Jesse Thurman

Jesse Thurman is a previously underage, severely mentally ill serial killer appearing in Old Ghosts in Profiler.

History
Little is known about Jesse Thurman, particularly in early life. At some point, he started killing teenage girls he could stand being even seemingly promiscuous or femme fatale. Each of them were never found because he buried them under a princess tree in a lot near a lake, staying there for 15 years. He later married, his wife suffering severely from multiple sclerosis. She soon went to the point of needing a ventilator and staying at home, Jesse taking care of her also helping curb his murderous urges. When a pipe burst and the canal he buried the bodies in was flooded, leading the the discovery of the corpses, his past came flashing back to him, no longer being able to keep the endangering paranoia he imposed at bay. He murdered one woman, Helene Jeffries, soon after the burial site discovery, then another woman not long after, each held captive by him. After the first murder, he left flowers at her grave, but he was spotted by the police and chased down, interrogated harshly by Bailey Malone but let go when his seeming "alibi" through them off his tracks. As another suspect, Carl Jenks, is focused on and searched by the police and FBI, Thurman abducts Stacy Dorbin, locking her in the basement tied to a chair. He tried to make her eat, all the while her begging to be let go and asking what she did wrong. He screamed at her when she smiled, to which she said she's supposed to with the customers. As his about to the kill her, the police and Violent Crimes Task Force burst in through the cellar door, Malone throwing Thurman into the table with the plate on it before Thurman's arrested and taken away. Thurman was either incarcerated or institutionalized after, depending on his mental state.

Modus Operandi
Jesse Thurman spontaneously targeted teenage girls and then women in their 20s and 30s 15 years later whom he had breakdowns over from him assuming them being promiscuous and sexually harassing him. When he killed teens as a kid, he rampantly stabbed them in a heated attack and struggle, going as far as breaking Nancy Finch's finger when she fought back. When he killed older women now grown up himself, he started kidnapping them, feeding and caring for them for a few days, then stabbing them most in their breasts and genitals once he eventually lost it. His signature was going to fields with princess trees to bury each woman underneath them, all together in a mass grave, or alone once the mass grave was found and he had to go find other burial sites.

Profile
Originally profiled as severely sexually raging, attacking women's femininity, likely from being impotent, particularly targeting flirtatious women. Works a blue-collar job, likely going to settings where women are abundant to pick up on, but has serious insecurities and self-criticism, which the women are subjected to in brutal ways in half-misdirected ways by the intentions the killer has on himself. The killer was later revealed to be paranoid and afraid of even being touched or looked at by a woman since having insecurities as a teenager. The first series of killings were sloppier and more haphazard, the frantic adrenaline led the killer to murder for the sake of killing promiscuity in itself, yet the Princess tree burials were meant to dedicate to the innocence of women, particularly the women who were murdered, his way of expressing his regret, like when he revisited the sites to leave flowers. When the canal flooded, even in spite of urges being curbed for the sake of a spouse incapable of harassment or intimidation to care for, the paranoia came back, but the women were treated more as responsibilities out of compassion mixed with the insanity as he learned from tending to his wife. He killed each of them when they stopped being compliant because he was afraid of them dominating him, but being more "sophisticated" in means, he targeted their chests and pelvises, which make a women's figure and allure, honing in on and weeding out exactly what he couldn't stand in women. The "evolution" of MO led to the consideration of a copycat, especially since the details were published, but that was quickly ruled out since until the discovery of the mass grave, the Princess tress were never found.

Known Victims

 * 1985
 * Three unnamed women (stabbed multiple times)
 * Nancy Finch (stabbed multiple times; also broke her finger in a struggle)


 * 2000
 * Helene Jeffries (stabbed repeatedly, mostly in her breasts and genitals; buried under another tree)
 * Unnamed woman (stabbed repeatedly, mostly in her breasts and genitals; buried under another tree)
 * Stacy Dorbin (attempted; abducted, held captive, tied to a chair, and intended to stab to death; was rescued)

Trivia

 * Thurman appears to be based of Arthur Shawcross, the Genesse River killer.