Why isnt gideon on criminal minds anymore

When fifteen minutes pass, the Sheriff's Department storms in the diner, but seconds later, everyone is alerted of a school bus hijacking. Frank tells them that he had left the schoolchildren in the middle of a desert and that if he gets Jane, he will tell them where they are.

Gideon makes a deal with Frank: he and Jane will come with him if he takes them to where the children are. Frank happily agrees to that. After they pick up Jane and deliver her to Frank, Gideon drives the two to the desert and drops them off, to which Frank tells Gideon where the children are.

Frank and Jane then walk off while Gideon runs in the opposite way and finds the children, all unharmed. Gideon and Hotch try to follow Frank's tracks, but they suddenly disappear in the desert.

When he looks up again, she has disappeared. Gideon then receives a call from Frank, who is in Gideon's apartment, having murdered Sarah. He demands to have Jane back before hanging up. When the BAU begins to investigate, Gideon contacts Hotch from a payphone and tells him that Frank dumped something in the trash on the street, later revealed to be bloody clothing.

During the investigation, it is deduced that Frank is hunting down people Gideon previously rescued. Frank later kills one such person, Rebecca Bryant , who was abducted by Randall Garner and held captive for two years before being rescued by the BAU.

At the scene, Prentiss discovers a note in Rebecca's hand that reads: "7 A. Later, Tracy Belle, the sole survivor of Jeffrey Charles, goes missing. Gideon and Garcia are later able to figure out that the only story that moved Frank the first time Gideon met him was the body of a woman who was found in an apartment on the Upper East Side of New York City because he was talking about his mother.

Gideon then realizes that Frank was hiding his mother's existence from everyone. Later, the team manages to find Frank, who is calmly sitting on a bench at the Union Train Station, waiting for them to bring him Jane. The team brings in Jane, who refuses to go with Frank. Gideon shows up and tells Frank about Sarah, Frank's mother, whom Gideon claims was a whore.

Frank convinces Jane to come back to him, and the two commit suicide. Later, Tracy calls Gideon and thanks him for saving her once again. In " Doubt ", Gideon and the rest of the BAU are asked to investigate the murders of three girls on a college campus in Flagstaff, Arizona. After investigating the crime scenes and the victims' bodies, the team releases their profile.

Afterward, a local police officer suggests that the unsub could be a college security guard who tasered his victims, which is confirmed by strange marks on the bodies of the victims. The team then arrests Nathan Tubbs , a campus security guard, and Gideon interrogates him. While Nathan is in custody, a fourth woman is murdered and the killer leaves a note stating the FBI is following the wrong suspect.

While the BAU begins to doubt that Nathan is the killer, Gideon remains positive that he is and that this unsub is a copycat. He eventually decides to release Nathan but continues to keep an eye on him so that they can determine who the copycat killer is. Later, a suicidal young woman named Anna Begley approaches Nathan and asks him to kill her. Believing she is working for the FBI, Nathan refuses to kill her. After a brief argument, Anna fatally stabs Nathan in the stomach and then kills herself.

Due to the handling of the investigation, Hotch is suspended for two weeks. This, plus the trauma of Frank killing Sarah, prompts Gideon to leave his gun, badge, and a letter for Reid. He then leaves and begins traveling abroad. Gideon is last seen going into a Nevada diner to make an order. When asked by a waitress where he is going, he replies that he doesn't know where he was going or how he would know when he got there.

He then leaves the diner and subsequently drives off in his vehicle. Although Gideon no longer appears in the series, numerous characters, including Reid, have mentioned him occasionally from time to time. The last reference to him prior to his death was in the Season Ten episode " Burn ," where Reid briefly mentioned him during a conversation with Morgan about killer sniper Phillip Dowd. In " Nelson's Sparrow ", Gideon is found dead, murdered by an apparent home intruder.

Morgan and Rossi investigate the crime scene and discover that the unsub shot Gideon three times, first wounding his dominant hand from the outside of Gideon's cabin so that he couldn't hold his hand steady to shoot back. The unsub then stood over Gideon to deliver the final blow, enjoying the fact that his face would be the last thing that the former agent would see. However, Rossi notices that Gideon intentionally shot at a bird painting, which leads him to believe the unsub that killed Gideon was the same unsub from a case they failed to solve in As Gideon was traveling along the East Coast, he received word that a woman in her 50s was found dead in a shallow grave in Roanoke, Virginia, which reminded Gideon of the unsub's M.

One day, the unsub saw Gideon in a local diner and noticed that he stood out since he wasn't a local. Realizing Gideon was onto him, he murdered him to remove any loose ends. The team eventually discover the unsub's name is Donnie Mallick and that he has abducted another woman.

He revealed the details to New York Magazine about why he left the show. I never thought they were going to kill and rape all these women every night, every day, week after week, year after year. It was very destructive to my soul and my personality. Audiences all over the world use this programming as their bedtime story.

As a result, Gideon took responsibility for any suffering his team members experienced. This was especially true with the young Dr. Spencer Reid, with whom Gideon was especially close. Gideon handpicked Reid from the Academy. The two often played each other in chess matches, which were all won by the intuitive Gideon. Gideon blamed himself for the time Reid was kidnapped and tortured by a serial killer.

The BAU was sent to investigate their former mentor's death, in the heartbreaking episode "Nelson's Sparrow. When Gideon was killed off, executive producer and co-writer Erica Messer spoke to TV Guide about wanting to give viewers closure about Gideon's fate. It felt like a really nice way of honoring Gideon.

We don't kill off our heroes very often," Erica said. Though Gideon never did physically return to the BAU for further closure on his exit, the original character was given a send-off of sorts on the series finale. Five years after his murder, a young Gideon pays a "visit" to Rossi to advise him on finding Everett Lynch, aka the Chameleon. Younger versions of Rossi and Gideon had been featured on the show before.

The first time this occurred was in the episode when Gideon died, and viewers saw how the two used to work together in their early careers. It was even revealed that Gideon had named his son after Rossi's middle name: Stephen.