Have you ever wondered what's under your skin?Jeremy to one of his victims.
Jeremy Sayer is the main antagonist of the Criminal Minds episode "Safe Haven". He is a psychopathic teenager who murders entire families.
He was portrayed by Sterling Beaumon, who also portrayed a young Benjamin Linus in Lost and Hunter Mazelon in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
Biography
Early life
Born in Newton, Iowa, Jeremy's twin brother died in the womb, and his mother Kendra blamed him, accusing him of "killing" his brother simply by being born. His father left the family and moved to Wisconsin when Jeremy was ten, for which Kendra also blamed Jeremy. His mother's abuse ultimately turned Jeremy into a sociopath who harbored a savage hatred of women, mothers in particular. When his younger sister Carrie was born, he saw her only as competition, and treated her with the cruelty he had learned from his mother.
By thirteen, Jeremy already had a lengthy juvenile record of offenses such as four counts of petty theft, three counts of assault, four counts of battery, one charge of sexual assault, and one count of animal cruelty. He also tried to kill Kendra, Carrie and his grandmother by poisoning the Thanksgiving turkey with rat pellets and he also abducted and killed his neighbor's dog. Finally, after Jeremy broke Carrie's arm, Kendra disowned him and abandoned him in a hospital in Nebraska, hoping that he would be taken in by the foster care system under the Safe Haven child protection law.
Jeremy stayed at the hospital for nine days before good Samaritan Monica Archer took him home with her to spend the night with her family. Once in her house, however, Jeremy brutally tortured and murdered Monica Archer, as well as her husband and children. Afterwards Jeremy set his sights on returning to Iowa to seek retribution on Kendra for her abuse & abandonment by murdering Carrie.
"Safe Haven"
Right after murdering the Bennett family, Jeremy hitches a ride with Reverend Louis Hannum, stabs him in the neck, dissects his arm, and crashes his car into a ditch. He walks to a park, where he pretends to be stranded on his way to visit his aunt in order to con Nancy Riverton and her children into taking him in for the night.
The next morning, he ties up the children, and kidnaps Nancy, planning to use her to get to his mother's house. While driving, Nancy tries to reach Jeremy by telling him that he deserves love and kindness, but that only makes him angrier, so he stabs her, almost killing her (although she survived when she went to the hospital for surgery). He then steals a skateboard and rides back to his mother's house, then he finds the spare key under the bricks, breaks into his old home and holds Carrie at knifepoint, demanding that Kendra admit that she hates him; Kendra angrily replies that she has always known that he is a complete psycho.
At that moment, however, agents Derek Morgan and Emily Prentiss of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) burst into the house, having been trying to find Jeremy since he murdered the Archers, the Bennetts and Rev. Hannum. Morgan threatens to shoot Jeremy dead if he hurts Carrie, so Jeremy lets her go and allows Morgan and Prentiss to arrest him. He smugly tells Morgan that he will be free to kill his mother and sister once he turns eighteen, but Morgan replies that he will be at every one of Jeremy's parole hearings. Jeremy is then presumably put in juvenile detention.
Gallery
Trivia
- Jeremy is inspired by multiple real-life criminals:
- Beth Thomas, the subject of the TV film Child of Rage, a severely traumatized adopted child prone to violent behavior, including attacking her adoptive brother, who was later being treated for reactive attachment disorder with psychotherapy and attachment therapy.
- Scott Dyleski, an American teenage murderer of lawyer Daniel Horowitz’s wife Pamela Vitale, involving extremely violent mutilations.
- Billy Cook, a mass murderer with a recidivist record who killed an entire family and a motorist while posing as a hitchhiker.
- Peter Manuel, a.k.a. “The Beast of Burkenshire”, a Scottish serial killer who preyed on women and entire families.
- Harvey Miguel Robinson, an American serial killer with a criminal record beginning in adolescence and escalating to rape and murder.
- Joseph Kondro, a.k.a. "The Longview Serial Killer", a serial killer/rapist of the daughters of families he knew, an admitted lifelong sociopath with an extensive criminal record preceding the murders since childhood.
External Links
- Jeremy Sayer on the Criminal Minds Wiki
