they had found out that she had been physically matching the victims one by one.

Reid and Casey had gone down to a collector store to talk with a man that had an expert in collecting. "Look, collectors are good, honest people. Just because you enjoy dolls doesn't make you a freak or a pedophile." The man stated.

"We appreciate that, sir, but the woman that we're looking for has lost her ability to control her obsession." Casey explains. "She's killed three women trying to recreate a type of doll She had as a child." Reid speaks.

Reid had been looking around the store and Casey glanced over and noticed that he had stopped and was basically cowering behind her.

"Describe the line to me." The man tells. "Well, there's a pattern to the victims. They're in their 20s, and they're petite." Reid informs. "Most doll lines revolve around infants. Is she dressing them like babies?" The man asks. "No, she's not. Their wardrobe usually consists of chiffon dresses, worn by one blond woman, a redhead, and a black woman." Casey explains.

"The dresses -- is she sewing them herself?" The man asks and both Reid and Casey look at one another and furrows their brows in confusion in unison. "How did you know that?" Casey asks.

The man goes behind the register and begins to look through his cabinets. "It's the Valois line. Local company, back in the late eighties." He tells.

"Probably when our unsub was prepubescent." Reid says and Casey nods. The man hands Casey a magazine as he begins to explain. Casey saw that the unsub was definitely matching up the dolls with the victims by their physical appearance.

"They promoted feminism and multiculturalism. Strong, independent girls from different backgrounds who could still be friends." Casey flipped through the magazine and her eyes landed on a birth certificate form in the book. "Reid." Casey speaks. "Birth certificate to fill out. A form to describe their lives. And a kit to sew your own clothes."

"JJ said she's been at it for a while." Reid says. "She's probably been sewing since she was a little kid." Casey adds and she looks down at the page and flips to see the words in bright, red letters: "CONTEST!"

"Sir, what's this contest that they held?" Casey asks. "That was to see who could come up with the most imaginative doll. Sew a dress, write an essay to describe her. If you won the contest, you'd have your doll featured in next year's line." The man explained.

"I assume that didn't end well, did it?" Reid asks. "No, it did not." The man told. "Classic tool child psychologists use for their patients, more preferably younger. Tell me a story with these dolls." Casey explains.

"When the company got essays with thinly-veiled references to physical or sexual abuse, they turned the entry forms and the dolls over to the police. The publicity killed the line." told the man. "You said the company was local, right?" The man nods at Reid's words as he nods over to his partner. "They might still have the clothes in evidence."

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        JJ had come across Morgan and Reid reading over the essays as Emily and Casey got stuck with the dolls and trying to find the signature. "How are the essays going?"JJ asks the men. "Makes for some pretty depressing reading. Prentiss and Willows are having a good time."

       "Ha-ha." Casey stated sarcastically as JJ peeked over at the two. "These dolls are all like little time capsules, only the eighties fashion wasn't so kind to them." Emily comments. "Believe me, I'm surprised how many little girls knew how to make shoulder pads." Casey told.

"You ever own a doll, Willows?" Emily asked. "Only one but my specialty had been collecting stuffed animals. My best friend was my stuffed giraffe, Georgie." Casey told.

"How's it going on your end?" Reid asked JJ. "I got a list of vendors the victims went to -- tailors, seamstresses, that sort of thing." She explained. Casey looked down at the clothing in front of her and noticed the handkerchief that JJ told her to keep an eye out for and she stood up.

"Hey, JJ, you said something about a handkerchief hem, right?" Casey asks, showing it to JJ. "That's exactly like what she sews for her victims." JJ tells. "What's the name on the entry?" Reid asks. "Samantha Malcolm." Casey reads. "She's on my list." JJ says, looking down on her paper.

"Wait a minute, guys. I have her essay around here somewhere. Right here." Morgan reaches around and finally finds it and reads from the title. "'Sally doesn't like the room with the lightning'." The team all look at each other. "Well, that's eerie." Casey says.

The team had grouped together and told Garcia to do some digging on her and she found a lot and now, she was telling the team. "Okay, guys, I just got Samantha Malcolm's medical records, and... oh, my god, she was doomed. Like Emily Brontë doomed, like Shakespeare doomed, Like red-shirted ensign in Star Trek doomed."

Garcia was getting a little off track. "Garcia, what happened to her?" Hotch asked. "Oh, uh, sorry, uh, well, for the first 10 years, nothing and then she started a battery of electroshock treatments."

"At ten? Who subjects a child to ECT?" Reid questions. "That would be her father, Dr. Arthur Malcolm. He runs an inpatient mental health facility for troubled young people called New Lives." Garcia explained as Casey scoffed, "Not very fatherly now, is it?"

"At first, the essay that Samantha wrote raised some flags, but her father explained that the therapy was to deal with the recent death of her mother. After that, he started her on a serious regimen of anti-psychotic drugs, which he weaned her off of a few years ago."

"It explains her familiarity with medication." JJ tells. "Where is she now?" Emily asks. "Uh, her father declared her incompetent, so he's still the legal guardian. Everything is in his name. And all of her records list New Lives as her residence." Garcia informs.

"She couldn't keep victims in an inpatient facility. She needs privacy." Rossi tells. "Garcia, what about real estate holdings In her father's name?" Hotch asks.

"Just his own. But New Lives has a bunch of outpatient and halfway houses all over town." Hotch looks over at JJ. "JJ, where does she work?" He asks. "I have her placed at three different shops around town." She informs. "All right, let's split up and cover the shops and the facility." Hotch nods.

"I want to go to New Lives." Reid speaks up. "Whether or not she's there, I want to talk to the father. There are literally hundreds of therapies to help kids through loss. Electroshock is not one of them."

Casey stands up from her seat next. "I'll come with you in case you need backup for this son of a bitch." She offered and Reid nodded and Hotch spoke up, "Take Rossi."

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       The trio had showed up to New Lives and were already having a not-so nice time with Dr. Malcom. Reid was inspecting his office and it seemed as if they weren't going to get through to him at any point.

      Before they could leave, Reid began to get into his head. "Hey, a really fast question. Why are these toys here?" Casey paid attention to the toys in the man's cabinets. "I use them in my therapy." Dr. Malcom tells.

     "No, I understand that, but why are they way up on this shelf, away from where any kids can actually reach them?" Reid asks. Casey turns over to Rossi and he gives her a look that says: 'Let him work his magic.' "They're reminders of patients that I've helped."

      "Let me ask you something. What was the name of the girl you helped with this one?" Reid pulls down a stuffed unicorn. "Jenny Larson." Dr. Malcom says. "Hmm, and this one? What was the name of the girl you helped with this one?" He pulls another stuffed animal down and places it on his desk. "Abigail Moore."
      "How about this one?"
      "Linda Krauss."

     "These girls are what, they're like nine– nine or twelve years old, I'm assuming?" Reid asks. "My PhD is on the effect of trauma on prepubescent girls. I do not appreciate what you're implying." Dr. Malcom tells.
      "Oh, I'm not implying anything. I'm making an inference. An inference is an educated guess and based on that, I form a hypothesis. For instance, my hypothesis here is that after you raped your daughter, you submitted her to electroshock treatment to make sure she stayed quiet." Casey looked at Reid and then studied the look on Dr. Malcom's face.
        "This is outrageous."

       "And then, out of guilt, you bought her toys, more specifically, you bought her a line of dolls. Because that's what serial molesters do. They give gifts. So, you continued the pattern with your other patients and once they left your care, you added their toys to your collection."

      "I'm sorry, you can't back up your story, doctor."
      "This is why I love my job, doctor." Reid continued. "Because my lab, it's a jury of your peers. My tests will be Jenny Larson, Abigail Moore and Linda Krauss. The DA will put them on the stand and I'm going to personally bring these dolls in and we're going to watch how they react." Casey was applauding Reid in her head.

        Casey sits in the seat in front of the desk. "Should've just told us where she was," She tells. "Or you could still tell us where she is and we'll tell the DA you cooperated. But once we walk out that door, that deal comes off the table." Casey leans towards the desk. "So if I were you, I would think about my options very carefully."

       The man doesn't say a work and Rossi, Reid and Casey begin to exit and are so close until Dr. Malcom speaks up again. "2529 Adams Street. You'll tell them, right? That I cooperated?"

     "You want to know how I figured you out?" Reid steps back in and points at the collection. "Those toys. You take care of them. These ones you treasured. But you know what? The collection's not complete." He pauses. "Where are they?"

     Casey had been on standby just in case Reid had gotten himself into trouble with the unsub. She stood near the door with an FBI vest on and her gun in her holster just in case. But Reid had gotten through to the girl and Reid announced in his microphone. "Clear. We need medical here."

     Casey rushed in and began to help the girls and take the IVs that were attached to their skin out. She had helped one of the girls stand and take it easy. Medical showed up as well as Rossi and the other agents. Before they could arrest Samantha, Reid spoke to her. "Hey, Samantha? Listen. You need to go with these men, but your friends can go with you, okay?"

     "They won't take — they won't take them away?" Samantha asked. "I promise no one will ever take them away again." Reid promises. With that, she goes with them, bringing her dolls along with her.

     Casey walks up to Reid and watches as they take Samantha away. "Nicely done, Doc." She compliments Reid and he nods at the girl: "Thanks."

hey lovelies!
this literally sucks and i feel like i'm going so slow and i'm just going through with the tv show but it's whatever ig
anywaysss
thank you for reading this shit lol
i hope you guys had a good holiday!
personally i had a great christmas! i got new airpods, a mgg customized blanket and a criminal minds calendar lol
anywayssss thank you for reading
-mya <3

p.s. peep the new user — @/HENRYSREID- is no more
now it's @/GUBLERSGREY-
in honor of the new year i needed a change lol