| “ | I'm Frank. Germanic. Third century. Derived from the name of a type of spear. I wonder what aspirations my parents had for me... | „ |
| ~ Frank' introducing himself to Agent Gideon |
Frank Breitkopf is the main antagonist of Criminal Minds' Season Two, appearing in the episodes ''No Way Out'' and ''No Way Out II: The Evilution of Frank''. He is a sadistic, prolific serial killer, and FBI agent Jason Gideon's arch-enemy. He is portrayed by Keith Caradine.
History[]
Early life[]
Frank's background is shrouded in mystery; not even his surname was known for the majority of the BAU's knowledge of him. Even the FBI had major difficulty extracting details from official documentation dated to the 1940's and 50's.
The only known facts about his past revolve around his mother, a German immigrant named Mary Louise Breitkopf, with whom he lived in an one-room apartment in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Frank never knew his father and Mary was a teenage mother. At a very young age, Frank started displaying an unusual intelligence, as well as a number of specific needs that precluded him from forming social connections or emotional bonds. He also developed a talent for refined speech, so that, despite his lack of formal education and impoverished circumstances, he became quite eloquent and verbose. Frank's high maintenance required Mary to hold three jobs at once, before ultimately turning to prostitution to support him, for which she was arrested 63 times. This exposed young Frank early to sex, as he had nowhere else to go but the closet in his mother's room when she was receiving clients, from which he saw the activity. Frank would later lie about his upbringing, claiming that his mother was a high-society woman, who took him to the fair on Long Island every Sunday and held dinner parties, where he would serve as bartender. At some point in his adolescence, he left home and began his murder spree across the United States, remaining undetected for over 30 years. His favored method of killing was incapacitating them by injecting them with ketamine before propping them up in a make-shift operation room in his mobile home. There, he would dissect them while the victims were fully conscious, forcing them to watch via a ceiling-mounted mirror.
In 1977, while passing through Golcanda, Nevada, Frank met 19 year-old Jane Hanratty after her car broke down in the desert. As she fit his victimology, he kidnapped her and attempted to kill Jane in his gruesome torture trailer. However, before he could cut her open, he noticed that, unlike other people, whose eyes were full of confusion and fear, hers were calm and actually locked onto his own. Of all the things Jane could have said, she muttered to him “You have beautiful eyes”. Upon hearing this, Frank found himself unable to harm her, dropping the scalpel in his very first moment of shock. This is the only instance of Frank displaying even the semblance of human connection. This alone was enough to lead Frank to let her go and since then, once a year, he would come back to Golconda for Jane, never approaching her in person, but always leaving small trinkets like handmade whistles and wind chimes at her doorstep. Jane, on the other hand, remembered their encounter as an alien abduction, with Frank as the extraterrestrial. Combined with her frequent psychotic fits, her story was never believed and ignored as insane rambling.
Eventually, when Jane discovered the truth, she fell head over heels for him, feelings reciprocated by Frank, who was even willing to give up killing if it meant that she stay by his side for the rest of their lives, but only a few months later, she left him due to his general psychopathy. This causes Frank resume murdering, this time targeting the agents, their families and prominent survivors of criminals caught by the BAU, who scramble to find out more about his past, through which his mother’s history is determined. The team find her apartment, only to find that she has been dead for a number of years. Disturbingly, Mary's mummified corpse was found decorated with fresh flowers, indicating that the flat is regularly visited and maintained. Her death was likely the stressor that caused Frank to embark on his killing spree.
Season Two[]
No Way Out[]
In 2007, the BAU was sent to Golconda after parts of the skeletonized corpses of two of Frank's victims were found in the desert, each missing one rib, a detail shared by several other unidentified corpses discovered over the last several decades. The investigation soon a local resident, "Crazy Jane" Hanratty, as the sole victim spared by the then-unknown killer and put her into custody for her own safety when they discover that Frank had been returning to Golconda every year on the day of their meeting to see her. Furious for having Jane taken away from him, he abducts Sheriff Georgia Davis, who was in charge of keeping Jane safe and then hijacked a school bus full of children as collateral to exchange for Jane, in case the responding officers would knowingly risk Georgia's life to capture him.
Frank is eventually tracked down to a small diner on the roadside by Agents Gideon and Morgan. Despite being positvely ID'd and offically arrested, Frank calmly continues to slurp away at the strawberry milkshake he ordered and gives them time until he's finished it to tell him how they found out and inevitably ask for the location of Sheriff Davis. Mid-conversation, Georgia's husband barges into the locale and threatens Frank with a shotgun, but he's unfazed by him, knowing that if he dies, Georgia will too. He demands a deal with the authorities: he tells them where Georgia is and he can walk free with Jane in his arms. When Agent Gideon refuses for obvious reasons, he reveals his trump card, the abducted children, by which point they relent and agree to his terms. He and Jane, who only then realizes the reality of that night in 1977, both lovingly embrace outside the restaurant, are driven to the outskirts of Golconda and let go, but not before Frank tells them the location of his trailer, where Georgia is kept imprisoned, as well as where he left the kids. Georgia and the students are safely retrieved, but all are traumatized after seeing the driver decapitated and the attending teacher brutally murdered in front of them. The FBI couldn't risk attempting to find the couple, fearing Frank might relapse, but Gideon swears to find Frank and bring him to justice.
No Way Out II: The Evilution of Frank[]
When Jane finally sees Frank as the monster he is and flees his clutches, he goes on a bloody quest to get her back. He starts by killing Gideon's girlfriend Sarah Jacobs, taunting Gideon over the phone while he was buying a bouquet for their dinner date, then declares his intentions of killing more people until Jane is returned to him. When the BAU still proofs uncooperative, he disguises himself as Agent Gideon and tracked down the daughter and former hostage of delusional serial killer Randall Garner, Rebecca Bryant while she is in protective custody and kills her as she's on the phone with the real agents. Lastly, he kidnaps Tracy Belle, the attempted victim of child serial killer Jeffrey Charles and transports her to an unspecified location. The BAU finds that place to be his childhood home in New York City, where they find her along with the remains of his long-dead mother. After convincing Jane to let go off Frank completely, the agents, accompanied by police, confront him at Union Station, having awaited their arrival. Though first cocky and smarmy as usual, his face drops when Agent Gideon mentions his mother's name, asking whether he took up killing "just because [his] mother was a whore", prompting him to try and appeal to Jane, telling her that they were soulmates and meant to be together forever. This leads an unsound Jane to change her mind and the two run off once more, hand in hand, but not to freedom this time. Instead, they decide to commit to a suicide pact and jump in front of an arriving train, killing them both instantly. Frank forever escapes justice and his memory would lead to Jason's retirement and continue to haunt him for the rest of his life until his death at the hands of Donny Malick in the Season Ten episode Nelson's Sparrow.
Profile[]
The suspect is a 40-to 50-year-old white man who listens to Beethoven, is a southpaw (left-handed) and wears a corduroy jacket with a wool-lined collar. In his right pocket, he keeps a notebook with the details of his victims and the torture he subjected them to. What is essential for him is that he sees the terror in the eyes of his victims, because that is what sexually excites him. He either has a medical background or has perfected this skill over the years. He owns a mute color trailer, neither new nor old, but in perfect condition. It also has a radio, a radar detector and a police radio, allowing him to avoid the authorities if detected. The trailer is also soundproofed, as this is his killing environment, with surgical instruments on the walls and a stirrup chair or an autopsy table. All murders are recorded, whether on a camera or in a diary. He is a textbook psychopath who exhibits all the classic traits: the inability to empathize, feel guilt or remorse for his actions, for which he takes no responsibilty for his actions. He is highly intelligent, manipulative and narcissistic. It was later discovered that he always travels east and west along the same interstate Highway 80, and that all his victims were kidnapped and killed by him there.
Modus Operandi[]
He would choose random victims who were unwanted in society, such as gang members, runaways, addicts and police fugitives. The vast majority of his victims are middle-aged. Frank used ketamine on his victims to paralyze them. He would then take them to his trailer and place them on a metal table that was set in a mirror. He let the victims watch what he was doing before he killed them. He would live and remove his organs with surgical instruments and break up his victims while he was still alive and burning them with some kind of tools to keep her alive for a long time. After seeing his victims die, Frank would saw off a single right rib bone, which he used to make wind chimes for Jane. He then dumped the bodies of his victims in areas near Intererstate 80. Although he killed his victims where they were killed, in the case of Gideon with whom he killed his girlfriend and left his rib bone cut in his hand. He also placed both Rebecca Bryant and Tracy Belle for being a survivor in the case of people who were taken into custody by BAU.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Frank has repeatedly stated that he would not personally hurt or kill children, which is questionable, given the hostage situation involving the elementary school students and the abduction of Tracy Belle, though he did, truthfully, never directly cause them harm.
- Like many criminals in the Criminal Minds series confirmed by writer Simon Mirren has started that Frank was inspired by six real serial killers, namely, Jack the Ripper who was an unidentified serial killer who gutted prostitute. Ted Bundy a prolific serial killer who targeted young women and killed them and delighted in the fear of their victims. Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run is another unidentified serial killer who kills and tortures his victims of both sexes by breaking up and only leaving the rest partial and badly decomposed. David Parker Ray a prolific serial killer who kidnapped and took to his trailer and tortured and killed his victims. Henry Lee Lucas is a prolific serial killer who kidnapped women victims and killed at least 100 victims all women and killed them by violent and cruels. Robert Ben Rhoades a serial killer who killed both sexes, although the victims of manhood were only by chance that he killed them, he tortured them inside a vehicle that operated with a torture chamber.
- Frank was the first major antagonist of the series to be considered Complete Monsters/Pure Evil the others would be followed by George Foyet, John Curtis, Alex Zorgen, Peter Lewis and Everett Lynch.