Criminal Minds (TV Series)

Submerged (2018)

Aisha Tyler: Dr. Tara Lewis

Photos 

Quotes 

• Penelope Garcia : So, remember that old expression "Dont go swimming while tethered to a cinder block"?

  [no reaction] 

  Penelope Garcia : No? Larry and Wanda Robbins from Ramona, California. Newlyweds. They were found dead last night in their backyard pool. Wanda was shot once in the chest. Larry was gagged and drowned because of that cinder block thing I mentioned earlier.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Anything stolen from the house?

  Emily Prentiss : Jewelry was missing from Wanda's vanity. This is the latest in a string of backyard pool murders in Ramona over the last two weeks.

  Penelope Garcia : Oh, that's my part. Victim number one, Ben Stiles, 82 year old widower. He was found at the bottom of his pool, tied to a cinder block like Larry Robbins. Six days later, victim number two, Bert Schofield; divorced, lived alone, and as you can see, same kind of awfulness.

  Jennifer Jareau : Were their houses also burglarized?

  Penelope Garcia : Yeah. Well, Ben Stiles' was. His coin collection was missing. I'm not sure about Bert Schofield.

• Emily Prentiss : Local law enforcement has been treating these as burglaries gone wrong, but...

  David Rossi : The "gone wrong" part could have been easily avoided.

  Emily Prentiss : Exactly. Straight-up burglary, the unsub would have made sure the homes were unoccupied first.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : And he wouldn't have wasted time with drownings and cinder blocks. He would have been in and out.

  Matt Simmons : Yeah, it's pretty obvious the unsub wanted these occupants dead.

  Emily Prentiss : We've got a long flight ahead of us. Wheels up in thirty.

• Jennifer Jareau : Have we found a connection between the victims yet, Garcia?

  Penelope Garcia : None. All of them were long-time area residents, and they all had backyard pools, but that's about it.

  Matt Simmons : It's possible these killings are random.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Except the items taken were so specific. I mean, the unsub must have had some familiarity with the people he targeted.

  Penelope Garcia : Oh, and it turns out that Bert Schofield was, in fact, burglarized. His bowling trophies were missing from his garage.

  Luke Alvez : [incredulous]  Bowling trophies? Seriously?

  Penelope Garcia : I just report the facts as I find them, sir.

• David Rossi : Curious how only the female was shot.

  Matt Simmons : Well, that means the men are most likely the true targets. He puts them through these prolonged, agonizing deaths when the gun would have done the job quickly.

  Luke Alvez : Either that or he forgot an extra cinder block when he went to the Robbins' house.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : You know, this unsub doesn't strike me as the forgetful type.

• Emily Prentiss : Any information on the first two victims?

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Not much on Ben Stiles. His wife died ten years ago and he pretty much kept to himself after that. He had health issues. Barely went out.

  Matt Simmons : So that should make it easier to narrow down who had access to him or knew about that coin collection.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Which was just some silver dollars, by the way. Not worth much. But it was more of a hobby with Stiles.

  Sheriff Clifford Mason : [entering]  I just got a call from up at Lake Palmer. Ben Stiles' coin collection is scattered all along the shore.

• Dr. Tara Lewis : I just don't get it. I mean, the unsub goes through all the trouble to steal these only to turn around and throw them in the lake?

  Luke Alvez : The guy didn't put a whole lot of heave-ho into it. You know, we found the right here at the water's edge.

  [Prentiss approaches] 

  Luke Alvez : Problem?

  Emily Prentiss : Gentlemen said he found the silver dollars an hour ago walking the shore. He's not too happy I told him he can't keep them.

  Luke Alvez : Why'd he call the police, then?

  Emily Prentiss : He didn't. A woman nearby remembered that silver dollars were stolen from Ben Stiles. She's the one who called.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Practically in plain sight. I mean, it's like the unsub wanted these coins to be discovered.

  Luke Alvez : It could have been a forensic countermeasure. "Look at these shiny things over here while I go over there."

  Emily Prentiss : That would bolster our theory that the burglaries were just for show.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Yeah, but if the unsub wanted to sell these home invasions as legit robberies, he wouldn't have taken junk. He would have stolen something valuable.

• Luke Alvez : Is that a body bag?

  Sheriff Clifford Mason : Damn. Another one.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : What's going on?

  Sheriff Clifford Mason : Remember I said this town is on pins and needles? This is what kicked it off.

  Emily Prentiss : There are bodies in the lake?

  Sheriff Clifford Mason : Old bodies. Skeletons, more like. Lake Palmer is a man-made reservoir. Before it got flooded, all of this out here was just rugged canyon. So if someone drowns, they tend to get tangled in the submerged trees. Hardly ever make it back up to the surface. But with this drought...

  Emily Prentiss : The surface is coming down to them.

• Matt Simmons : The place was ransacked. We don't know what was taken, if anything.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Victim's name is Walter Knight. Married, father of two.

  Matt Simmons : The unsub didn't need a cinder block this time. This chair was heavy enough to sink him to the bottom.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : It almost looks like a shroud.

  Matt Simmons : California King, 500 weave.

  [seeing her look] 

  Matt Simmons : It's a bedsheet. Unsub took it from inside. We know where Walter's wife and kids are?

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Florida, visiting relatives.

  Matt Simmons : This is a deviation from his usual M.O. Could be a sign of remorse.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : [uncovering the victim, seeing a large needle through his nose]  Not that remorseful.

  Matt Simmons : Whew. So the unsub sewed him up, stuck this needle through his nose, dumped the chair in the pool. Level of sadism's ratcheting up. We gotta find this guy fast.

• Dr. Tara Lewis : Rossi just called. They just recovered another body from the lake. Now, it was all done covertly, so hopefully the unsub is unaware.

  Jennifer Jareau : Okay, well, we profiled the unsub was stuck in early adolescence. Something had to have happened to him, what, twenty years ago, to cause the shock to his system.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : You're right. I mean, if this is arrested development, something arrested it.

  Luke Alvez : The reservoir was created around that time.

  Jennifer Jareau : Yeah. What if the killer's trauma occurred out there before the reservoir was formed?

  Luke Alvez : Or during.

• Jennifer Jareau : Garcia?

  Penelope Garcia : Come get it, Bae.

  Jennifer Jareau : The land that was flooded to form Lake Palmer, did anyone live or work out there?

  Penelope Garcia : It's pretty remote country, but yeah, it looks like there were three homes in the canyon.

  Luke Alvez : I assume they were all subject to eminent domain?

  Penelope Garcia : Correct. The city bought out those three families.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Do we know what happened to the residents?

  Penelope Garcia : Two of 'em moved to houses by the side of the new lake. The third one is proving to be a little trickier.

  [finding a result] 

  Penelope Garcia : Bob Turner, an off-the-gridish type, but he vanished right before the new reservoir was created. I don't have a trace of him after that, but fret not. There's the grid and then there's the Garcia grid, and that one is not as easy to stay off of. Do you know what I'm saying? Of course you know what I'm saying. Goodbye.

• Emily Prentiss : What is it, Garcia?

  Penelope Garcia : Bob Turner, our missing canyon dweller, has gone from off the grid to gridlocked. Turns out Bob Turner isn't even his real name. It's Casey Peters, and Mr. Peters has what I would diplomatically call a sketchy history.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Sketchy how?

  Penelope Garcia : Embezzlement, fraud, forgery. I could go on. He's lived mostly in Florida and the Carolinas.

  Emily Prentiss : What brought him to Ramona, California?

  Penelope Garcia : A place to hide out, apparently.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : From what?

  Penelope Garcia : Something to do with money. Months before the canyon was flooded, federal Treasury agents were closing in on him.

  Emily Prentiss : And that's when he pulled up stakes in Ramona and vanished. Do we know where he is now?

  Penelope Garcia : We do not, but I am on the hunt. I am sending you a DMV photo of Casey Peters from his Bob Turner days.

  Emily Prentiss : [looking at the photo on her phone]  I know that guy. From the lake.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Yeah. That's the guy who found the coins.

• Jennifer Jareau : Well, Leland's juvie history was pretty innocuous. Vandalism, shoplifting. Hardly gateway crimes to the life of a serial killer.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Well, every grown-up monster was once a cute little baby monster.

  Luke Alvez : The bigger issue for me is how does a thirteen year old boy stay off the radar for twenty years?

  Jennifer Jareau : When Garcia can't find a breadcrumb, it's usually because the bread was never baked.

  Luke Alvez : Yeah, at some point, it's time to stop thinking about what's possible and start thinking about what's likely. Which for me is that Leland is dead, and has been dead for a long, long time.

  Jennifer Jareau : Which would leave us where?

• Penelope Garcia : Release the genie.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Leland Peters, did his juvie trouble ever involve another kid?

  Penelope Garcia : Uh, yeah. A whole group of kids. They ran in a pack.

  Jennifer Jareau : Does one name pop up more than the others?

  Penelope Garcia : Oh. Like B-14 in a Bingo parlor. Jess Carney. He and Leland were thick as thieves. Literally. Stole stuff, truancy. But this is weird. At age fourteen, Jess - poof - like, disappears. His behavior took a violent turn shortly after the canyon flooded. His parents couldn't control him anymore. And as soon as the mystery presents itself, the mystery is solved. Jess was institutionalized out of state, put on antidepressants.

  Luke Alvez : That would explain the arrested development. He was medicated and isolated during some crucial formative years.

  Penelope Garcia : Jess returned to California when he was twenty-four and worked odd jobs in and around San Diego, and then... suddenly left the area about a month ago.

  Jennifer Jareau : That's right around the time the killings started.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Do we know where Jess is now?

  Penelope Garcia : Oh. Oh, we do not. After he left San Diego, he... he poof, vanished again. It's like a re-poof, I guess you'd call it.

  Luke Alvez : Is there a recent photo of Carney?

  Penelope Garcia : Uh, the best I have is a DMV photo from six years ago. Sending it now.

• Dr. Tara Lewis : [getting ready to head home]  Ready?

  David Rossi : Avanti.

  Jennifer Jareau : You hear that?

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Hear what?

  David Rossi : Cut the engine.

  [she does so; they hear a rumble of thunder; raindrops start to patter the windshield, which then turns into a torrential downpour] 

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Hmm. Well, I'll be damned.