Helen Oaks

Helen Oaks is a delusional budding serial killer and stalker and an "Injustice Collector" who appeared in Cruel and Unusual in Profiler.

Background
Helen Oaks dedicated her life to animals, primarily working at kill shelters for the purpose of adopting and taking home the animals in the shelters who were about to be euthanized. At some point, she became on of the many women who followed and fell in love with charismatic death row murderer Ronnie McDern, writing him letters every day and preaching his innocence. She developed an imaginary fantasy in her head where she and McDern were in a loving relationship, fabricating romantic activities they would do together. She harbored a deep grudge against the people she deemed responsible for sending him to death row, and as his execution drew nearer, she started planning to slowly kill them off by torturing them to death in ways that emulate the anguish of being in prison, always done in cages.

Cruel and Unusual
Oaks is first seen in the very beginning of the episode putting on a dress and makeup for a "date" with McDern. She then tased Phyllis Thompson, McDern's trial psychologist, and then tortured her with strobe lights and electrocution until she went insane enough to crush her skull against the inside of the cage. Helen then fatally tortures Marilyn Norville, a key witness in the trial, by leaving her blinded and handcuffed in the front with a plastic bag tied around her head until she suffocated. By the time the VCTF have figured out her motive, she had to abandon killing the judge, jury foreman, and district attorney after they're all put in protective custody. The day of McDern's execution, she abducted his defense attorney, Catherine Evers, and locked her in the kill shelter's gas chamber while it was running leaving her to die. Despite McDern's attempts to misdirect Samantha Waters to another suitor, Barbara Minetta, Waters figured out Oaks is the killer, and the team went to her house to find all her rescues and the remaining unused cages for her intended victims. They figured out her and Evers' location, and they arrived to find Oaks, who said they'll never find Evers and fondly "remembered" herself and McDern going roller skating and watching the sunset, one of his "favorite things to do". She then ran, but John Grant caught up with her and arrested her. Evers was soon after found clinging to life in the gas chamber, and she was resuscitated in time. Given her mental state, Oaks was presumably institutionalized.

Modus Operandi
Oaks target everyone connected with Ronnie McDern's trial and sentencing. She would stalk them, spray-paint a large 'X' on the outside of their houses, and then incapacitate them with a Taser before taken them to secluded woods and torturing them to death, always while inside cages. How she tortured them varied, from strobe lights to electrocution to blinding, each torture specific to the role they played in McDern's trial, but they'd eventually die from the torture or go mad and kill themselves. When she tried to kill Catherine Evers, she locked her in the kill shelter's gas chamber and trying to asphyxiate her while she was inside.

Profile
With the combination of rage and precision shown in the torture-murders, the crimes are personal, and somehow the killer knows the victims. After the connection to McDern is revealed, it becomes clearer a woman is the killer since she would be more dedicated to McDern when carrying out the torture-murders for him, also evident in there are more female followers and suitors of McDern and stun gun was needed to knock out the victims. The cages allude to prison, and the torture is meant to mirror the effects prison can have on someone. Making the victims suffer in cages is meant to make them understand what McDern went through in prison. Each torture is selective to each victim: Phyllis Thompson testified in McDern's trial as a psychologist, so she killed herself after being driven to insanity; Marilyn Norville is a witness to the robbery, so she was blinded while still alive.

Known Victims

 * Phyllis Thompson (psychologist at McDern's trial; tortured with strobe lights and electrocuting her feet and back; provoked into bashing her own head into the cage)
 * Marilyn Norville (witness at McDern's trial; handcuffed in the front and blinded; slowly asphyxiated with a plastic bag fastened over her head)
 * The planned torture-murders (all never enacted):
 * Unnamed jury foreman
 * Unnamed judge
 * Unnamed prosecuting attorney
 * Catherine Evers (McDern's defense attorney; attempted, but barely survived; abducted, handcuffed in the front, and locked in a running gas chamber)