Cutting Edge: The 5 Sickest Serial Killers On "Dexter"

Image via Complex Original

In every season of Dexter, Showtime's series about a Miami Metro Police Department forensics expert who stalks and kills other serial killers in his spare time, Dexter Morgan (played by Michael C. Hall) takes the lives of several criminals. He typically snuffs out run-of-the-mill killers in a single episode. More interesting ones may last three. The most diabolical evildoers of the bunch hack and slash (or burn or strangle or bludgeon) their way through the majority of a 12-episode season and become Dexter's nemesis before he turns them into a trophy blood slide. In the wake of season five's gripping finale, Complex looks back on the five sickest serial killers on Dexter (SPOILER ALERT!) to decide which of them is the most effed up.



By Justin Monroe (@40yardsplash)

#5: MIGUEL PRADO (JIMMY SMITS)

Season: 3 (12 episodes)

Killer bio: Self-righteous Assistant District Attorney Prado breaks the law to put murderers behind bars. Ironically, after he becomes friends with Dexter, who puts him on to murdering criminals, he kills an innocent rival defense attorney who's trying to prove that he's dirty and plots the murder of the police lieutenant who's investigating him to keep himself out of jail. Objection! Double standard!

What he does to Dexter: Prado manipulates him into believing he's trustworthy by presenting Dex with bloody evidence of his involvement in a murder (Dexter later discovers it's cow blood). That's no foundation for a friendship! And neither is freeing another serial killer, The Skinner, so he'll eliminate Dexter.

#4: LILA TOURNAY, A.K.A. LILA WEST (JAIME MURRAY)

Season: 2 (10 episodes)

Killer bio: A homicidal arsonist, Lila solves problems like Dylan from Da Band—with more fiyah! More fiyah! More fiiiiyaaaah!

What she does to Dexter: Lila believes that Dexter is her sociopathic soulmate, which has its benefits (she protects him by blowing up the pesky homicide detective who’s figured out that Dexter is a serial killer). She doesn’t take rejection well, though, and frames one of his coworkers for rape, then attempts to make Dexter and his other chick’s kids flambee. Getting burnt with gonorrhea seems halfway decent in comparison.

#3: JORDAN CHASE, A.K.A. EUGENE GREER (JONNY LEE MILLER)

Season: 5 (8 episodes)

Killer bio: A wildly successful motivational speaker and author, Chase is exactly like Tony Robbins—if, as a teenager, Robbins had talked his boys into gang raping, torturing, and murdering young blondes, then motivated them to give it their all another 13 times.

What he does to Dexter: Chase finally produces for Dexter a woman who loves him for being a sadistic homicidal monster. That woman, Lumen Pierce (Julia Stiles), happens to be the highly traumatized escaped victim who Dexter falls in love with while helping her get revenge, though, so we’re not really cosigning Chase as a matchmaker. Especially since he tries to take her away from Dexter, abducting and returning Lumen to the scene of her nightmarish torture to kill her. Cupid, he is not.

#2: RUDY COOPER, A.K.A. BRIAN MOSER, A.K.A. THE ICE TRUCK KILLER (CHRISTIAN CAMARGO)

Season: 1 (8 episodes)

Killer bio: Cooper, revealed to be Dexter's older brother who also witnessed their mother's chainsaw dismemberment and spent days locked in a bloody storage container unit with her corpse, grows up in a mental institution and earns the nickname the Ice Truck Killer by murdering, draining, and dismembering prostitutes, preserving their body parts for display.

What he does to Dexter: In an effort to help his younger brother recall his childhood trauma and reunite the two sociopaths, Cooper slays several hookers and leaves clues for him. Additionally, he abducts Dexter's adoptive sister, Debra, and tries to get Dexter to kill her to sever ties with his non-biological family and solidify their brotherly bond. Touching. We're tearing up just thinking about it.

#1: ARTHUR MITCHELL, A.K.A. THE TRINITY KILLER (JOHN LITHGOW)

Season: 4 (12 episodes)

Killer bio: On the surface, Mitchell appears to be a good Christian family man who travels around the country constructing homes for the needy. In reality, he uses the concrete foundation of his homes to bury young boys alive, the first murder in a series of four which also includes bleeding out a young woman in a bathtub, forcing a married mother to jump to her death, and bludgeoning a father.

What he does to Dexter: When Dexter returns home after disposing of the Trinity Killer, he discovers that Mitchell had made Dexter's wife, Rita (Julie Benz), his final bathtub victim and left their infant son crying in a pool of her blood. We're not positive "last laugh" applies in such a sick, twisted situation, but if it does he got it.