Episode 4

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**Episode 4** is the fourth episode of the first season and the 4th overall episode of **Mindhunter**.

## Short Summary

Bill and Holden consult with Dr. Wendy Carr to begin classifying their subjects. They receive surprising news.

## Full Summary

**Wichita, Kansas**

The ADT serviceman looks around a house. He checks the windows and doors. He gives the homeowner the assessment and she says she forgot he was in the house. She asks if they can just buy the window stickers and the sign for the front lawn. He says the signs come with the keypads.

**Richmond, Virginia**

Bill and Holden get ready to interview Monte Rissell, who has been newly sentenced. He raped and murdered five women. They relinquish their badges and guns and then set up the recording equipment. Monte is brought in and left alone with them after the guard tells him to behave himself. Bill introduces himself and Holden, and then says they're doing research, interviewing men like him—murderers with multiple victims—so they can understand why they do what they do. Monte says he'd also like to understand that. Monte asks if they think it might help find a cure. Bill's not sure. Monte asks if he can have some Big Red. He used to have it as a kid. They say it'll depend on his insights. He asks if they want to know why he raped those girls in Florida. Bill says they'll start there and asks how he chose his victims. Monte doesn't like calling them victims. He wonders how many other men like him they're talking to. They say it's early days. He isn't sure he wants to talk to them, so Bill says they can just leave, having a nice lunch, and drive back to Quantico. He asks what Monte's day looks like. He says they're talking to men like him to find how why men like him would fuck up their lives so completely when they're barely old enough to vote.

Monte says he first got into trouble when he was 14, so he was sent to a juvenile facility in Florida, where he was watched by doctors all the time. He raped four girls there but didn't kill them. When he came back to Virginia, he got a job and a girlfriend, but the girlfriend went off to college. He was still subject to check-ins and mandated therapy. Then his girlfriend sent him a letter to break up with him. He drove to the college to see for himself the guy she wanted. So, he got some beer and some weed, and then he drove back to his apartment. He didn't remember driving there. A girl on her own drove into the parking lot. The idea pops into your head just like a sneeze, he says. So, he got out of the car, pulled out a gun, and dragged her to the woods, where he raped her, but she wouldn't stop screaming. She ran and he caught up to her and choke her. Her head smashed against a rock in a ravine, then he held her head underwater and there was no more drama. He didn't use the gun because he wanted to cool her off. Holden asks if he thinks things would have gone differently if she weren't a prostitute. He says it might have. He then describes the second time. She wouldn't stop asking questions, so he stabbed her to shut her up. By the third time, he'd perfected the routine. He stabbed her as well. He says he let one woman go. They were in the car and she started crying and said her dad was dying of cancer. His brother had cancer, too, so he let her go. He says showing mercy is a weird feeling. Bill doesn't buy it. Monte says he's had enough science for one day and his throat is a little dry.

Bill and Holden go back to the car. Holden tries to tell Bill something, but Bill says he gets it and they leave. On the drive, they talk about Monte's history. They know he's adept at lying and Bill wonders why they should believe he's telling the truth now. Holden says he's not being completely honest. They need to extract the useful and discard the rest. Bill starts to ask what his mistake with Rissell was, but then they're hit on Holden's side by another car. Bill gets out of the car and asks the other driver what's the matter with him. Bill says he was speeding, but the other driver says Bill turned without looking. He had right of way. It's the law. Bill pulls out his badge and the driver says he'll call the police and tells Bill to stay away from him. Inside the car, Holden is taking deep breaths. Bill asks if he's sure he's all right and he nods. Bill explains what happened to the police officer as tow trucks prepare to move the damaged cars.

Holden finishes a phone call and sits next to Bill. He says Debbie can pick them up after her class, but she'd rather they get a room so she could pick them up in the morning. He's a little annoyed she can't come get them sooner, but he knows she has midterms on her mind. Bill knows he's upset because she's not dropping everything just because he called her and asked. Holden says it's because she doesn't want to. Holden asks if Bill wants to call Nancy and he doesn't answer. Holden asks if he's okay, but then says they can just eat. Bill's upset because Holden could have been killed and he didn't see it coming. It's one thing if it's the job, but it was a stupid Pinto shooting out of nowhere. If he called Nancy, he'd just lose it. He tells Holden about their son. They adopted him three years ago and he's six now. Nancy wanted a family, and he did, too, but they can't have kids of their own. It's not going well with their son. He's beautiful, but he refuses to talk. He thinks they're failing him and it's a real strain for them. He starts to say more but doesn't finish his thought, and instead he tells Holden to tell Debbie it's okay to come get them in the morning.

Bill, Holden, and Wendy listen to the Rissell recording and Wendy takes notes. She stops the recording after Rissell declares himself done for the day. She notes his two stressors. First, the girlfriend's letter, which prompted him to drive there and stalk her. He only aimed to rape at that point, but then the first victim complied, which pushed him over the edge. He killed her to reassert control over her. The victim's behavior is also a stressor. Holden says he had the same thought, but Bill's not as certain that this makes sense. He says it seems like Rissell just couldn't handle life. Wendy says that's what a criminal is, someone who can't function in normal life. She says he's right. She asks what most men would do if they went to be intimate with a woman and sensed she wasn't enjoying herself. Holden admits it would feel awful. Bill says you always want her to have a good time. Wendy says with Rissell, he sensed she was enjoying herself, it turned him into a murderer. What happens to the men is normal, but how they process it is not. Their goal is to dig into the why, like he did with Kemper. Bill says they're headed to Altoona for Road School and says they can try to see Rissell again when they get back, if he'll agree to see them. Wendy says it'll take twice as long if they can't do the interviews full time. She asks what the barriers are. She says she's been in academia all her life and says she'll see what she can do.

Holden picks up Bill and watches as Nancy tries to encourage their son, Brian, to give his father a hug goodbye. He won't, so Bill just says goodbye and gets in the car. Holden asks if he's ready and he says he is.

Holden gives Rissell a six-pack of Big Red and tells him it's all his. He takes a sip and says it's not easy to get on the east coast, which Holden agreed with. Bill asks if he's not originally from the east coast. Rissell asks if that's not in his file. Bill knows where he was born and that his parents divorced when he was seven, but he doesn't know what Rissell has to say about that. Rissell says his mom blamed the divorce on him and he doesn't know why. His brother and sister were around, but it was always on him when things went wrong. Then his mom married Hank and took them to Sacramento. He wanted to stay in Kansas with his father. He didn't want to be in California and no one wanted him there either. When asked if his mother said that to him, he merely crushes the empty can is his hand. He wonders why people always want to do that after. Holden says it feels good. Bill asks why he thinks no one wanted him in California and he says his mother just wanted to be with Hank, who didn't want to raise someone else's kids. He bought them stuff and thought that would be enough. He bought Rissell a BB gun when he was seven. His brother and sister were doing a lot of drinking and sometimes they shared with him. He later shot his cousin in the butt with the BB gun, which people liked because they hated his cousin. He says Hank beat him over the head with the gun and busted his ear drum. He got into all kinds of things. He broke into a woman's house and stole money. His mother and Hank got divorced when he was twelve, which he says was his doing. When he was fourteen, things got worse and he escalated to larger crimes, including raping two people. His mother got them to send him to Florida. He got back when he was 17 and worked double shifts at Pizza Hut, living on his own. Nobody wanted him. Nobody ever wanted him. He tells them to put that on their tape. He thinks things would have been completely different if he'd been allowed to stay with his dad. He talks about the things he might have if he'd been allowed to stay with his dad.

On the drive back, Holden and Bill agree that Rissell believes he's the real victim. Bill thinks they're enabling him, but Holden says they're actually using him.

**Altoona, Pennsylvania**

Bill and Holden teach their Road School course. Afterward, they pack up their car and notice a cop looking at them. They make a bet on how long it'll be before he approaches them. Holden wins as the cop immediately approaches and asks to borrow them for a minute.

Mark Ocasek shows them the file of Beverly Jean Shaw, a recent murder victim. There's four days between when she was murdered and when she was found. Holden notices that her breasts were cut off her body, after she was dead. She was badly beaten and stabbed multiple times. Mark struggles as he says she was cut from her vagina to her anus. Her parents are upstate, but she has a fiancé in town. Mark wonders if they think someone local did it, because he goes to church with the local people. They don't get things like that, so he thinks it has to be an outsider. Holden asks about a piece of evidence, hair on an ironing board. He believes she was scalped and her hair press over the ironing board. Bill says they have to play catchup and talk to people the police have already talked to. He says it's not a contest. They're all on the same side.

Holden's upset because he thinks Bill is cutting Mark too much slack, but Bill says he's never seen that kind of thing before, so he's rattled. It's not his fault. Holden has more experience, sure, but he doesn't need to rub it in Mark's face.

Holden tells the local cops that they need to focus on Beverly. They talk about the kind of guy they're looking for. He says their community would have noticed a guy like him, so he thinks it's an outsider, a drifter. Holden says it's likely he'll move on and kill again.

Mark takes Holden and Bill to the dump where Beverly's body was found, Holden says the killer thought of Beverly as just another piece of trash. Mark says people in town loved Beverly. It had to be a drifter just going through town. Beverly caught his eye and he had to have her. Bill asks if they talked to the fiancé and he says they did, but there's only so much you can get out of a man in that state. He was in shock. Bill asks Mark to help them get an unguarded response from the fiancé. Mark says he will as soon as he gets back into town. He went up north to visit relatives and will be back soon.

Mark shows them exactly where the body was found and Holden finds the ironing board. Bill takes pictures as they look around. Mark says he thinks Beverly and Benjamin were engaged for a couple months. Bill says he may have felt trapped, remembering what Wendy said about things they process as good news sometimes hitting killers differently. Mark says Alvin Moran, a welder, found the body while walking his dog. Bill asks if he has an alibi, but Mark is confused because he came to them. Holden says sometimes killers will insert themselves into investigations. They want to talk to Alvin.

They find Alvin at work and he agrees to talk to them. They ask why he was at the dump. He says there's a trail there he likes to take to clear his head. He takes the dog a few times a week and the trail goes near the dump. Holden is suspicious and questions it, because they didn't see the trail from the dump. He asks if he's under suspicion. He says he went off the trail to pee. He saw the body, but first thought it was a mannequin. They ask how his dog didn't go for it first. Alvin says he's old, but not too old for a hike. He says a few hours later, he went to the cops, but Mark corrects that it was actually morning when he came in. They asks why he waited so long. He says he was scared the cops might want him for it. His wife talked him out of that, which is why he reported it. He's seen cops get desperate and he has a bit of a record. He's a family man now, but moved around a lot before that. He says it's not a good way to live and he feels settled now. Holden asks if that's his statement. Alvin admits he'd seen Beverly Jean a few times and once tried to buy her a drink, but she wasn't interested. He may have tried a few times.

Bill says he's too old and too married, but Holden points out that until recently, he was a drifter. She rejected him. He has a record and tried to help the police. His alibi was that he was home watching TV with his wife. Bill's still not convinced. He says he knows how marriage is and says if Alvin had a married man's anger, he'd have tortured Beverly before killing her. Holden suggests talking to the wife.

Ruth Moran sits down to talk to them. She's confused about why she can't call her husband. They ask if she's followed the investigation. She has trouble looking at Beverly's photo. She says Beverly was almost their babysitter. They talked to her, but after she left, Alvin wouldn't shut up about her. She was young and skinny, so they didn't use her. She says Alvin does that, but he doesn't mean anything by it. She's surprised they think Alvin did it and says he couldn't. She'd love for him to get a big scare for bothering a girl half his age, but the idiot was with her the whole night.

Outside, they talk about the case and disagree about where to go forward. Mark says he appreciates their help.

Wendy's surprised that they're helping with the investigation. She thinks they should tell the police that they have more important things to do with their time. Bill doesn't want to change how they do things. Wendy says she assumes they're good at their jobs, which means they'll be more focused on actual crime than on their interviews. She says they won't end crime, but their project will have more impact than solving a single murder. Bill says they can do both. Wendy asks about Rissell's interview, what jumped out. They compare him to Kemper. Wendy says they actually believe they're the victims because if they admitted they did it for pleasure, it would destroy them. They need to believe they have power over someone else, but their crimes necessitate eliminating the only witness, so they have to do it again and again. She asks if they had other things in common. She's using flashcards to try to form a taxonomy for their project, but she doesn't know where to start. Bill says to start with the crime scenes and talks about how Kemper and Rissell differ there. Kemper planned and Rissell was spontaneous. They agree on organized and disorganized. They move high intelligence under organized and low intelligence under disorganized.

Debbie tells Holden about one of her classes. They're waiting to meet Wendy. Debbie asks if she should be jealous. She asks if Wendy's married, because if he's not interested, she must be. Holden says he doesn't think she's married. Holden asks if she plans on getting married and having kids. He then asks if her parents have a good marriage, but she doesn't know. He says they're talking a lot about parents because of the study. Harsh mothers and absent fathers. She says all fathers are absent fathers. Wendy approaches and introduces herself and says she appreciates the invitation. She and Debbie talk about Debbie's studies. Holden says he's not intimidated being around women smarter than he is. Wendy says men often say that, but rarely mean it. Debbie says Holden means it. He has a lot of flaws, but that's not one.

Wendy, Holden, and Bill are on their way to meet with Shepard. They don't know what it's about, but he asked specifically to see all three of them.

In Shepard's office, Shepard introduces himself to Wendy. He asks how things are going for them. He asks if he can help with anything or if there's anything he needs to know. Bill asks if it's about the car. Shepard says the car was insured and he's sure Holden was driving. Holden says it's not important who was driving. He tells Wendy he's aware of her consultations with Bill and assume that meant she knew how things were done at Quantico and assumed the men knew the same. He says his job is to provide guidance and protection for them. They stepped outside the shade of his umbrella and are exposed. He applied for grant money from several sources, anticipating it would be months before they got a reply. He was surprised to learn that they were already aware of the BSU's activities. Wendy says she didn't intend to embarrass him. She was at a university fundraiser and was talking to someone. Shepard says she was talking to people outside the FBI about something she wasn't supposed to know about. They knew more about their activities than he put on the application. Wendy apologizes again, but Bill says it was his fault. Shepard tells them their research was given $200,000 by the LEAA. There's more, too. He applied other places. The National Institute for Justice also gave them $185,000. The money comes with scrutiny. Congress has a real interest in what they're doing, so they need to watch themselves. He congratulates them and tells them to have a good day.

On the elevator, Wendy, Holden, and Bill all smile.

## Cast

* Holden Ford
* Bill Tench
* Debbie Mitford
* Wendy Carr
* Robert Shepard
* Nancy Tench
* Monte Rissell
* Mark Ocasek
* Alvin Moran
* Ruth Moran
* Brian Tench
* Pinto Driver
* ADT Serviceman Dennis Rader
* Housewife
* Prison Officer #1
* Prison Officer #2
1/16
### Main Cast

* Jonathan Groff as Holden Ford
* Holt McCallany as Bill Tench
* Hannah Gross as Debbie Mitford
* Anna Torv as Wendy Carr
* Cotter Smith as Unit Chief Shepard

### Also Starring

* Stacey Roca as Nancy Tench
* Sam Strike as Monte Rissell
* Alex Morf as Detective Ocasek
* Hamilton Clancy as Alvin Moran
* Amelia Campbell as Ruth Moran
* Zachary Scott Ross as Brian Tench
* Austin Archer as Pinto Driver

### Other Cast

* Sonny Valicenti as ADT Serviceman
* Marianne Bayard as Housewife
* Ben Cain as Prison Officer #1
* Javon Johnson as Prison Officer #2

## Notes and Trivia

* The show spells Rissell's first name as Monte, but his full name is actually Montie Ralph Rissell. However, he is also referred to as Monte in various publications.

## Quotes

"We can't end crime, no matter what we do. But in the long run, I think that our project could have a deeper impact than solving a single murder." —Wendy Carr