Holden Ford

**Holden Ford** is an FBI agent with the Behavioral Science Unit. He worked previously as a hostage negotiator and instructed classes in that area.

## History

### Panic Attacks

After his visit with Kemper, Holden woke up in a hospital bed, struggling to breathe. The doctor told him he'd had a panic attack. When he calmed down, the doctor explained that he may be prone to future attacks and gave him a prescription to help him calm down. He also advised him to manage his stress and avoid what triggered the first panic attack. He later confided in Wendy about his attacks and asked for her advice. She told him to look out for signs that an attack was coming on because he didn't want to have an attack while interviewing a subject. She also offered her ear if he wanted to talk.

### Meeting Gunn

After learning that Shepard was retiring and Gunn was his replacement, Holden met with him. He won Holden over with his enthusiasm for their work and promised to get Holden an interview with Charles Manson, the interview he wanted above all others. After meeting with Gunn, Holden wanted to clear the air with the team and so went through the candidates for who sent the tape. He concluded that it was Gregg, who said that he had to because he didn't want it to become a slippery slope. The team was arguing about that when Gunn came in and said he was going to give them whatever resources they need to finish their work in much less time and also showed them their new office space down the hall, which was much larger.

### Shepard's Retirement Party

Bill, Holden, and Wendy all attended Shepard's retirement party. During the party, after Shepard himself gave a speech, Holden stepped up to thank Shepard for his support. However, Shepard walked out before Holden could finish talking. Holden followed him outside only to learn that Shepard despised him for forcing him into retirement. Shepard continued to yell at Holden until Bill walked out with his wife, saying he'd forgotten his date, at which point Holden hid behind a car because he was having a panic attack.

### BTK

After a friend of his showed Bill the BTK case files, Bill flew to Kansas to talk to Bernie Drowatzky, a detective who'd been on the cases since the beginning. After that visit, he talked to Holden about the visit and they discussed his case in the context of others he seemed to be emulating, particularly David Berkowitz. They then decided that they needed to interview Berkowitz immediately, hoping he would help them understand BTK. Before they left, Wendy took Bill to the bar and told him he needed to get an eye on Holden and watch for signs of a panic attack and get him out if he started to have one. During the interview, they were shocked to hear him admit that he made up the story about the dog telling him to kill. He also revealed that he hunted every night and waited for things to fall together. He said he returned to the scene to relieve the crime, but didn't take any trophies. He suspected that BTK also hunted every night and said he wouldn't be able to resist going back to the crime scenes. When discussing the interview with Wendy, they decided they needed to create a new category that considers not only if they follow their cases in the media, but how they manipulate the media themselves.

### William Pierce, Jr. Interview

When Bill called him to say he was sick, Holden decided to go to Atlanta alone to interview William Pierce, Jr.. Jim Barney met him at the airport. Jim ended up joining him to interview Pierce. Once Holden realized that Pierce isn't very intelligent, he struggled with the interview. Pierce denied every one of the murders, despite having confessed. Jim then pulled a packet of mallomars out of his briefcase and offered one to Pierce, who accepted it happily. Jim then asked him questions about his past, including an accident he had on the job. Then he talked about his mother teaching him to stand up for himself. Jim brought the conversation back to the murders, using candy to help him open up. He ended up admitting that he did commit some murders. After the interview was over, Jim said he noticed in a picture of him in his cell that he was surrounded by candy bar wrappers.

### William Henry Hance Interview

Holden took Jim with him to interview William Henry Hance, who killed four women and sent letters to police claiming responsibility as a group of white vigilantes getting revenge for some murdered white women. Hance was not very bright and wrote the letters using stationery from the Army base. Jim asked him how he met the women he killed and he explained that they all approached him at the bar. When asked about one of his victims, who was white, he said he didn't see her as that. She was just a grunt like the others.

### Meeting Tanya and ATKID

When Holden checked into his hotel in Atlanta, he met Tanya, who was surprised to learn he was an FBI agent. She made an excuse to accompany him to his room to let him in. Then she offered to show him where he could get a good dinner. At the dinner, she introduced him to Camille Bell, Venus Taylor, and Willie Mae Mathis, each of whom had had a child disappear recently. Two had been found dead and one was still missing. They were frustrated at the lack of police investigation into the issue and had compiled information themselves, which they shared with Holden. Jim took Holden to see Garland Periwinkle, who was semi-retired but still involved in police matters. Garland said he didn't believe they had enough to connect the cases. Holden went back to Tanya and explained what he'd learned from the conversation, but Tanya wasn't satisfied with his conclusions and took the book of information back.

As an experiment, Holden had a black agent and Gregg each try to pick up black kids with the promise of money. While the black agent was easily able to convince kids to get into the car, Gregg was unsuccessful, convincing Holden that the perpetrator in Atlanta must be black, because the black children there wouldn't get into a car with a white man.

Holden approached the rest of the team about the case. Bill didn't want to get involved because they weren't invited. Gunn came in and mentioned he'd heard about the case and joined the team for Holden's presentation. Holden believed a serial killer was at work in Atlanta and had taken and kill the children. He also believed that he was a black male in his mid- to late-twenties. Bill and Wendy didn't believe Holden had enough to work with and Gunn agreed, but told Holden to keep current with the case. Holden and Bill planned to go interview Elmer Wayne Henley, Jr. at Wendy's request, but Gunn called them into his office and told them they needed to go back to Atlanta as another child had gone missing and a ransom call came in saying the child was in another state, making it a federal case.

Bill and Holden joined the Atlanta task force and learned Jim was the liaison for the case. They got up to speed on the newest kidnapping and the ransom demands. When the commissioner came to talk to them, Holden shared the rudimentary profile he'd developed with him. The commissioner was upset to hear Holden suggest the killer is black.

Holden went to visit Camille Bell and tell her he was back there officially. He said he had the FBI behind him and would do whatever he could to help solve the murders. Camille wanted him to look into the KKK because she knew the police wouldn't.

When the ransom call didn't come as scheduled, they backed off. The commissioner told the FBI they weren't welcome there anymore because there was no kidnapping which meant it was no longer a federal crime.

### Manson Interview and Consulting Kemper

Gunn came in and told the team he secured an interview with Charles Manson in two weeks. To prepare for the interview, they talked about how the Family dynamic came together and said that was their primary interest, as Manson never actually killed anyone himself. They needed to know how he was able to persuade middle-class young people to join his Family and kill for him.

When they went for the interview, Manson initially refuse to leave his cell to come talk to them, so they went to talk to Kemper instead, while they waited, hoping it would help draw him out. Kemper said if they really wanted to know about the murders, they should talk to Tex Watson instead, because Manson never killed anyone and doesn't know what it's like. They asked Kemper about why he returned to the crime scenes and he said revisiting the scenes let him re-live the crimes for sexual satisfaction. Being able to re-live the crimes helped him delay having to kill again, because it had become a compulsion. When he couldn't go to scenes, he had souvenirs he'd kept that helped him.

When Manson was ready, they moved to another room and he was brought in. He propped himself up on a chair and they talked about his relationship with the family. He denied having told anyone to kill anyone else and said he just took in people who had been cast aside by society. He also denied trying to start a race war. He said that the members of the family told the story that worked best for themselves. Bill started to argue with Manson, which culminated in Bill abruptly ending the interview and leaving.

With Bill forced to return to Virginia, Holden went alone to interview Tex Watson, who had become Christian in prison. He talked about Manson's influence over them, teaching them how to kill people and giving them drugs so they weren't afraid to do it.

### AD Wyman's Party

Gunn invited Bill, Wendy, and Holden to a party with George Wyman. At the party, Holden was roped in by Wendy, who used him to escape a conversation with Warren Freeman. Later, Holden struggled to keep the attention of the crowd, lacking Bill's social skills. Bill later came to rescue him and told the story of their interview with Richard Speck.

### Return to Atlanta

When bodies continued to be found, Holden and Bill were sent back to Atlanta. Because Bill had the director's retreat, Holden was sent ahead without him. Upon his arrival, a call was played for him of someone claiming responsibility as the KKK. Holden immediately said the call was faked, because the KKK wouldn't wait until the 18th murder to claim credit. Despite this, Chief Redding took teams out to look for the body the call said they'd find. The teams searched, but no body was found. Bill joined Jim Barney to go interview people related to Earl's disappearance while Holden joined the search. Bill and Jim were surprised to find out that none of the potential witnesses had been interviewed by police before. They were called back to the scene when a body was found near where a previous body was dumped. A second body was also found there along with some porn mags. They got prints off the magazines and matched them to a white plumber who worked in the area. Holden didn't believe it was him because he was white and the magazines depicted white women, not black boys. Despite this, Redding wanted to bring him in for questioning, so they went to DA Slaton and he gave his reluctant approval, though he said it had to be kept quiet so it wouldn't make him look bad to his constituents. Despite their efforts to keep it quiet, the press quickly found out and swarmed the police station.

Five hours later, they still hadn't found anything definitive in the plumber's truck that they could use to pressure him into confession. They finally found some tape, a large amount. Though Holden protested that there was no evidence tape was used on any of the victims, Bill was eager to get started with questioning before the plumber called a lawyer. They started asking him about his work. In order to see if he was racist, Jim brought in some coffee and purposely dropped a sugar packet in it to see how the plumber reacted to him sticking his fingers into the coffee. The plumber didn't react. They asked him about the KKK and he said he wasn't raised to treat people differently. They showed him the tape they'd found and he said he uses it as a plumber. When they asked him about the area where they found the body and showed him the magazines, he said that his wife was pregnant with their first and he used the magazines in the woods to get some release. Jim then interrupted their interview to tell the another body was found, a boy taken after they picked up the plumber. Holden was frustrated by this. Jim apologized to the plumber and led him out the back of the building. Later that morning, Holden saw a news report and put together that the killer was messing with them, as he'd dumped a body in the same location where they'd searched after the call came in.

They went back to Redding and talked to him about what they'd learned. They knew the killer was inserting himself into the investigation, so they wanted to manufacture an opportunity for him to insert himself in a way they could control. He suggested setting up crosses for a few of the victims and tie their erection to a STOP march. The killer wouldn't be able to stay away. Holden went to Camille Bell and asked her about the crosses. She said she'd talk to the other mothers about it and if they agreed, they'd put up the crosses. They ran into red tape over how to get the crosses, so Holden went to Gunn to try to fast-track it. Jim showed them a case file from the convicted child molesters he was going through, a man who lived in the brick house a few of the victims were known to have gone too. He had polaroids of young boys in his house when he was arrested, though all the kids were white. Holden said it wasn't their guy, because he was white. Jim went to talk to the mother of one of the boys, who said that her son loved music and wrote many songs of his own. She confirmed that he knew several of the others boys, more than the two Jim knew about. One even lived nearby.

After an explosion in Atlanta killed three black children at a daycare, local parents became convinced it was related to the murders and the mayor decided to go to a baptist church to address people's concerns about the case. When the crowd started to turn against him and declare their certainty that the Klan was involved, Jackson and Brown were forced out of the church. Once they were gone, Camille Bell stood up and spoke, saying they would make sure no stone was left unturned.

Redding said they were being forced to look into potential Klan involvement. Bill agreed to liaise between the GBI and APD during that investigation. When Holden asked him about that choice, he said that Holden was too busy trying to make the case match the profile rather than the other way around. Their fight was ended when the crosses finally arrived, less than an hour before the march was due to start. They put the crosses together with difficulty and then raced to the church to get them there, but Holden found he was too late. He confided in Bill his frustration at all the delays and lack of progress.

Bill went on a stakeout with Garland Periwinkle and watched the house of a known Klan member. They heard him on the phone with his brother talking about getting another kid and specially the murdered children. They brought him in for an interview, but it got them no new information and while he was there, another body was found.

Holden had the idea to use the benefit concert Sammy Davis, Jr. and Frank Sinatra were throwing to catch the subject. He asked for flyers to be passed out asking for additional security for the concert, knowing the killer would be unable to resist. He ran into lots of red tape along the way and ultimately, they ran out of time for that operation. With that out, the next operation was to stake out the bridges for anyone dropping what looks like a body into the river. After five weeks, they were told they got one more night and then they had to end the search. A deputy heard a splash in the middle of the night and they pulled over Wayne Williams. When he was asked if he knew why they pulled him over, he said he believed it was because of the boys.

They questioned him as they looked for the body he dumped. He said he was in the music business and was on his way to pick up a check. Then he said he was going to see a woman who said she was a singer worth hearing. He had only a number, so they tried calling it and got nowhere. In the car, they found a pair of gloves and a rope with knots and both ends, as well as a lot of dog fir. Holden asked a recruit to log them, but the recruit failed to obtain the items and simply wrote down that they were there. They were forced to let him go because they didn't find the body. Once he was released, Holden was upset to learn that he took all their potential evidence with him.

They went to see Wayne at his house and learned that there was a dog there, which he said was not his but his father's. He went over his day, but contracted his prior story. He then showed them the flyers he handed out to try to recruit talent. His flyers specifically looked for children who wanted to perform. He hadn't yet discovered anyone, but wanted to find the next Jackson 5. They looked into this and found that while Wayne rented studio time, he never recorded demos with kids. He just sat and talked to them, kids the same ages as the victims.

They found another body in the river, half a mile from where Wayne was pulled over. Jim also told Holden about the timeline of Wayne being seen with scratches on his arm matching up with the disappearance of Terry Pue, who was known to be a fighter. He also looked the the composite sketch of someone who was seen with one of the kids. They talked to the DA about what they knew that connected Wayne to the crimes and asked for warrants. He initially refused, later approved their warrants. They placed a bug in his car to track where he went and followed him, though he quickly figured out what they were doing.

They got approval to search Wayne's house. They found green carpet that matched fibers on the victims and a book on how to beat a lie detector. They interviewed Wayne, but he wouldn't admit to any wrongdoing or any knowledge of the victims. He also passed a polygraph, so they were forced to let him go. His name and address were leaked and published in the newspaper, raising the ire of the black community, who still didn't believe a black man could be responsible. With the media camped out in front of his house, he offered them a tour and an interview in exchange for not showing his face. The press continued to follow him, which he used to lead them to the mayor's house, where he yelled publicly about being harassed. While they were distracted, Wayne's father went an enquired about chartered flights to South America.

Wayne was later arrested when samples from his house were matched to the bodies. They charged him with just two victims, both adults, but Gunn said they'd probably file charges on other cases later. They believed the case was over, but then Jim showed the case of another pedophile in the area who had photos of only white boys. A recruit said that the photos pulled from the scene included young black boys and there were thousands, though not all were logged into evidence. They wanted to look into it deeper, but they were told the case was settled and to let it go instead. They announced that they were suspending the investigation as their primary suspect was arrested.

## Relationships

### Romantic

He was in a relationship with Debbie Mitford. They broke up due to Holden's increasing arrogance and lack of emotional reciprocity, as he preferred to talk about the serial killer interviews rather than listen to Debbie's opinions or studies. Debbie stated he was no longer the same man she had first met. Holden also had suspicions that she was cheating on him with a partner from school. Holden profiled her and walked out upon realizing her intention to break up.

### Familial

He likes talking to his mother. She once walked in on him touching himself and scolded him for it. His father buys his suits for him.

### Friendships

Holden doesn't have any friends outside of the BSU.

### Professional

His partner with the BSU is Bill Tench, who worries about him. Holden looks up to Bill as the more experienced Federal Agent. Bill recognized Holden's bright ideas and acknowledged his value to Holden as a well-known, respectable agent whose word would be taken seriously by their peers. They worked together to form their profiling department.

## Career

Ford is a special agent in the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, which he co-founded along with Bill Tench. His job is to find out what motivates killers, especially those who kill for sexual pleasure, although he often veers off-task into other criminal proceedings. This is usually due to his arrogance, head-strong persona, and disregard for both authority and moral obligations. He himself does not display any seemingly violent traits; however, he very easily connects with killers and elicits statements from them.

## Notes and Trivia

* Since being hugged by Ed Kemper, Holden has struggled with panic attacks.
* Holden goes through a series of stressors which culminate in a panic attack. Holden has observed that serial killers go through a series of stressors before they begin killing. In The Psychopath Test journalist Jon Ronson notes that one of the differences between psychopaths and non-psychopaths is that psychopaths do not feel anxiety.
* Holden is based on real-life FBI agent and profiler John Douglas.
* Holden was born in Brooklyn, New York City.

## Gallery

### Episodic

* Episode 1
* Episode 2
* Episode 3
* Episode 4
* Episode 5
* Episode 6
* Episode 7
* Episode 8
* Episode 9
* Episode 10
* Episode 2.1
* Episode 2.2
* Episode 2.3
* Episode 2.4
* Episode 2.5
* Episode 2.6
* Episode 2.7
* Episode 2.8
* Episode 2.9
1/19
## Appearances

 **#02** | "Episode 2.2"
 **#03** | "Episode 2.3"

## References

1. ↑ Episode 2.1
2. ↑ Episode 2.1
3. ↑ Episode 2.1
4. ↑ Episode 2.2
5. ↑ Episode 2.3
6. ↑ Episode 2.3
7. ↑ Episode 2.3
8. ↑ Episode 2.4
9. ↑ Episode 2.5
10. ↑ Episode 2.5
11. ↑ Episode 2.6
12. ↑ Episode 2.7
13. ↑ Episode 2.8
14. ↑ Episode 2.9