In the intro, a woman is at a pumpkin patch with her young son when she loses sight of him for a few minutes. It seems like the basic plot of another child kidnapping, but she eventually finds her son. He is hunched over looking at another boy who is lying motionless on the ground. When the mother goes to prod him awake, he opens his eyes and begins to scream at her to get away from him.

The Case

It turns out that boy was kidnapped exactly 365 days before he was found in the pumpkin patch. His kidnapper had held him captive for that time, and then he was released to be found. A boy had also turned up this same way in previous years. However, a man had already been arrested for that kidnapping. So, the team went to investigate a possible partner or copycat.

The boy who was found at the pumpkin patch recovered, but he had endured a lot of trauma during his captivity to where he couldn’t remember what had happened to him. However, the team discovered that he had been locked in a box, probably wooden due to the splinters found in his body, and that the box was likely nailed shut.

The Victim

After gathering all of this information, the team knew they had to work fast because if the trend continued another kidnapping would take place that Halloween night. They met with the arrested man who had confessed to the previous kidnappings, and they determined that his confession was false. They could tell by his behavioral ticks that he did not commit the crimes he confessed to, which meant the real suspect was still out there to kidnap again.
That Halloween night, an 8 year-old boy was kidnapped while he was out with friends. The boys had been egging a house just before the unsub took the boy. The team established a profile based on this connected link: the previous boys had also been boys with behavioral issues.

The Unsub

After releasing a profile of the unsub, a male in his late 20s to early 30s with a past of abuse, an angry father and behavioral issues, a woman came in to give a tip to the team. She said she believed her brother fit the mold perfectly, and she suspected he had kidnapped the boy. Coincidentally, no one had heard from the man, Johnny Bidwell, in 3 years, which correlated with the timeline of the missing boys.

They tracked down Johnny’s mother and asked her when she had last seen her son. She said she hadn’t seen him since his engagement party 3 years before, when his fiance broke off their engagement soon after. The team decided this was Johnny’s trigger, and he had started to kidnap the boys to make himself feel worth-while.

The mother confessed to putting her son through a traumatic experience as a child, which she immediately blamed for his behavior and actions. When Johnny was a young boy, his father had been very abusive to the whole family. The mother took it, because she was scared.

One day, she came home to Johnny locked in a trunk by his father, because he had misbehaved. She couldn’t tolerate his abuse any longer, and she hit him over the head with a fire poker, killing him. Instead of calling the police, she and Johnny drug him out to his father’s land and buried him. Immediately, the team suspected this at the place where Johnny was keeping the boy captive.

The Arrest

They found Johnny at the old house, however, he refused to tell where he was keeping the boy. After searching the property, they found nothing, so the team brought in Johnny’s mom. She apologized for his upbringing and begged him to reveal where he was hiding the boy. Then, the team began berating Johnny just like his father would have, telling him he was worthless, dumb and deserved to be punished. Finally, Johnny caved, and the boy was rescued from the underground box, alive.

Hotch’s Son

Hotch had a special investment in this case, because he didn’t like to leave his son on Halloween. He said he had missed a few important holidays before, but never Halloween. However, he managed to find his son a one-of-a-kind Darth Vader costume to wear, for which his son won best costume at school. The end of the episode showed Hotch coming home to his son who had fallen asleep on the couch waiting up for him. He was still wearing his costume.

Next Episode: “If the Shoe Fits”

In the next episode, the team will track a woman unsub who kills her victims using a stiletto heel.