The Dark Truth Behind Lee Duval, the Secret Identity That Makes ‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’s Villain So Disturbing

Few character reveals in recent television history have landed with the same weight as the moment fans learned the name Lee Duval. It sounds ordinary, almost forgettable, which is exactly what makes it so chilling. Behind that name lies the entire origin story of the most complex antagonist the ‘Criminal Minds‘ franchise has ever produced.

Elias Jasper Voit, born Lee Duval and also known by the alias Sicarius, is the main antagonist of the Paramount+ series ‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’, the sequel to the original ‘Criminal Minds’ on CBS. He is not simply a killer with a past. He is a product of generational horror, and understanding where Lee Duval came from is essential to understanding why Elias Voit became what he is.

Lee Duval’s Origins and the Trauma That Created a Monster

Voit was born as Lee Duval to Teresa Duval, who was also his half-sister, implying Teresa was raped and possibly groomed by their father, resulting in the pregnancy. It is one of the darkest origin stories the show has ever put on screen.

He was raised under court order by his uncle Cyrus Lebrun in Falls River, North Carolina, following the deaths of Teresa and their father in an apartment fire he caused. The circumstances of that fire, and the guilt or detachment surrounding it, would define the psychological landscape of everything that followed.

Cyrus, an arms trafficker and a serial killer in his own right, kidnapped and murdered dozens of people, recruiting Lee as an accomplice by beating him, locking him in a closet for days, killing animals and then putting them in the closet, and otherwise abusing him to be conditioned to dependence and fear. The violence was not random but methodical, designed to break a child into something useful.

In the early 2000s, Lee packed a bag to leave. When Cyrus fought to stop him, he nearly killed Cyrus but relented and left him alive. Voit became his new name, an alias derived from a father and son he read about in the newspaper who had died in a car crash. The identity of Lee Duval was buried, and Elias Voit was constructed in its place.

The Sicarius Network and the Scope of His Crimes

Born as Lee Duval, Elias Jasper Voit is the latest in a long line of ‘Criminal Minds’ unknown subjects. His alias, Sicarius, is the name of a type of venomous spider, and while his methods vary, his murders are often wildly brutal even by ‘Criminal Minds’ standards. The name alone tells you everything about how he operates.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Voit traveled frequently using his job as cover. He planted kill kits in different parts of the country, which he would later use as he set up his serial killer network. The pandemic, which isolated millions of people, became the backdrop for one of the most sprawling criminal enterprises the BAU has ever faced.

Voit kept most of his victims in a shipping container in Yakima County, Washington, with a second base of operations being in a storm shelter in Whitfield County, Georgia. His ability to compartmentalize his crimes ran alongside his seemingly normal domestic life, complete with a wife and two daughters, which makes him genuinely disturbing.

Elias Voit is a significant and unforgettable character on ‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’, and fans first see him in season 1, episode 1, just learning that he has a wife and two daughters, which creates an unsettling dissonance at the heart of the show’s premise.

Zach Gilford and the Actor Behind the Birth Name

Joining the cast of ‘Criminal Minds’ is a bit of a full-circle moment for Gilford, because the actor first auditioned for the series 15 years prior to booking his spot as Elias Voit. That first audition was for the original CBS pilot, and he most likely read for the role that would eventually go to Matthew Gray Gubler.

Gilford shared in an interview with Us Weekly that his goal is to make the audience like him when he is playing a role, and he explained that viewers see Voit with his family while all his murders happen offscreen, which makes it hard to remember that he is a violent criminal. That creative decision, to show the domesticity more than the destruction, is central to why the character works.

At the time of filming seasons one, two, and three of Evolution, Zach Gilford, the actor portraying Voit, was married to Kiele Sanchez, the actress who portrays Voit’s wife Sydney. That real-world connection added an unspoken layer to their scenes together.

Voit is the first antagonist in the history of the ‘Criminal Minds’ franchise to be introduced as the main antagonist of a series instead of a single episode. The two previous major antagonists, the Reaper and Mr. Scratch, both started as episode-level threats before escalating. Voit was built as the big bad from day one.

The Amnesia Arc and What Comes Next

Criminal Minds: Evolution season 3 has consistently come up with reasons to keep Gilford closely tied to the show, and the most recent installment introduced a storyline where Voit essentially suffers from a kind of amnesia and can no longer access the memories of the monster he used to be. Whether that loss of memory is genuine or an elaborate deception is the central question hanging over the season.

Voit’s arc has seen him go from despised serial killer to repentant amnesiac, and a character that audiences might almost find themselves rooting for, which creates a fascinating moral conflict for viewers who know exactly what he is capable of.

Showrunner Aimee Garcia described Voit as a beloved character in the same way that Tony Soprano and Dexter were antiheroes that audiences loved, noting that he went from an antihero people enjoy watching to a possible key to helping dissuade other antiheroes.

Voit’s place in the already-confirmed ‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’ season 4 will depend on how he concludes the current installment, with the twist potentially being that there is no twist, and Gilford’s character genuinely turns over a new leaf.

The road ahead for Lee Duval, or whoever he has become, remains one of the most compelling questions on streaming television right now, so where do you think Voit’s story should end, and does he deserve any kind of redemption after everything the BAU knows about who Lee Duval really was?