"Over 68 million Americans leave the safety of our borders every year." "If danger strikes, the FBI's International Response Team is called into action." "Reach your hands to heaven." "Palms to the sky." "Let the spirit of the Himalaya fill your soul." "Bring your hands to your heart." "And inhale the love of yourselves." "And exhale to close your practice." "Namaste." "Namaste." "Beautiful practice, all of you." "Beautiful." "Hey." " Hey." " Hey." " Bye." " See you later." "Call me a traditionalist, but the map that I have says 2-9-0-2-8." "Okay, so, what?" "So cartographers can't do math?" "8,840 meters is 29,029 feet." "Guys, it's one foot difference over almost 30,000." "Why is it so important?" " It's precision." " Accuracy." "Exactly." "And the conventionally accepted height of Mount Everest is tw... 29,035 feet." "AMEE used GPS to measure bedrock back in '99, but if you wanna argue science, I got Mencin on speed dial." "Uh, what is happening?" "You're afraid to fly, remember?" "Please don't remind me." "Morning, everyone." "Yeah, Jack, I think that Monty's lost again." "Not this time he's not." "Nepal is still recovering from last year's earthquake." "I asked him to join to help us with communications." "First international mission?" "Yep." "Fine." "Rookie hazing it is." "But that red shirt on the away team, bad choice." "Monty, you wanna get us started?" "Yeah." "Uh, two days ago..." "Meegan Whitney of Haddonfield, Illinois, went missing in the Khumbu Valley on the Nepal side of the Himalayas." "Now she was last seen with this outfit," "The Spiritual Awakenings Adventure Travel firm." "Now they specialize in high-end yoga expeditions." "Yoga expeditions?" "That's a thing?" "Yeah, "Eat, Pray, Love," big business nowadays." "Yeah, but not Eat, Pray, Love, Die, which is what happened in Meegan's case." "Warning, these are a bit graphic." "From the condition of the campsite and what was left of her body, initial science suggested an animal attack." "Yeah, these are horrific." "Initial signs?" "You don't think this was an animal?" "A local zoologist insisted there are no natural predators in the Khumbu Valley, and there've been no reports of migratory disturbances in this area this year." "So... murder?" "The Nepali government has classified" "Meegan Whitney's death as the result of a... yeti attack." "You have gotta be kidding me." "I wish I was." "Apparently, they receive dozen of reports of yeti encounters each year." "It's a legitimate cause of death in the country." "Well, I cannot imagine that either the State Department or Meegan's family is satisfied with blaming her death on a mythological creature." "And that's why they reached out to us." "So let me get this straight." "We're being sent halfway around the world to find out if this is a murder or if there's an animal on the loose that shouldn't be there?" "Or to actually find the Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas." "Given the Nepali government's official stance on the matter, let's consider the local investigation as inconclusive." "We hit the ground, we're starting from square one." "This was an American girl." "We owe it to her and her family to find out what happened." "Criminal Minds Beyond Borders 2x12 Air Date 17 June 2017" "A Buddhist proverb tells us," ""There are only two mistakes one can make" ""along the road to truth... not starting and not going all the way."" "Hey, Monty." "Whatcha doin'?" "Optimizing this receiver's multipath objection algorithm." "Under normal circumstances, satellite transmissions would be picked up directly by a terrestrial antenna, but in the mountainous terrain, the signal reflects off of rock faces and..." "And so you really are here to work on communications?" "What else would I..." "Mayfield Ruth Jarvis." "I may have let it slip that you're a yeti believer." "I'm sorry." "It seemed relevant." "I'm here for comm support." "Okay, her description is inaccurate." "I am not a "yeti believer." I am at most an enthusiast." "Tomato, tomato." "I'm sorry." "Call it scientific curiosity." "I just don't see any evidence disproving its actual existence." "See?" "What'd I tell ya?" "Total believer." "Totally." "What have you been up to?" "We have been working up a victimology for Meegan Whitney." "She seemed like a sweet girl." "She was from a small town." "Her family ran the local hardware store." "Her parents, Tom and Edith, died three years ago in a car crash." "Meegan spun out a little." "Lost her way." "That's understandable." "And two years ago, she got into yoga." "Found her center." "Any enemies?" "Doesn't seem like it." "Certainly not in Middle-of-Nowhere, Nepal." "But the police report cleared her fellow trekkers, so if this was murder, it wasn't pre-meditated." "If it was murder, these crime scene photos are inconclusive." "There's nothing here to indicate whether the killer is human or animal." "There's a third option." "Yeah, I think that we can all agree it wasn't the yeti." "Of course it was the yeti." "Agent Garrett, the Nepali people have plenty of experience with these kinds of incidents." "We've been having them for centuries." "Senani Thakur, no disrespect, but have you considered any other possibilities?" "Why?" "The circumstances in this case are consistent with every other yeti attack on record." "None of which have been scientifically confirmed." "No mind." "Today, it is our great honor to have the much-lauded International Response Team here in Nepal to help us catch it." "Oh, boy." "Uh, your report indicated that there were witnesses." "Not to the attack itself, but, uh, one of her fellow trekkers discovered the body the following morning." "The expedition was called off." "The survivors returned here to Kathmandu." "They're... they're right here in this hotel." "Now what happened to the body?" "Porters brought it down with the expedition." "It's being held in storage at the army barracks." "Porters?" "You had it carried down?" "Wouldn't you normally air lift it?" "My apologies, but Nepal is one of the poorest countries in Asia." "My department has one helicopter." "It was down for repairs." "It seems to be working now." "If you'd like, I can arrange to have you taken up the mountain to the attack site so you may examine it yourself." "That would be fine, thank you." "We'd also like to speak with some of the witnesses." "Whatever you require, sir." "Good." "Mae, while Clara and I do that, you can arrange to have Meegan's body transferred" " to the plane for supplemental autopsy." " Sure thing." "Monty, have you finished setting up communications on the jet?" "Powered up and operational." "Good." "Then why don't you head up the mountain with Simmons?" "You can establish a satellite link at the scene." "Up... the mountain in the... helicopter that seems to be working?" "You'll be fine." "And you thought the big airplane was fun." "Wait till you get a load of the whirlybird." "About those witnesses?" "I can't believe she's gone." "We're so sorry for your loss." "Thank you." "Miss Gates, how did you and Meegan meet?" "We met in Bhutan in 2014." "Um... she was really struggling with the loss of her parents, and I was going through a messy divorce." "And we just kinda hit it off." "So back in the States, you were close?" "Kinda like camp friends, you know?" "Friends that you see not so much on the day-to-day, but when you go away together, you're inseparable." "And you had done several of these trips together." "Oh, yeah." "We went to Bali and, uh, Galápagos and Sri Lanka." "We both came to Nepal earlier last year." "We were so excited to get back here because it just seemed so... transcendent." "I just never thought anything like this would happen." "What else can you tell us about Meegan's relationships with the other people on the retreat?" "Would anyone have wanted to hurt her?" "Oh, heavens no." "We were all like this singular organism moving together, breathing as one." "And yet, the night before Meegan died, she set up her tent away from the rest of the group near the woods." "Yes, she wanted to emulate the masters." "The whole point of this trip was to study with the local maharishi," "A group of men that have chosen to live their lives in isolation, free of distractions from the world." "And Meegan was obsessed with this idea." "So she wanted to be more like them." "Yes." "Yes." "And now she's dead." "How does something so horrible happen?" "We have men at the site right now attempting to answer that question." "Thought there'd be more snow." "Yeah, we're still a couple thousand feet below the permafrost." "This sure sets up like an animal attack." "Remote location, victim ripped apart where she was killed." "Killer had patience." "He took his time, waited till she was alone." "She's attacked here on the outside of her tent, and she's dragged into the woods." "And that's where she was disemboweled." "Well, there were no reports of screaming." "So we can assume that whatever it was, it got the jump on her." "Yeah, well, look at the distribution of blood here." "The spatter here on the outside of the tent, this is all from the attack." "But the stuff here on the inside..." "All this is secondary transfer." "Which means this tent was ransacked after Meegan was dead." "Okay, wait, wait." "If this was an animal hunting its prey, it already has its food, there'd be no reason to go back inside." "But on the other hand, if someone was trying to make this look like an animal, or a yeti attack, it'd probably look a lot like this." "I don't know, guys." "If a human did this, they did a pretty convincing job at making it look otherwise." "I've got claw and bite marks here." "It's clear signs of animal predation." "I don't understand." "I mean, why would someone want to make this look like a yeti attack?" "Cover up a murder?" "Or to protect the area's reputation." "A yeti attack plays more to the Himalayan narrative than unsolved murder." "Certainly, you don't mean to imply this is some kind of cover-up." "Tourism is the number one industry in this country." "It's possible that someone could've seen this as an opportunity to generate some interest." "What's that Occam's Razor you people are so fond of?" "The simplest explanation is usually correct." "I tell you, this was the yeti." "Yeah, well, the simplest explanation usually doesn't assume the supernatural." "And normally, I would have DNA to rule it out, but unfortunately, given the number of people that handled the body bringing it down the hill, isolating the killer is gonna be impossible." "Okay, if this was an animal, do you know what kind it was?" "No, the decomp is so extensive." "I mean, I can't even tell if this damage was done" "Peri or postmortem." "I mean, it's even possible that a scavenger fed off of her body after she was already dead." "I am sorry, guys." "This doesn't seem to be narrowing down the way I thought it would." "All right, well, it's still early up here." "We're gonna search the woods, see if there's anything the local authorities might've missed." "Okay, can you give me a hand?" "I wanna roll her over." "Well, that's weird." "Her hips are loose." "Yoga does promote flexibility." "Well, not this much." "All of her joints are loose." "And once I realized that her pelvic ligaments were loose, it led me to Relaxin, which is a vasodilator." "It softens cartilage and loosens joints." "You think she was drugged?" "No Relaxin isn't a pharmaceutical." "It is a hormone that is released when a body prepares to incubate a fetus." "Meegan was pregnant." "And the initial autopsy didn't discover it because all of her internal organs were already missing." "But HCG levels suggest that she was about 13 weeks along." "That would mean conception occurred during her last trip to Nepal." "And that someone has a personal relationship with the victim." " It could explain the overkill." " It might mean that the disembowelment wasn't part of a cover-up." "I mean, what if Meegan went to surprise someone with the news of the pregnancy, and it didn't go well?" "Ms. Gates, were you aware that Meegan was pregnant?" "What?" "We checked with the other trekkers registered with Spiritual Awakenings." "None of them were in Nepal when you and Meegan came this year." "Do you know of anyone else who might be the father?" "No." "I can't think of anyone." "You said she was obsessed with the maharishi." "Were they part of the expedition?" "No." "They were locals." "Sort of like guest instructors?" "Well, Jack, you were right." "According to Spiritual Awakenings, a man named Yogi Pemba led the class the morning that Meegan was murdered." "Now I did some digging, and Pemba's real name is Dave Dennis." "And he is from Bakersfield, California." "Well, given the name change, let me guess..." "Dave Dennis has a record." "Yes, sir." "In 2005, he fled the U.S. after a yoga student with whom he had been, ahem, "bumping chakras,"" "filed domestic assault charges against him." "So if this Pemba is the father of a child he didn't want..." "He would have both motive and opportunity." "You got a 20 on this wayward shaman?" "According to the website, he lives in Namche Bazaar, not far from where Meegan was murdered." "Call Simmons and Monty, see if they can pay him a visit." "No, they're not the same." "The sasquatch is a hoax perpetuated by cryptozoologists in a way to justify their so-called profession." "Right, so let me get this straight." "You think that Bigfoot is a..." "A cash grab." "Just follow the money." "I mean, besides, the yeti is a legend that dates back to pre-history." "It was supported by, you know, Reinhold Messner and Sir Edmund Hillary." "Sure, sure." "Makes total sense." "Monty, are you there?" "Mae, tell me there's no poison sumac in Nepal." "We got a suspect." "It's a Dave Dennis, a.k.a. "Yogi Pemba."" "He lives in a town called Namche Bazaar." "Okay, yeah, that's not too far from where we are." "I'll round up Simmons, and we'll go check it out." "Uh, yo, Simmons, we got a lead." "Matt?" "Uh, Mae, it's a little... creepy out here." "Be nice to have some company." "What was that?" "Damn it." "Simmons?" "Matt?" "I'm out." "No." "No." "Unh-unh." "Absolutely not." " Hey." " Aah!" "Where were you?" "!" "Breathe." "Look, Mae called, and Jack wants us to go find some guy named Yogi Pemba." "Pemba didn't do it." "How do you know?" "Well, if the neck tattoo is to be believed, this is Pemba." "The same bite marks and the same mutilation." "So whatever killed Meegan Whitney also killed Pemba." "Given the proximity to her campsite," "I'd say they were killed at or around the same time." "Yeah, decomp would support that." "But lucky for us, up here, the temps are cooler, and it looks like the shade of the trees has kept this body in better condition than the first one." "You ever assist with a field autopsy?" "It's not really on my bucket list." "Yeah, well, it is now." "So what did the police report say about the monks at the monastery?" "That they didn't see anything." "They were genuinely unhelpful." "Well, it probably has something to do with the tenuous relationship that Buddhists have with Nepal's mostly Hindu government." "This guy was local." "They know something." "Wanna go check it out?" "So let's step this out." "After her morning yoga, Meegan returns to her tent, alone." "The unsub stalks her from the cover of woods." "When the time is right..." "He attacks." "Meegan goes down." "The unsub drags her into the woods." "While he's ripping her body apart..." "Pemba arrives." "He spots the attacker, too late." "Pemba runs." "The killer gives chase." "And Pemba makes it pretty deep into the woods, so the killer probably isn't moving that fast." "But something must've slowed the Yogi down." "Pemba loses sight of the killer." "And he thinks he may have gotten away." "So rather than give away his position by moving, he hides out, until..." "The way that the flesh is torn from the bone, eating the internal organs, I mean, everything about this screams predator." "But these bite marks are..." " human?" " That didn't sound too convincing." "Well, they're the right size with the appropriate inter-dental spacing, but the teeth that did this were jagged, like you find in a carnivore." "Or in cases of extreme dental attrition." "So... human-oid?" "I'm just trying to keep an open mind." "Well, one thing is for sure." "This wasn't a cover-up." "The unsub did not hesitate." "He just bit right in." "This was his nature." "Here." "Come over and take a look." "I'll take your word for it." "But see, then the problem is that means cannibal." "And cannibals are almost always ritualistic." "Their kills are planned and ceremonial." "This was instinctive." "In-human." "Monty, the killer is not an 8-foot tall Abominable Snowman." "Thanks, Scully, but neither is the yeti." "This is something we like to call the dragon paradox." "Okay." "Fine." "Dragon paradox." "What is it?" "Okay, imagine a knight goes on an adventure and he takes his party, but everyone in the party dies except for the knight." "You play too much DD." "Beaten and bloodied, he has to return to the castle to explain his defeat." "Kneeling in the throne room, does our knight tell the king that the monster that ravaged his entire party was 4-feet tall and walked with a limp?" "No." "He tells the king that the monster was 20 feet tall and he breathed fire." "Exac..." "Why... does he do that?" "Well, because he is the brave knight, and losing to a short, green gimp would ruin his reputation." "Come on." "With everything you know about victimology?" "Okay, no." "No, no." "The knight has sworn to be honest and honor his king, but he still exaggerates because..." "Because post-traumatic memories are unreliable." "So the size of the monster that he remembers represents the size of the threat." "Which is why we think the yeti is 8 feet tall when most scientific theories suggest that it's the missing link or an offshoot of some feral homo sapien." "Either of which would make it human-sized." "Exactly." "There's only one problem." "There's no such thing as a yeti." "Those men should not be here." "Their guns will bring death." "It will anger Chomolungma." "The Mother Goddess of the world." "Lama Vajra, death has already come to the Khumbu." "I heard." "A woman and a man who called himself "Pemba."" "So you knew him." "We were... familiar." "Do you know who the killer is?" "The army thinks it's a yeti." "The army is interested only in confirming what it already believes." "So you do know who killed him." "I don't suppose karma is the answer you're looking for." "Pemba was a charlatan, a false prophet." "What he brought to this valley was unnatural." "And nature has a way of taking care of itself." "There any chance you had a hand in this "nature"?" "I swear to you that I did not." "I do not know who this killer is, but..." "I caution you." "Larger forces than man or beast are at play here." "Chomolungma is not to be trifled with." "And if you interfere with her will, she can be merciless." "Thank you." "I will keep that in mind." "Is there anything else you can give me?" "Here." "A blessing, to ward off evil." "Namaste, Miss Seger." "Jack, I got a print." "Three toes, cleft." "Evidence of partial amputation." "It could be human." "Or abominable." "You joke." "This isn't gonna do much to settle the locals." "Here's another one." "Yeah." "Well, at least we got a clear path." "We could... try to follow these things." "Oh, no." "Stop!" "Stop!" "Don't move!" "What do you mean "destroying evidence"?" "The unsub's trail leads here." "Your men are contaminating the area." "I can assure you, these men are the finest hunters on the planet." "For animals, maybe, but we're hunting a man." "The behaviors are fundamentally different." "Animals run on instinct." "This killer can think strategy." "He laid in wait for his victims." "We're not gonna catch him by wandering around in the woods." "We have to adapt our pursuit to his mind-set." "Senani Thakur, this man is a world-class tracker." "You'll have a better chance of catching this monster if you listen to him." "The man that we are searching for has been injured." "This is a photo of his footprint." "Now he appears to have a partial amputation of his right foot." "And you can tell by the weak leading edge of this print that he's probably dragging his leg." "The first thing we do is divide the area into quadrants." "Now you'll start by looking for broken branches." "Look for pieces of clothing." "Anything that may indicate where he may have passed." "Now note the directionality of the break." "That will help tell you which way he's headed." "Now remember, this killer probably knows that we're tracking him." "So he's gonna use cunning, he will use deception to try to throw us off his path." "Now it's been just over 48 hours since he was here." "We have fallen leaves, loose debris that may have covered these prints up." "Be aware of them." "Hey!" "Hey!" "Gather your men." "We'll check it out." "Well, I think it's safe to say that Meegan and Pemba aren't the killer's first victims." "That explains the lack of hesitation in his kills." "I mean, this guy's practiced." "Mae said she had parts for at least six different bodies she and Monty were taking down the hill." "Some of them looked like they'd been here a while." "Dead animals." "I think he's trying to store them." "Well, winter's coming." "Food's gonna be scarce." "Something's not right." "Cannibals don't usually hoard their victims for food." "Dahmer... didn't he keep his victim's heads in his fridge?" "Yeah, but as trophies." "And for sexual gratification." "The behavior says one thing, forensics says another." "I tell ya, at this point," "I'm willing to start giving" "Monty's wild theories some credence." "It's gotta be one or the other." "Which one is it?" "Animal or human?" "It's human." "Animals don't collect souvenirs." "Your blessings didn't work." "Did they not?" "We found more bodies in a cave near here." "Each of them was wearing one of your bracelets when they died." "That is unsurprising." "We give those to every visitor who stops by." "Are you here to accuse me?" "I tell you again, I am no killer." "But you do know more than you're letting on." "Why didn't you tell me about the other victims?" "Miss Seger, do you know how many people died in this valley" " in the last year?" " Of course." "The earthquakes." "There has been suffering and death throughout the Khumbu." "Yet you are concerned with a handful of souls who did not belong here." "Is that why you're not helping us?" " Because they were outsiders?" " To the contrary." "I am not indifferent to the suffering of any man." "But nature has spoken." "Who am I to question nature?" "There's a killer out there who needs to be stopped." "You cannot stop Samsara." "It is an endless cycle of destruction and rebirth." "Do you know what happens to those who fail to reach enlightenment?" "Yeah, when someone dies, they return as a lower life form." "And they begin a descent into the realm of the beast." "Okay, we get it." "You didn't like them." "Jack, we have been spending all of this time trying to decide whether our killer is human or animal." "He's telling us it's both." "Thousands died in the earthquakes, and you think one of them was reincarnated as the killer." "There are many forms of rebirth." "Jack, what if he didn't die?" "What if our killer was injured during the earthquake, but he survived?" "There have been some accounts about people who have developed into an animalistic state after suffering a severe neurological trauma." "Would that explain the cannibalism" " and the hoarding?" " It might." "If so, we may be looking for an instinct-driven atavistic killer." "And here I thought you did not believe in yeti." "Mae, are you there?" "Jack, this is the worst case of mix and match ever." "Look, we have reason to believe that the unsub may be someone who was injured in last year's earthquakes." "Well, it'd fit our timeline based on what we've got down here." "Yeah, it looks like all of these victims disappeared within the last year." "Any luck with identities?" "Well, based on the expedition patches that were found on some of the clothing, several of them could've been from a Swiss trekking group that went missing about six months ago." "Jack, how much trauma would it take to turn a normal person into someone..." "Gotta go." "Call you back." "What happened?" "I don't know." "I was inside." "He says it was the yeti." "Go." "I got him." "Come on." "Go, go!" "You're gonna be okay." "This is the last set from the sequencer." "Well, you were right." "I isolated nine different sets of DNA." "Six are from the Swiss expedition." "I haven't found matches for two of the others, although, genetic markers do indicate they may be local." "So there may not be a match." "What about this one?" "It's common to all parties and it was found in the bite marks on Pemba." "That's your killer." "Western European markers as well as Polynesian." "The 2015 quake was his trigger." "And I use that as a filter with missing persons." "Monty, you are a genius." "Oh, man." "This poor guy lost everything." "This guy isn't evil." "He's injured." "Call Jack." "I know where he's going." "Jack, you there?" "Jack?" "What do we do?" "Call the army." "Order us up a chopper." "You know, the problem with the DOD is they design everything for desert warfare." "If they just understood that 20% of the planet was mountainous, then... ah!" "Got it." "Jack, do you read?" "This way." "So you really ain't have nothing else but this red coat?" "Monty, it's Jack." "Go ahead." "We got the DNA on the killer." "It's an Ian Wilson." "He's from New Zealand." "Uh, 2015 earthquake triggered an avalanche that wiped out his entire mountain climbing expedition." "Authorities assumed that everyone in the expedition died including Ian and his wife." "But somehow, he survived." "Jack, he's not a monster." "He's a very damaged individual." "He attacked one of the Nepalis." "We're tracking him." "Where are you now, Mae?" "Uh, we are at the base of the avalanche, where his wife was killed." "He's been here." "About a kilometer that way." "Stick tight, Mae." "We're on our way." "Jack, he's here." "Mr. Wilson?" "We know who you are." "You're hurt." "And we can help you, please." "There's no need to be scared." "Speak for yourself." "I'm gonna put my gun down." "Are you crazy?" "You do this every week?" "Agent Garrett, yeti or no, he is a monster responsible for many deaths." "This man is suffering from a neurological trauma." "Charging in and killing him is not justice." "We need to try to apprehend him." "If threatened, my men will respond." "If they are threatened." "Those are my agents up there." "They have this situation under control." "Tell your men." "This is bad." "The yeti myth is part of their identity." "Any move he makes will be seen as aggression." "Mae, you're about to have company." "Ian, there are men coming and they wanna hurt you." "Please, this is what Charlotte would've wanted." "He can't understand you." "Maybe I should shut the hell up." "We know about the avalanche that killed your wife." "The search party looked for you for three days, but they had to turn back because of the aftershocks." "You could hear them, couldn't you?" "I cannot imagine the pain, the feeling of abandonment." "But, Ian, killing is not the answer." "Stay back." "We have it under control." "Ian, please." "Come with us." "We can get you help." "Ian, no, please." "Namaste." " Thanks." " Mm-hmm." "Well, I guess that puts the yeti myth to bed once and for all." "I doubt it brings much comfort to Meegan's family." "But they do have some closure." "You know, I have to admit that when I saw those footprints, even I started to believe a little bit." "I can't imagine what it took to survive an injury like that." "Well, that speaks to the strength of the human spirit." "Yeah, but was he?" "You know, human?" "Having devolved to such an animalistic state?" "I think so." "I think on some level he knew what he was doing when he charged those men." "You think he wanted to die?" "I think he was suffering." "I think he wanted to be with his wife." "You know, there's this Buddhist concept called Kalyana-mittata, or spiritual companionship." "And they say that it transcends death or rebirth." "Well, maybe he got what he wanted." "Maybe he did." "You know, technically, this doesn't disprove the evidence of the yeti." "There could still be undiscovered species out there." " Hey, Monty." " Yes, sir." "Enough with the yeti." " Let's go home." " Yes, please."