Seriously, this is beyond gross.
Who leaves dirty dishes in the sink?
I know we bought this house as it,
but come on.
I don't think this wall is load-bearing, hon.
We can knock it out, build the baby's nursery in this direction.
I guess.
Hey, what's the matter?
You sure we did the right thing?
Buying this place, I mean.
It's kind of creepy.
We wanted a place to make our own, remember?
Come on, babe.
We're going to be happy here.
I promise.
I hope you're right.
What the hell?
There a Hazmat suit anywhere around here?
Ben?
You ok?
Aah!
I'm sorry I'm late.
Never live where your commute involves a bridge.
It's ok. I was just going through potential cases.
Hey, I meant it when I said you should take some time off.
You've just been through a lot.
That's like the job description
of everybody who works here.
"Must go through a lot." I'm ok.
That just came in.
A mummy?
Yeah, they found it inside of a wall
in a cabin outside varnville, south Carolina.
They think it's really old.
Well, it's not something you see every day,
but it sounds more like a cold case.
That's a no then.
Hey, wait a second.
Rossi's still in Savannah, isn't he?
Uh-huh. He comes back today.
And how far is varnville from the main highway?
Not far, like 10 miles.
Ok. Well, maybe he can swing by on his way out,
take a look, advise local law enforcement
on how to proceed.
No problem, Emily.
I was just getting ready to check out.
David, before you drop me...
shh, shh, shh.
Uh, yeah, have Garcia send me the contact information
and I'll coordinate from the road.
I'll check in when I get there.
Ok.
Did you just shush me?
I'm sorry. That was Emily.
Oh. Yeah, you don't want your boss to know
you have a woman in a hotel room.
What I don't want is the whole team weighing in just yet.
They tend to have a proprietary interest
in my love life.
Mm-hmm. Oh.
Shh.
Portia.
Uh, yeah, I'm leaving for the airport now.
Savannah is lovely.
Lot of work, but I managed to squeeze in a little bit of fun.
Yes.
I'll call you when I land at jfk.
Bye.
So you don't want your daughter to know
you have a man in your hotel room.
David rossi is a touchy subject right now.
Why?
Well, the last time the 3 of us were together,
you lobbed a grenade into her wedding plans.
She was about to marry an abusive con man.
Ok, a grenade that needed to be lobbed.
I know that and she knows that.
But the wounds are a little fresh right now, that's all.
Which means she doesn't appreciate you sleeping with the enemy.
Stop it.
She doesn't think that you're the enemy.
Mmm.
She just met a new guy,
the first one that she's been interested in
since the breakup.
That's great.
So maybe just for a little bit,
we keep this on the downlow.
I appreciate the help, agent rossi.
Nobody's touched a thing, like you asked.
Is the coroner en route from Charleston yet?
They should be here any minute.
The cadaver dog just arrived.
Get to work. Let's go.
Who were the previous owners?
That'd be Karl and Dorothy Elgin.
Hermits.
Built the place back in the sixties
and just holed up.
They still around?
Oh, Karl died a couple of years ago,
and Dorothy's been put in a nursing home.
From what I hear, she's pretty much lost her marbles.
Can't imagine who the body could be.
I mean, nobody's been reported missing
around these parts that I can remember.
Dog looks like it's confused.
The dog's not confused, it's overwhelmed.
Captioning made possible by abc studios, llc, and CBS, inc.
"Memory is a crazy woman
that hoards colored rags and throws away food."
Austin O'Malley.
So as far as anyone knows,
Karl and Dorothy Elgin lived totally isolated.
No kids, no family, no friends.
50 years. I mean, they had to have
some interaction with other people.
5 bodies and counting, all young females.
Coroner says the victims have been there for a while.
Are we looking at a husband and wife killing team here?
It's rare, but it does happen.
In england, Rosemary west assisted her husband Fred
in the murder of 12 individuals
over a 20-year span without detection.
Dorothy Elgin could be a homegrown version of that...
female accommodating the psychopathic urges of the man.
Ok, but why mummify?
Forensic countermeasure, maybe?
Hmm. Throwing the bodies in a swamp would have been
a better forensic countermeasure.
Luke's right. It was a deliberate choice
to preserve those corpses,
keep the victims close to home.
You know, maybe the killer thought
he was sending the bodies into the future.
Ancient Egyptians believed the souls of the deceased
would return from the afterlife
to re-inhabit their original bodies,
so the human form was kept in tact and recognizable.
There's also a literal covering up of the crime here,
and that says remorse.
Matt, jj, go to the local sheriff's department,
help them prepare for the media frenzy
that's coming down the pike.
Luke, you and I will meet rossi at the crime scene.
Reid, Tara, go to the nursing home,
see if you can talk to Dorothy Elgin.
If anyone knows the secrets of that house, it's her.
Mrs. Elgin was committed here 3 months ago.
She was found wandering on the outskirts of town
in the middle of the night.
And the diagnosis was dementia?
That's right.
Honestly, I don't know how much luck
y'all are gonna have talking to her.
Mrs. Elgin drifts in and out.
Did she bring any personal possessions with her?
She had a bag with some small items
when the police found her.
I believe they're still in her room
if you want to take a look.
What about visitors?
Not a one. It's sad, really.
Mrs. Elgin, there's some people here to see you.
Dorothy, hi. I'm Tara.
This is my friend Reid.
We were hoping to maybe talk to you
about your old house.
We think something bad happened there.
Maybe with your help,
we could fix it.
Good. You found it ok.
How many victims are we up to?
7, in the walls and under the floor.
They found this box filled with knickknacks
next to one of the bodies.
Souvenirs of their victims.
We should get descriptions of these items
out to the public.
It might jog someone's memory.
Dr. Caldwell, this is ssa prentiss and ssa alvez.
Dr. Caldwell's with the Charleston coroner's office.
She came up to help us out.
Yeah, local m.E.'S not equipped
to handle something like this,
so I'm having the remains taken back to our facilities.
Do we know how long the bodies have been here?
Ballpark, 20 years. Some longer, some shorter.
This all seems fairly sophisticated.
It is.
The internal organs weren't removed
as with a true mummification,
but the bodies were treated before being wrapped
and then salted.
That's why there's no discernible odor.
Those look like the teeth of a meth addict.
These women probably all lived high-risk lifestyles...
drug addicts, prostitutes, runaways.
Explains why they might vanish for decades
and nobody knows or cares.
Somebody cared.
The victims' clothes were mended,
carefully sewn, and kept in good repair.
Dr. Caldwell,
you better come look at this.
These victims don't look as old.
They aren't.
They've been dead less than a year.
Meaning after Karl died
and Dorothy became an invalid.
This cold case just got hot.
We've got an active unsub.
Find anything in her room?
Just the items she had with her when she was picked up...
a hand mirror, a deck of cards,
and a hairbrush.
Prentiss.
Dorothy, I was hoping maybe we could talk
about something else, ok?
What happened after your husband passed?
Did anyone new ever come out...
it won't work.
Excuse me?
It won't work. It's not the same.
What is not the same?
It's not the same!
Ok, Dorothy, it's all right.
We believe you.
Are the bodies recognizable?
Ms. Underwood...
because on the news they said they were preserved.
It's best to wait until DNA can...
I'm not afraid to look.
I don't care how awful it is.
Daria was my only sister.
The day she ran away I was in school,
seventh grade.
I didn't even get a chance to say good-bye.
I know what you're feeling.
Believe me, I do.
Look, I have your contact information.
If we get any news, I'll be in touch, ok?
This way, ma'am. Thank you.
Tough situation.
Hopefully we'll get some answers soon.
Well, we've identified the two latest victims...
June berkholt and Amy Sanders,
both in their forties.
Abducted in broad daylight while doing errands.
Anyway, prentiss wants us to drive to Charleston
to see what else the m.E. Has.
Help me!
Please!
Just another day at the office.
Mama always said I should have studied accounting.
It's probably easiest if we looked at these
as two separate, distinct crimes...
the past and the present.
Simplicity's good. Fire away.
Let's start with the 7 victims from the past.
All were female caucasians
in their late teens to mid-twenties,
brunettes, small boned, around 5'6, " 5'7".
They were killed over a period of two decades,
roughly 1988 to 2008.
Sexually assaulted?
No. No signs of rape, torture, or prolonged confinement.
What about c.O.D.?
Poison.
That skews female.
Puts Dorothy solidly in the picture.
Now for the present.
Two latest victims ranged in age
from 42 to 46 and had a rougher time of it.
They both suffered blunt force trauma to the head.
We're definitely dealing with two different killers here.
An offender's signature wouldn't deviate that dramatically.
Yeah, there is a lot more anger
in our active unsub.
And sadism.
I found insulation residue in the victim's lungs.
So the women were entombed while they were still alive.
Our unsub has to be someone close to the elgins.
He was familiar with the earlier killings
and tried to emulate them.
A friend, maybe,
or a family member we don't know about.
Ok, let's take a step back
and review what we've got so far.
Karl Elgin began killing young runaway types
starting back in the eighties.
Brought them back to the house using some sort of ruse,
a hot meal, roof over their head.
So many victims over such a long time span,
Dorothy had to be complicit.
More than that, maybe.
She could have been calling the shots,
reining in the more violent tendencies of her husband.
Now fast forward to present day,
and years after Karl's last victim,
two more women are killed in the span of 12 months.
Murders that coincidentally started shortly after Karl died.
Garcia. Digame.
Have you found any connection between the two women we just ID'd?
No, I have not. Both were married and had children,
participated in their communities.
They both seem like model citizens.
Two women like that go missing in less than a year
and nobody down here connects the dots?
You're pretty great at that.
My aunt loved to sew.
I was a tomboy,
always tearing my jeans,
and she would mend them,
make them good as new.
Now, Dorothy, you can be truthful with us
about Karl and the girls.
We know you cared about them.
That's why you fixed their clothing.
I'm sorry, but it's time for Mrs. Elgin's medicine.
Dorothy, you said something earlier.
"It won't work. It's not the same." What did that mean?
Did I say that?
You don't remember?
No.
I'll bring her back in a few minutes
if you'd like to wait.
Something's going on with her.
No! No!
Call 9-1-1.
Somebody help. Help her.
All right, yeah. Thanks.
Dorothy died on the way to the hospital.
Whatever she knew died with her.
I can't believe she did that.
Well, maybe the guilt got to be too much for her.
Is that everything? There's nothing else?
Those are the only items she brought from her house.
All right, Dorothy was picked up by the police
in the middle of the night.
She was brought here, went to bed,
but she wasn't processed until the next morning.
So she had a small window of unsupervised time.
What's the one thing we know for sure about the elgins?
They like to hide things.
Yeah.
Jewelry, keychains, bodies, you know,
the important stuff.
Old habits die hard.
What are you doing?
We could talk. It'd be nice.
I...
Just tell me what you're writing there.
You're scaring me.
The victims probably wrote these.
We're having forensics expedite the processing of the envelopes.
At least now we have names and addresses.
Let's see if Garcia can track down the intended recipients.
Why write letters that never even got mailed?
It could have been a way for Karl and Dorothy
to psychologically control their victims,
allow them to write letters to loved ones,
give them a sense of being in a safe and nurturing environment.
Which makes the behavioral profile
less sociopathic, oddly enough.
How come?
To use parental love as a manipulating device
means they have an understanding of the importance of family.
Most sociopaths don't.
By definition, they lack the sense
of human connectedness the rest of us feel.
The elgins must have experienced it first hand.
I don't see how they could.
Karl and Dorothy didn't have any kids.
Was that ever verified?
Well, I'd drive out there now and then
just to check in on them,
and I never saw another soul besides Karl and Dorothy.
Sheriff, have you ever heard the saying,
does a tree falling in an empty forest make a sound?
It's a metaphysical riddle about unperceived existence.
The answer's largely dependent on whether
you subscribe to substance or bundle theory.
In this case, I believe agent prentiss
is saying that, yes, the tree does make a sound.
Thank you.
Surprise, surprise.
Autopsy on Dorothy Elgin reveals at some point
in her life she did give birth.
I'll be damned.
With the recent killings, the signature changed.
All the feminine aspects went away.
What if Dorothy had a son?
He would have known about the earlier killings,
maybe even witnessed them.
And then when the patriarch died,
he was there to pick up the torch.
Dorothy didn't commit suicide from guilt.
It was to protect the person she knew or suspected
might be behind the current murders... her own child.
In her dementia, she couldn't trust what she might let slip.
So rather than risk incriminating her own boy,
she took herself out of the picture.
Ok, a local woman named Mary brewer was just reported missing.
40 years old, brunette, 5'6".
Well, the son's victimology matches that of the father's
in terms of type, but he his aging the women up.
So if the earlier victims would have lived,
they'd be the age of the current victims.
These surrogates must mean different things
to the two different killers.
Ok, well, forensics just finished up with the envelopes.
Don't, please.
Sing me a song.
What?
I'm sad.
Words from the grave.
Our unsub's identity could be hidden in here.
Let's do it.
"Dear, mom and dad, it's me delta.
Getting this letter, you must be shocked."
Woman, voice-over: I don't think I ever wrote anything to you before.
I'm staying with a nice older couple I met when I was hitchhiking.
We play cards and things.
I'm getting healthy.
There's a pond where Karl's teaching me how to fish.
He's so nice.
"Karl is Dorothy's husband."
Second woman, voice-over: Don't worry because they treat me
just like I was their own daughter.
I'll be coming home next week.
Honest.
Third woman, voice-over: Please don't be mad when you see me.
Just hold me.
I love you.
They had no idea what was in store.
The common refrain is "they treated me like
I was their own daughter."
Well, maybe that's what the abductions were all about.
Karl and Dorothy, they had a son,
maybe they wanted to add a daughter.
Building a family?
Ok, we need to go wider.
We're here today to enlist the help of the public
in finding Mary brewer.
The person we believe is responsible for taking Mary is a man
with a close connection to Karl and Dorothy Elgin,
the couple suspected in the murders
of 7 other women many years ago.
There's evidence that the couple may have had a child.
And given that the killings profile strongly as male,
we could be looking at a heretofore unknown son.
We're hoping others might have had contact
with the family and survived.
These are the people we're reaching out to.
This killer is not criminally sophisticated,
and he's abducting high-profile targets in broad daylight.
This is an indicator that the person we're searching for
may be devolving.
This makes him significantly more dangerous.
We need your help to find Mary brewer,
but also to give loved ones of the earlier victims
the closure they deserve.
We urge anyone who may have pertinent information
to contact the FBI at the number provided.
Thank you.
I'm not hungry.
It's not for you.
You want me to feed you?
A plane. What?
Make it a plane...
Flying in.
Here it comes.
Close your eyes.
Open your mouth.
Into the hangar.
Uhh!
Why don't you love me?!
Mary brewer's husband's on his way in,
and we got an apb out on her vehicle right now.
Media outreach is working.
Now it's just a matter of sorting through
which leads are real and which aren't.
Unfortunately, Garcia's not having much luck with the letters.
The intended recipients have either passed away or moved elsewhere.
Excuse me, agents.
This woman says it's important that she talk to you right now.
I'm agent prentiss. This is agent Simmons. How can we help you?
Karl and Dorothy Elgin, they didn't have a son.
Ok. And you know this how?
I grew up in that house.
Karl and Dorothy Elgin were my parents.
Apparently she ran away from home when she was 16
and never looked back.
Think she's legit or just somebody
looking for their 15 minutes of fame?
Sheriff said she was able to describe the elgins' house in detail.
My mom and dad weren't normal,
I always knew that,
but they weren't killers.
Not normal how?
It was just them.
All they ever talked about was getting away from people.
Is that why you ran away?
Yeah. I mean, I had no friends,
wasn't even allowed to go into town.
Towards the end, I'd sneak away at night,
hang out with kids my own age.
And do what?
Talk, drink beer.
What normal teenagers do.
What made you decide to leave for good?
One day I just opened the door
and walked out and never came back.
Moved to Georgia, got myself a new life.
Married, two kids.
Leeanne,
were you there when your parents started murdering those girls?
That's what I'm trying to tell you.
They couldn't have done all the things people are saying.
It was somebody else,
some other monster.
I'm sorry.
Let me put a bandage on your head.
I'll... I'll take care of you.
I promise.
What are you doing?
No!
So it wasn't about creating a daughter.
They were trying to replace the daughter they'd lost.
You know, leeanne's 5'7", brunette, small boned.
Yeah, but there's something still not sitting right.
A 16-year-old girl one day walks away from the only world she's ever known,
no money, no resources, nothing.
There's more to this than run-of-the-mill teenage angst.
Yeah, something triggered her decision.
Penelope.david.
Leeanne garrity ran away from home
in either the spring or summer of 1988.
Did anything unusual happen in the area back then?
I am a firm believer that unusual
lies in the brain of the beholder.
Having said that,
the majority of brains would say that this qualifies.
June 5, 1988, local farmer named Roger milburn
killed his wife and his teenage son
before taking his own life.
It was huge local news at the time.
Thank you.
Leeanne must have heard about that.
If she was in denial about her parents' homicidal tendencies,
that would have been one hell of a wakeup call.
Yeah, she could have feared the same thing happening to her.
Jj, can you and the boy genius
take a look at whatever they may have on file about that old case?
Yeah, you got it.
Ok, so this is everything collected from the milburn crime scene?
Yes, ma'am.
Jj, look at this.
Yeah, that doesn't track.
What doesn't?
Bullet trajectories, body angles,
and blood spatter are not consistent
with a murder-suicide.
Were Roger milburn's hands ever tested
for gun powder residue?
No, ma'am. It seemed like an open-and-shut case back then.
This crime scene was staged. Someone else killed this family.
It was just a mother, father, and teenage son
living at the milburn house, correct?
No one else?
That's right.
What were they doing with a baby bottle?
Where did the milburns live?
Uh...
Right there.
That's right next to the Elgin property.
You weren't entirely truthful with us, leeanne.
What do you mean?
Those nights that you went sneaking out,
there was only one kid that you went to hang out with, right?
And you didn't just drink beer.
You got pregnant.
No.
Where did you...
the milburn family. They lived close by.
Their teenage son Steve, he was about your age, right?
He's the one you were sneaking out to see.
I didn't mean for it to happen.
Did your parents know?
I had the baby at the house.
In secret.
And what about Steve?
Nobody knew.
My mom and dad said they'd raise the baby themselves,
but it only made them crazier.
I'd even get tied to the bed sometimes
to make sure I wouldn't go running off again.
But you did anyway.
One night I had a chance,
so I took my little boy and I ran.
I dropped him off at his daddy's and kept going.
Why? Why leave your baby behind?
That wasn't my plan.
But Steve's mom and dad, they didn't want nothing
to do with me or my family.
They knew my mom and dad were kind of crazy.
And the baby was their grandson, too.
They said they'd take him and raise him proper,
but only if I went away.
So I left.
Where did you find that?
In was in the evidence box from the milburn crime scene.
Crime scene? What are you talking about?
Leeanne, shortly after you ran away,
the milburn family was killed.
My baby?
He wasn't there.
There was the mother, the father, and Steve.
Police ruled it a murder-suicide.
Except that it wasn't.
We believe that your father came looking for his grandson
and then took him by force.
Took him?
You mean my little boy grew up with them,
in that house?
Where is he now?
No.
Please.
You don't have to do this.
Grandpa knew.
Knew what?
I don't know what you're talking about.
When you left,
grandpa said grandma got...
Really, really sad.
He wanted her to get better,
like she used to be.
He found others, but...
But he had to make sure they didn't run away.
Don't be sad, grandma.
Then grandpa died.
I tried to find the other ones, too,
but it didn't work.
It wasn't the same.
That won't happen to me.
Aah!
Aah! Aah!
Aah!
So we know who and why but not where.
Well, the unsub wouldn't go far from where he grew up.
All of the trauma is rooted there.
Ok, well, letters the victims wrote their loved ones...
Yeah, what about them?
Well, several talked about a pond
where Karl took them fishing.
Recreating what he must have done with leeanne.
Fishing?
In a pond somewhere near your house.
Yeah, I mean, my dad took me fishing when I was little.
Where was it? There's no pond on your family's property.
I know. We had to drive there.
Which direction? I don't know.
How long did it take you to get there?
15 minutes, maybe. It was next to an empty cabin.
There was a bridge nearby. Why do you want...
Garcia.
Hold on.
Got it. Sending coordinates now.
Rossi and Simmons are out at the Elgin crime scene.
They're closer than we are. We'll provide backup.
Dave...
I'll secure the back.
Rossi, he's in the center of the room.
He's alone.
Copy.
I'm at the rear entrance.
Any sign of Mary brewer?
Negative.
We breach on 3.
1, 2, 3.
Put your hands up.
Hands up! Now!
Where's Mary brewer?
Need an ambulance to the location.
Mary!
Mary brewer!
No sign of her.
Where is she?
Mary!
You're ok. You're safe now.
No! No! No!
No, leave her where she was.
She belongs with me.
It's ok, it's ok.
You're safe. You're safe.
So all this is because the elgins' daughter ran off?
Karl saw the effect it had on his wife,
so he went out, found those girls
in an attempt to pull Dorothy out of her tailspin.
He surrounded her with substitute leeannes
in the wall, under the floor,
basically encircling her.
And their grandson tried to do the same thing for her
once Karl died.
Is this a normal case for you folks?
None of them are normal.
Well, Dr. Reid, I can say it was
a pleasure talking to you.
I'm gonna give that tree in the forest thing some more thought.
Don't give it too much thought.
It's basically an infallible conjecture.
Copy that.
Well, thanks again.
Uh, Emily, I need to go to New York
for a couple of days. Would that be all right?
After the wrench I threw in your vacation
with my quick detour, take all the time you want.
Coming?
Uh, yeah, yeah. In a minute.
There's something I have to do.
Hey.
Um...
I think that was meant for you.
Jj, voice-over: "Without a family, man, alone in the world
trembles with the cold."
Andre maurois.
This one's pretty good, huh
thank you. You're welcome.
Thank you very much.
My pleasure.
We didn't invite you here just to pick up the tab.
Yeah, well, don't you worry,
you'll all be getting invoices in the mail.
It was great meeting you, sir.
I loved your stories.
You should seriously write a book.
You know, I just may do that.
I'm gonna start hunting a cab.
Saturday nights are tough.
You don't ride share?
No, Scott doesn't like to download apps.
This guy's just getting better and better.
Ok, so what do you guys think of Scott?
Honestly.
Honestly?
I think he's terrific.
You do? I do.
I know he's not up-to-date on true crime authors,
but we just... we click.
Taxi's waiting.
I love you guys. Thank you.
As you can see, portia's over her David rossi issues.
And I wasn't kidding about her new guy.
Scott's great.
It was important for portia to hear you say that.
I think that's why she called you to come to New York.
How does it feel to step in as substitute father?
I'm flattered,
though the irony of anyone asking me
for romantic advice...
You've had your share of romance.
There's been at least 3 women
that saw you as husband material.
Yeah, well, we've all seen how that turned out.
Have we?
Well, that's a subject that bears further discussion.
Care for a nightcap?