Josie Wells & Alex Lopez

Josie Wells (nee Henkley) and Alex Lopez are a duo of spree killers who appear in Spree of Love in Profiler.

Background
Josie Wells, born Josie Henkley, a seemingly perfect housewife in Boulder, Colorado, was underestimated and ignored by many people, including her own husband, with a traumatizing past never before revealed. She always resented her mother for bring a man she married into their house after Wells' father left because the orthodontist she dated she sent Wells to for fixing her teeth had a repetitive propensity for severely molesting and exploiting Wells when she was a late teen. She kept telling her mother the abuse she went through, but her mother always blamed Wells for the abuse, saying she was vying for that sort of attention. She eventually married an affluent man, taking his last name and having two daughters with him, her mother also living in the house with them. Her husband was demanding and restrictive of her, including when she worked as a crisis counselor but made her quit because "she brought her problems home with her" and "didn't have enough compassion for her own family". Wells was highly unsatisfied with the "trophy wife" role in her family and secretly longed to get away and reject the squeaky clean life everyone thought she knew. She found that chance in a boy in his late teens, Alex Lopez, who she met through her job in the crisis line he called repeatedly because he was also facing trouble at home with a mother who also took in another man only for the man to beat her and Lopez regularly. Lopez had a repulsive amount of visits to the emergency room because of his stepfather's brutality, something Wells gave him sanctuary from in their communications. Wells also helped Lopez feel encouraged to pursue his dreams in Major League baseball, something his stepfather and his coaches always insulting him over "for never being good enough". The two formed a bond that became a sexual relationship, and at some point, after the affair and exchanging letters of professing their love for each other having carried on for a long time, Josie and Alex made a plan to get away from Boulder and live their lives together away from the people who refused to protect them and hear their pleas, one part of it being Wells registering to buy a handgun they take on their trip.

Spree of Love
This plan was put into action when Wells was attending her daughter's soccer game. Another mother remarks on her jealousy over a new pair of earrings Wells' husband bought her that Wells doesn't even like. When joining her daughters at her soccer game, Lopez shows up near her car. One of Wells' daughters notices, leading to Wells going over to Lopez, resulting in the two "arguing". When the two coaches try to intervene and get into a struggle with Lopez, Lopez pulls out Wells' gun and shoots them both, telling Wells to get into her car and drive off. The Violent Crimes Task Force is called in after a border patrol officer is shot dead and Wells is still assumed to be kidnapped. By this time, Wells is in a rest stop in Arizona, wearing black casual wear and heeled boots and cutting her hair and dying it black as well as flushing the earrings and her wedding ring down the toilet. She meets Lopez back in the car where he compliments her on her new look, to which she says she hated it blonde anyway. Lopez apologizes for shooting the coaches and the officer, but Wells says they would've split the two of them up anyway. Two ex-cons at the rest stop making lewd remarks since the couple got there got even worse with language, enough to make suggestive remarks of Wells "having a night with" the two men. Wells promptly responded by taking the gun and unloading it into both men, enough to shatter the windows behind. Lopez, flabbergasted and horrified, just follows Wells' instructions of stealing the ex-cons' van. Later on, Lopez calls his home with a payphone, but he hangs up when his stepfather answers, furiously ranting about how his mother didn't kick him out and how Lopez should've killed him a while ago. They both agree to drive and go as far away as possible. Later, Roberta finds Wells' letters to her son, disgusted by them and blaming Wells in the presence of her husband. Around the same time, the couple spots a pair of newlyweds driving down a highway in central Arizona, so despite Lopez's protests and apologies the newlyweds, Wells runs the couple off the road with the van, steals the couple's bands and the bride's veil, and she and Lopez get "married" with the newlyweds as "witness", stowing away with their car and leaving the van behind. Soon after, the couple dances in the Sierra Inn bar, with Wells playing "Got a Hold of My Heart", a song from her childhood, over and over on the jukebox. They buy rounds for everyone at the bar and dance to the song. Wells then asks Lopez if he loves her, thinking he looked at the bride longingly and insisting he not lie to her. Lopez reassures her he'll never leave her and he does love her, giving her enough reassurance and comfort to start dancing again. When two state troopers, Meshel & Castaneda, arrive and come in only to stop them, they capture Wells when she tries to run, leaving Lopez to flee. Castaneda cuffs Wells and makes her get into the car, taunting her by saying her "boyfriend left [her] behind", to which she spits. Lopez arrives and tries to pull Castaneda off, but Meshel gets him to stop and Castaneda tries again with the arrest. Lopez shoots and wounds Castaneda with the gun, followed by Wells stealing his service weapon, injuring Meshel with one shot, and killing Castaneda with several more flashing back to the molestations before she screams for Lopez to get into another customer's car and they drive off. They soon came across the Comptons, an elderly couple with a broken down, whom they give assistance and also drives them to a nearby motel, all the while not once thinking of attacking them. Mrs. Compton speaks with Wells saying she likes her unofficial husband, and she also says the Comptons had problems with their marriage since they're 4 years apart but to still go with her heart like she has with Lopez. When the couple drop them off at the hotel, after Lopez's suggestion of going to Tempe and seeing a video of Wells' children pleading her to return, Wells breaks down saying it's over and they've lost any chance at having lives, that having to do with the spree. Wells then apologizes and promises to keep Lopez safe before they make out, only for Lopez to wake up cuffed to the bed and the police finding him alone, Wells already gone. Bailey Malone goes into interrogation and personally sympathizes with Lopez in hopes of trying to get him to say where Wells is by hinting at his own failed marriage, saying Wells left him behind to keep him safe even after everything they'd done. Lopez breaks down in tears, and despite Bailey's comforting, says he doesn't know. Wells, in the meantime, travels to Tempe to kill the orthodontist that molested her, but she relents and goes back to confront her mother instead. She asks her mother if she likes her smile after all the money she spent getting it fixed, her mother saying she needs to go to the police. She then brings up the abuse she suffered and how her mother accused her of making stuff up and trying to seduce her then-boyfriend, her mother denying it and saying she had a vivid imagination since she was a child then. After more grief strikes Wells and she starts to cry, she aims the gun intending to shoot her mother, but Bailey arrives in time and shoots her leg out to immobilize her, saying to get an ambulance when she falls to the floor and bleeds from her wound. The pair were very likely then imprisoned.

Moduc Operandi
The killings were random and unplanned, each murder to get the victims out of the way or done out a personal wound to their egos, particularly Wells, or from Wells holding a personal grudge. Every victim was killed with a Jericho sidearm Wells registered for. In the faked "abduction", Lopez "forced" Wells into her own car, shooting two soccer coaches intervening while at her daughter's game, later on killing a border patrol officer to escape and flee jurisdiction. As the killing progressed, soon after Wells changed her hair to short and black and her clothes black and comfortable, Wells started shooting, first by unloading the firearm into two men with assault records lewdly insulting their relationship. The pair then proceeded to non-fatally run a newlywed couple off the road and steal their wedding rings and the bride's veil for a "wedding" of their own in front of them as witnesses, and when state troopers tried to arrest them at a roadside diner, Lopez shot the one arresting Wells to knock him down, leading to Wells shooting them both, the one who cuffed her shot repeatedly and killed for manhandling and insulting her. The couple, however, didn't do anything to an elderly married couple, the Comptons, whom they helped fix their car, for they drove them to a motel as well as the two pairs personally related on their love despite their age differences. When Wells was coming to end of the spree, she cuffed Lopez to the hotel bed and left for the police, intending to kill the orthodontist that molested her; she then changed her mind tried to kill her mother out of revenge for not believe her molestation recounts, breaking into their house and holding her at gunpoint with the Jericho.

Known Victims

 * Boulder, CO: Coaches Mike & Ogletree (both shot dead by Lopez)
 * Mexico: Unidentified border official (shot dead, likely by Lopez)
 * Steamboat, AZ: Two unidentified ex-cons (entire gun unloaded into both by Wells; stole their car as well)
 * Highway in Central Arizona: An unidentified married couple (assaulted; ran off the road by Wells and stole their rings and the bride's veil, having a "wedding" in front of them; stole their car after)
 * The Sierra Inn:
 * State Troop Meshel (shot once by Wells with Castaneda's weapon, but survived)
 * State Troop Castaneda (shot once non-fatally by Lopez, and then shot repeatedly by Wells with his own service weapon)
 * Unidentified person (stole their car)
 * Alex Lopez (cuffed to a hotel bed while asleep by Wells and left for police to find)
 * Lawrence "Larry" Karsch (the orthodontist responsible for molesting Josie Wells; Wells intended to kill, but changed her mind)
 * Barbara Henkley (Josie Wells' mother; held at gunpoint by Wells and attempted to kill; was rescued)

Trivia

 * Wells and Lopez appear heavily based off Pamela Smart, an ephebophilic housewife, and William Flynn, her teenage mister who killed her husband at her direction.