Episode
Profiler: Burnt Offerings
Overview
Sam and the team try to catch a mystic arsonist on the loose in Atlanta. Sam profiles that he apparently risks his own life by setting the fires himself on the spot. After a red herring lead involving a photographer always on the scene of the fires, Sam and the team find graffiti messages on walls of the burned out buildings in Farsi meaning ‘fire god.‘ The man is apparently seeking a ‘chosen one‘ immune to fire in order take him to the afterlife to meet his deceased wife. Meanwhile, Sam is worried about Chloe when she becomes emotionally withdrawn when one of her classmates becomes a victim in one of the fires.
Details
- Series
- Profiler
- Season
- Season 3
- Episode
- Episode 16
- Air date
- 1999-03-20
- Runtime
- 60 min
Episode context
Burnt Offerings is Episode 16 in Season 3 of Profiler. It aired on 1999-03-20. The runtime is 60 min.
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Episode 15: Spree of Love
A series of murders across the Southwest USA leads Sam and the VCTF team to an unlikely couple: a 32-year-old woman, Josie Wells, and a 16-year-old boy, Alex Lopez, who apparently abducted her from her child‘s soccer field in Boulder, Colorado. Sam figures out that the woman was apparently the victim of physical abuse as a child and has abandoned her unhappy and lonely married life and reliving her glory days with the boy she met on a counseling phone line. Meanwhile, Bailey tries to reason with his ex-wife, Janet, not to remarry for he feels she's throwing her own life away.
Episode 17: Three Carat Crisis
Sam and Bailey get caught up in a jewel heist by a trio of mentally unbalanced crooks, named Randy, Kate and Stevie, that quickly turns into a hostage situation within the jewelry store. They struggle to profile the perpetrators and their relationships with one another before any lives are lost. While Sam tries to reason with the ringleader, Randy, to give up, John quarrels with the overzealous police commander outside who wants to catch or kill all the perpetrators even if it means that all hostages will be killed.
More episodes from this season
Episode 14: Otis, California
When Donald Lucas, the imprisoned Jack-of-All Trades killer, managed to hack onto the Internet, Bailey fears that he is communicating with a disciple. The investigation leads the VCTF to a small northern California town, named Otis, which is plagued by supersition and a series of Jack-of-All-Trade murders. With the assistance of the friendly but eccentric Sheriff Ed Post, Sam, Bailey and the team try to find the suspect. But George gets abducted by the suspect, whom is connected to a reclusive, wheelchair-bound professor, named Philip Mendez, whom is later found murdered. The search leads to an underground lab where Sam discovers her father once worked there for his government-sponsored mind-control experiments that Lucas had also worked on.
Episode 18: Seduction
George and Sam go undercover as IRS agents at Borden & Associates, a management office in Palm Beach, Florida, because five of the clientele have been murdered with one finger from their left hand missing. As Sam profiles the most likely suspect, Bobby O'Hara, whom shows a strong interest in her, the firms shadowy security chief, Leo Cantrell, becomes suspicious of Sam's true identity. Meanwhile, Kevin Miller, an arrogant FBI agent working the case, complicates the investigation much to Bailey's worry for Sam's safety and Miller's indifference to otherwise, while John works with the local police detective, Lt. Cynthia Ford, in discovering the bodies.
Episode 13: Heads, You Lose
Someone is killing the young and beautiful in Florida's trendy South Beach. The killer compounds his grizzly crimes by decapitating his victims and leaving their heads on public display for all to see. Sam profiles that the killer is striking against the beautiful people as a result of his low self-esteem. She further theorizes the man may have once been part of the glamorous elite, but has for some reason fallen from grace. His banishment now fuels his rage. Evidence eventually points to a young shipping magnate who has unwisely squandered his multi-million dollar inheritance on South Beach's cosmopolitan lifestyle. Instead of blaming himself, he is now striking out at those who helped him spend his fortune. B-Story- Grace attempts to reconcile the strained relationship she has with her mother. Also, the local detective on the case falls for Sam and tries everything he can to land a date.
Episode 19: Grand Master (2)
Episode 12: Inheritance
People who seem to have nothing in common are being killed in the Southeast U.S. Grace's autopsy yields that all the victims has the same rare blood type. It then becomes clear all the victims were related. The team uncovers evidence that confirms all the victims were the children of a Charles Manson-like cult leader currently incarcerated in a Georgia psychiatric facility. Sam interviews the adoptive parent of one of the remaining children and quickly surmises their son is the killer. She theorizes that he is killing his siblings to 'cleanse' himself of his deadly lineage. Once he kills his last target, the young man practically surrenders to police. Sam wonders why the murderer gives up so easily, and soon realizes it's just a piece of the plan that leads back to the cult leader father. The team races to the psychiatric facility where the father is being held. The son has had himself transferred there so that he might kill his father and finally make his cleansing complete. B-Story-
Episode 20: Las Brisas
Donald Lucas' trial begins as the team heads out to Mexico where in the small town of Las Brisas, women have been vanishing without a trace for the past year, and some corpses have been discovered. But their investigation is hampered on both sides of the border by the corrupt police chief, Miguel Villalobos, whom is under the thumb of a U.S sheriff, J.D. Tollman, whom try to derail the VCTF's investigation when the murders lead to a powerful U.S. businessman, named James Lofton, running a textile factory in Las Brisas and has been in the company of local prostitutes, some of whom ended up as victims. While assisting Marta Fernandez, a loyal policewoman with the investigation, Sam and the group commute back and forth to Atlanta for Lucas' trial with testimony from her, Bailey, George, against Lucas. Also testifying on Sam's behalf is Sheriff Ed Post from Otis, California whom, unknown to everyone, is actually the real Jack-of-All-Trades whom has been in hiding all this time and is usi
Episode 11: Where or When
A serial killer who kills with his bare hands leaves the bodies of his male victims at the Brown Derby, the Trocadero, and other Hollywood landmarks. Sam profiles the killer as someone trying to rectify some trauma he experienced in his past. The team follows a trail of clues that eventually leads them to a rather ordinary cab driver who does not seem to have the strength necessary to commit the crimes. A search of the man's apartment yields evidence however, that matches Sam's profile to the letter. The cab driver easily passes a lie detector test. The conflicting findings lead to the release of the man. It is later learned that all the victims were abusers of women. Sam soon realizes the man suffers from multiple personality disorder. His alter ego is a gangster-like tough guy who is bent on avenging the murder of the cab driver's abused mother forty years earlier. B-Story- Sam learns her scientist father participated in experiments that had deadly consequences.
Episode 21: What's Love Got to Do with It?
Sam and Bailey work with FBI field agent Susan Marsh whom is tracking Robert Lee Gregg, a conservative civic leader in Atlanta whom is suspected in the killing of six gay men. But their investigation is happened by Susan's former boyfriend, Richard Russell, whom is stalking her. Susan insists she's in control of the situation, but Bailey thinks otherwise when her boyfriend is found murdered and Russell is a suspect. Things get worse when Russell targets Bailey and his ex-wife Janet whom are now back together. Meanwhile, Sam leaves the investigation and travels to Miami to investigate the disappearance of a local man who may be connected to the Gregg killings, and she finds herself being perused by Mario Monagno (from the 'Heads, You Lose' episode) whom still wants to date her.
Episode 10: Ceremony of Innocence
One of Sam's first profiles resulted in a man being sentenced to death. Ten years later when the man is about to be executed, murders begin happening that match the m.o. of the prior killings. Ballistics evidence proves the same gun was used for all the crimes. Sam, feeling culpable for what might have been a deadly mistake, reopens the investigation. Evidence leads to a lowly bicycle courier who is mortally wounded when he resists arrest. Once the dying man is in custody, the death row inmate is released from prison. Though a wrong seem to have been righted, Sam still feels something is amiss. A chess set is found in the prisoner's cell helps her to realize that the whole thing was an elaborate ruse. The man originally convicted was indeed the first killer. The second killer was only a pawn doing his bidding. Sam, Bailey, and the team re-arrest the now pardoned killer at the hospital bed of his wounded puppet, just as he attempts to kill the only loose end in his elaborate plan.
Episode 9: All in the Family
Fueled by the abuse they suffered as children, a brother and sister decide to save another child from the same unfortunate fate. To do this, however, the warped siblings kill the boy's parents as well as two of their employees. The VCTF investigate the mass murder and Sam immediately bonds with the abused boy. The parent has mob ties, so it is immediately assumed that their murder resulted from their illegal activities. Though skeptical of this scenario, Sam does not dispute it for that would result in the boy being held by the system until the murder is solved. Instead, the boy is immediately released to his uncle's custody. As the team investigates the crime further, they realize the boy's social worker, as well as his supposed 'uncle', are actually the brother-sister duo. Sam profiles the tow want to become surrogate parent for the boy and provide him with the idealized 'home' they never had. She further theorizes the boy must be found fast, before the disturbed couple realize paren