[ A good explanation? Well, ultimately James would have to be the judge of that.
Will felt like asking if they could take this conversation somewhere more comfortable, but then he figured that a conversation like this didn't deserve comfort. ]
I've told you, that back home I hunted serial killers for the FBI. [ Will began. ] Even though I was evaluated by the FBI and found to be too mentally unstable to become an agent. The head of the BAU, a man named Jack Crawford, used me as his point hound, because I had a way of processing the evidence in a crime scene.
[ They had spoken on bits and pieces of this but now Will attempted to pull the picture together. ]
Because of the way my brand of crazy works, I can put myself in the mind of anyone ... for instance a killer, and walk through the crime as the perpetrator. Feel what they felt, live their motivations, their thoughts.
It allowed me to make leaps along the evidence that then allowed Jack and his team to find, capture and convict the killers. I had a 100% closure and conviction rate on any case he used me on.
But you go that far into the dark, again ... and again you start bringing things back with you. [ He glanced at James, suspecting the other man understood what he was saying. ]
I kept trying to get away from it, but when Jack had a bad one ... the really bad ones that he couldn't break, he'd pull me back and put me into the field until the case was closed.
There was one killer that Jack was obsessed with, a man known as the Chesapeake Ripper. The Ripper would surface, kill in sounders of three and then disappear for months, sometimes years, only to surface again. Jack used a promising young trainee to try to work the Ripper case and she became one of the Ripper's victims.
Jack was ... the Ripper was his white whale.
[ And that was putting it mildly. ]
I tried, again to get out of the field, but Jack put me back in. This time though, he listened to the advice of psychologists and he set me up with a top psychiatrist named Hannibal Lecter. It was Lecter's job to help me stay out of the dark, keep me sane.
Only, unbenounced to Jack, Lecter was the Ripper.
[ Will paused in the play of his fingers and looked over at James, giving that statement a moment to sink in. ]
For months, when I was at my most vulnerable, I had an apex predator in my head ... rearranging the furniture. Literally. Lecter used drugs, various psychological techniques, even let a raging case of encephalitis go untreated, in order to break my mind completely.
And he succeeded. [ There was no point in trying to pretend otherwise. ]
Lecter set me up as the Ripper and by the time I realized who and what he was, it was too late. Jack wouldn't believe me, was disgusted with me and there was no one who would even listen to me. Lecter had planted hard evidence as well as painted me as completely insane so as to ensure that I was isolated. Everyone I trusted betrayed or turned against me.
I ended up locked away in the Baltimore Hospital for the Criminal Insane, while awaiting my trial.
[ Will exhaled a tired breath and reached up to rub at his temple. ]
no subject
Will felt like asking if they could take this conversation somewhere more comfortable, but then he figured that a conversation like this didn't deserve comfort. ]
I've told you, that back home I hunted serial killers for the FBI. [ Will began. ] Even though I was evaluated by the FBI and found to be too mentally unstable to become an agent. The head of the BAU, a man named Jack Crawford, used me as his point hound, because I had a way of processing the evidence in a crime scene.
[ They had spoken on bits and pieces of this but now Will attempted to pull the picture together. ]
Because of the way my brand of crazy works, I can put myself in the mind of anyone ... for instance a killer, and walk through the crime as the perpetrator. Feel what they felt, live their motivations, their thoughts.
It allowed me to make leaps along the evidence that then allowed Jack and his team to find, capture and convict the killers. I had a 100% closure and conviction rate on any case he used me on.
But you go that far into the dark, again ... and again you start bringing things back with you. [ He glanced at James, suspecting the other man understood what he was saying. ]
I kept trying to get away from it, but when Jack had a bad one ... the really bad ones that he couldn't break, he'd pull me back and put me into the field until the case was closed.
There was one killer that Jack was obsessed with, a man known as the Chesapeake Ripper. The Ripper would surface, kill in sounders of three and then disappear for months, sometimes years, only to surface again. Jack used a promising young trainee to try to work the Ripper case and she became one of the Ripper's victims.
Jack was ... the Ripper was his white whale.
[ And that was putting it mildly. ]
I tried, again to get out of the field, but Jack put me back in. This time though, he listened to the advice of psychologists and he set me up with a top psychiatrist named Hannibal Lecter. It was Lecter's job to help me stay out of the dark, keep me sane.
Only, unbenounced to Jack, Lecter was the Ripper.
[ Will paused in the play of his fingers and looked over at James, giving that statement a moment to sink in. ]
For months, when I was at my most vulnerable, I had an apex predator in my head ... rearranging the furniture. Literally. Lecter used drugs, various psychological techniques, even let a raging case of encephalitis go untreated, in order to break my mind completely.
And he succeeded. [ There was no point in trying to pretend otherwise. ]
Lecter set me up as the Ripper and by the time I realized who and what he was, it was too late. Jack wouldn't believe me, was disgusted with me and there was no one who would even listen to me. Lecter had planted hard evidence as well as painted me as completely insane so as to ensure that I was isolated. Everyone I trusted betrayed or turned against me.
I ended up locked away in the Baltimore Hospital for the Criminal Insane, while awaiting my trial.
[ Will exhaled a tired breath and reached up to rub at his temple. ]
That's when the mind games, really started.