The Family Commune

The Family Commune is a serial mass murdering and family annihilating cult with several members appearing before its mass suicide in Ties That Bind in Profiler.

Background
Little is known about the commune's collective history, the founder and most members never even being identified by name before it's disbandment. What is known is it's an agrarian plantation setup deep in a valley in the center of the Bible Belt region of the country. It recruited new members by finding them at self-help seminars, appealing to them not wanting the usual route as an option. Once they're introduced and effectively brainwashed, they insist them to pledge their devotion to the cult, one of their greatest proves of that being a a ceremonial ritual they have to conduct to be the only living relative in their family, by killing their other relatives before retreating back to the commune. The crimes were attributed to home invasions from gangs because similar graffiti was sprayed at the scenes of the murders, but it was really the commune's codes and a expansion of the ritual, with an ultimate goal of mass suicide.

Profile
The cult only committed the deadly home invasions, even in the precise symmetry of the graffiti, knowing where the valuables were, and the ritualistic postmortem mutilations and posing of the bodies, leaving the gang responsible for the other burglaries and vandalism. The graffiti, also outside of the murders, would be revealed as more than a frame job but the cult's communication system so they wouldn't identified, let alone tracked.

Modus Operandi
The "Father" and the rest of the "Family" targeted people with family problems, seeking them out at self-help seminars and finding the people most secluded and distant from the audience. When they were singled out, they were coaxed into one of their cars, transported with sacs over their heads to not reveal the drive they would take until they arrived, thus revealing the commune, which was maintained with crop fields and monitored with guards wielding assault rifles, all centered around a "house of worship". The cult members, never meeting "The Father" first arriving, are then encouraged to partake in the ritualistic murders of their families to isolate and assimilate them into the cult, done by home invasions of the blood-related cult members along with a few others, killing each family member by shooting them dead in their temples once, often in their sleep, the relative leaving six stab wounds centered in their ribs postmortem. The rest of their signatures were posing the corpses of the victims on their backs side by side, along with graffiti all over the walls akin to gangs' markings, particularly the 16th Street Gang, which the cult ripped to use as their personal code. They would also steal valuables like jewelry and sterling silver to take for themselves. Kathy Jung was an exception, whom they killed sloppily and without the ritual because the FBI was onto them. The Jung parents also had their eyes forced open after they were dead. Save for Andrew Jung, the cult then died in a mass murder-suicide committed by gathering in the main house of the commune, which then exploded with everyone inside, unless the VCTF is right and the leader and/or at least one member made it out to escape or to form another cult. Andrew was lead back by coded graffiti on phone booths leading him to a car key and the Honda to go with it so he'd make it back for the massacre. It's also safe to assume the cult is also collectively guilty of a variety of crimes that weren't found out even after it's discovery, let alone if cults with ties to the "Family" and other crimes still happened before and/or after the commune's formation and eventual destruction.

Known Victims

 * Most likely a prolific variety of other crimes, in and out of the cult
 * Atlanta: The Nichols home invasion
 * Royce Nichols (Philip's father)
 * Edward Nichols (Philip's brother)


 * Atlanta: Rebecca Pennywise (the Nichols' nanny)


 * Chattanooga: The Jung home invasion
 * Victor Jung (Andrew's father; eyes opened postmortem)
 * Kim Jung (Andrew's mother; eyes opened postmortem)


 * Atlanta: Kathy Jung (Andrew's brother; killed afterwards without the ritual by blunt-force trauma or shot in head)
 * Presumably other family annihilations, carried out and/or planned
 * The "house of worship" explosion: at most all other "Family" members, nineteen in total dead, including:
 * "The Father" (maybe escaped)
 * Philip Nichols
 * Maureen Hewes


 * Andrew Jung (attempted; John Grant and Marcus Payton stopped him from reaching the explosion)