The Last Word

I tend to watch a lot of different crime shows and read true crime books. NCIS and Criminal Minds are two of my favorite television shows. I just rewatched a Criminal Minds episode that has always struck a cord in me. The episode is in the second season and is entitled "The Last Word". In this episode the BAU (Behavioral Analysis Unit) is called to St. Louis to help with two different serial killers. One of these serial killers the city has known about for months, but has been unable to catch him. He targets middle class women in their thirties, favoring women with a certain look about them. The police have been unsuccessful in catching him. The second serial killer has been operating for about the same amount of time, around a year or so, but only recently have police realized that they have a second serial killer. Both target women, leaving a string of missing and dead women in their tracks. So why is the second killer not recognized? That's "easy". His victims are prostitutes.

Granted, this is simply an episode of a television show, but the basis of this episode is quite realistic. There have been several serial killers over the last several decades who have targeted prostitutes because they know that here is a group of individuals who will not be "missed" as quickly, who when they do go missing, will not be given the same attention as a woman who lives in a white picket fence with 2.5 kids and a college education. Here is a group of individuals that society has deemed less than the rest of society.

Throughout the episode of the show there is one individual, a reporter, who keeps bringing up that these victims of the second killer are just as important as the victims of the first killer. At the end of the episode, after both killers have been caught, we see the story he has written for the cover of the next day's newspaper. He has printed the picture of each victim along with the headline "Victims Remembered".

Although I have probably seen this episode two or three times now, it still strikes something in me. Both because of the true sadness of the fact that society deems certain individuals as less than, but also because it reminds me that there are still individuals like that reporter who remind society that no one is less than, and everyone's life is worth something.