Criminal Minds2005

Penelope Garcia:
I got the 4-1-1 on our first victim, Melvin Lewis. Originally from The Malibu of the Midwest, Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Melvin moved to Milwaukee 12 years ago when wifey ran away with his best friend.

David Rossi:
Ouch.

Penelope Garcia:
Yeah. Luckily, they had no kids. No criminal record. Like super squeaky clean. Not even a parking ticket. He joined Facebook a year ago. He has a whopping six friends, all from work.

Derek Morgan:
He drives a truck, right?

Penelope Garcia:
Yeah. A milk truck, to be exact. But only did that for a month. Before, he worked for 10 years at an animal control center, but he was laid off due to budget cuts.

Dr. Spencer Reid:
What exactly did he do, Garcia?

Penelope Garcia:
He was a dogcatcher. But like a SWAT team of dogcatchers. He specialized in dangerous and trapped animals, including, but not limited to skunks, a raccoon, and one time a giant python.

Derek Morgan:
All right, thanks, babe.

Dr. Spencer Reid:
That could be it.

Derek Morgan:
What? The python?

Dr. Spencer Reid:
No, bite marks. Of course. That could be how he was doing it. That's why it was undetectable. Brain tissue, we need to look at brain tissue...

Derek Morgan:
Okay, Reid.

Dr. Spencer Reid:
Sorry. I don't think this is a biting fetish or cannibalism. I think it's a virus, and the biting is merely a means of transmission.

Derek Morgan:
What kind of virus?

Dr. Spencer Reid:
There are several possibilities. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, tick-borne encephalitis, but the most likely culprit is rabies, and that wouldn't show up in an autopsy, except in brain tissue.

David Rossi:
So, since Lewis was the only victim not bitten by a human, the UnSub must have used an animal to infect him first.

Dr. Spencer Reid:
And after that, he somehow facilitated human to human transmission.

Derek Morgan:
It would explain the random victimology. It doesn't matter who he infects. All he needs is a host.

Dr. Spencer Reid:
Which also means the holding period isn't about torture, it's about incubation.

David Rossi:
I was attacked by a rabid for once. Shot the thing three times before it went down. Freakin' terrifying. It was like a horror movie.

Dr. Spencer Reid:
We need to have the M.E. test for rabies vectors in the brain samples.

Derek Morgan:
And then we need to deliver the profile.