Clayton Riddle

Clayton Riddle, a.k.a. Sagittarius, was a traumatized, delusional "Wound Collector" serial-turned-spree-killer and cop killer who appeared in Shoot to Kill in Profiler.

Background
Clayton Riddle was a talented police sharpshooter in Columbus, with a passion and extensive knowledge of antiquities and a craftsman's hand at biomechanics. He was so great at his job he applied his skills in the military, eventually becoming an elite sniper for the CIA. This would be a direction he'd soon regret when he fell from his height from his skills when both of his legs were shot in the line of duty. What rubbed more salt in his wounds was when he was discharged from the military, his department at Columbus PD found him unfit for duty and refused to return him to his position. With both of his careers lost, he felt betrayed and soon grew to hate and resent the police he thought cared for sharing his life's work with them. He soon became an antiquities professor at Ohio State University, earning prestige in his class, as well as in his own expert biomechanics he personally utilized to try and extensively work on making himself better prosthetic legs. Sadly, this wasn't enough, as his machine lab skills also helped him craft modified sniper rifles. His intention for them was to target Ohio's law enforcement to get revenge on the institutions he saw as having failed him. He was inspired by the Greek myth of Chiron, an immortal centaur who was a revered teacher and gifted archer, but was shot in his flank with a poison arrow by his student, Heracles. Chiron begged Zeus, the almighty god, to lie him die to end his pain, which Heracles laughed at and said was unfitting for an immortal, so Chiron proved himself by shooting the most impossible shot, the starry bowl that is the clear night sky fully showing its stars. With this, Zeus granted Chiron the honor of being the constellation Sagittarius. With this myth in his wildest desires and his hopes of achieving his own immortal place in the sky, Riddle set out to snipe his way to just that end for him to restore his glory in himself. He started with target practice in Dayton, killing first a college student, then a salesman, on two separate stretches of freeways while the traffic was idle. Each time, he doubled the range of his shots to reassure his skills to himself.

Shoot to Kill
Riddle's seen at the start of the episode repeating the same MO in shooting a secretary in her head in her car before she poured her in-car coffee. But he changed his challenge that time, for when a traffic cop came to investigate, when his back was turned assuming Riddle was gone, Riddle shot him in the back, leading to his swift death and the consultation of the VCTF on site. As an additional signature, Riddle left behind a calling card: his own homemade close rendition of Greek pottery in a clay urn telling the story of Chiron as his own. Riddle soon gets worse not long after, striking in Toledo another day, shooting a female diner first, then a responding officer in his gut, which doesn't kill him. When the team arrives at the diner, Bailey Malone stands in from of the window, chancing a shot, but the glass is bulletproof, so he's unharmed. George Fraley set up sonar mics to capture his shots and calculate his vantage, but he's already gone by then. He's left another urn behind, this time showing the story of Chiron and the arrow, but as his own because the arrow's not in his side but his leg. Malone, being haunted by memories of a similar CIA sniper gone rogue during his service in Cambodia, eventually figures Riddle has similar training. This crucial break, along with a contact and friend providing the files, leads to Riddle's identity as the shooter, with a glaringly uncanny profile fitting the killer's description. The police are notified and arrive at the university, where they go into his workshop and find his stations, where he makes his rifles, bullets, prosthetics, even his urns. They realize his next location is in Traveler Towers in Columbus, but they're too late to stop a woman being shot. With an increase vantage point and surveillance of the scene, Samantha Waters realizes a glass sculpture in the center of the square fountain is his ultimate shot like Chiron's. Malone realizes Riddle's changing vantage points to make that shot. With his own police-lent rifle and ammo, he tracks Riddle onto the roof, taking position on a roof across from him where he doesn't have a clear shot. Riddle's already shot at John Grant once when he goes to check the woman, who's still alive. Malone throws Riddle's shot off Grant's trajectory, narrowly saving Grant's life and shattering the sculpture to shards. Riddle, horrified and infuriated by the threat and challenge, turns his rifle on Malone, with the both of them deadlocking their aims on each other. After a long, tense standoff, each of them fire a shot, but Riddle's hopes are shattered. He narrowly misses Malone, hitting a metal beam behind him, but Malone hits his mark perfectly, shooting right through Riddle's scope, the shot in his eye killing him instantly. When Riddle's dead, the police stand up and cheer to celebrate, Malone holding his rifle in the air in triumph.

Modus Operandi
Riddle started by sniping drivers on slow freeways for target practice, killing them with shots to their heads. He then changed his MO to shooting responding cops once they responded to the traps he set, shooting them in their bodies or heads to kill them instantly as well, along with future pedestrians once his intentions were made. With each site of his kills, he doubled his vantage points, using a modified rifle and full bullets with heavy jackets he manufactured from spare parts himself, walking up to his perches with prosthetic legs that are also his own design. He would also shoot in more populous, notorious cities as he progressed in his attacks to gain more confidence. As his MO against the cops was revealed, he also started leaving urns he also sculpted and painted by hand, showing the story of Chiron becoming Sagittarius in his own image of himself. His ultimate goal was to shoot a glass sculpture from a highly skilled vantage point at Traveler Towers, to evoke the near-impossible shot Chiron made to ascend to the stars.

Known Victims

 * Dayton, OH
 * Unidentified female student
 * Unidentified salesman
 * Unidentified female secretary
 * Unidentified male traffic cop (shot once in his back)


 * Toledo, OH
 * The diner shooting:
 * Unidentified female diner (shot in her back)
 * Unidentified responding officer (shot in his stomach; lived)
 * Bailey Malone (attempted; the bullet was caught in bulletproof glass)


 * Columbus, OH
 * The Traveler Towers Shooting:
 * Unidentified woman (attempted, but likely barely survived; shot in her back)
 * John Grant (attempted; both shots missed, one hitting the glass sculpture)
 * Bailey Malone (attempted again; missed and was shot dead by him instead)

Trivia

 * The show made a serious flaw in the Greek mythos relayed in the story. Chiron isn't the constellation Sagittarius, but instead Centaurus.