It’s best to leave vigilante-style murdering to someone who has a ‘Code’ in place that provides a number of checks and balances. Enter anti-hero Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), Miami’s best blood spatter analyst-cum-vigilante serial killer, whose father, Harry (James Remar), taught him the killing code to keep his Dark Passenger in check. The Harry Code is simple: hunt out other murderers (and other nefarious characters) who have managed to elude justice.
Dexter, also known as the “Bay Harbor Butcher,” was responsible for around 140 murders before vowing to put an end to it in the series finale (although eventually he returns to killing in Dexter: New Blood). Dexter’s kill total includes kills that stand out more than others due of their personal significance. It’s time to peel back the plastic wrap and investigate Dexter Morgan’s most infamous killings (forensically).
Arthur Mitchell (Season 4)
Arthur Mitchell, or “The Trinity Killer,” was a serial killer who had been active for at least 30 years and was being investigated by retired Special Agent Frank Lundy (Keith Carradine), who had previously failed to apprehend the killer while working for the FBI.
When Lundy informs Dexter that he is on the hunt for Trinity, Dexter enters Mitchell’s seemingly idyllic life as Kyle Butler. But the longer Dexter follows Mitchell, the more he notices how similar they are in many respects; they were both “born in blood.” When Dexter finds Trinity’s true identity, he decides it’s time to put a stop to him. Dexter ambushes Mitchell after sabotaging his automobile. Dexter plays Mitchell his sister Vera’s favorite song before breaking his head with the claw side of a framing hammer in an unexpectedly touching scene. He didn’t kill Mitchell despite having multiple chances throughout the season. He wishes he had in the end. Dexter had no idea that Mitchell had slain Dexter’s wife, Rita, before killing Mitchell (Benz). Harrison, their child, is discovered in a pool of his mother’s blood, similar to what happened to Dexter.
Brian Moser (Season 1)
Dexter was forced to kill his older brother, Brian Moser (Christian Camargo), to save his adoptive sister, Debra. It was both one of the best and saddest deaths in the series (Carpenter). Between Dexter and his biological sibling, there was always (forgive the pun) bad blood. Unlike Dexter, who was adopted by Harry Morgan, “Biney” was placed in foster care and spent much of his youth in a psychiatric facility after being diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder.
Brian learned he and Dexter shared a common kinship when dismembering prostitutes and transporting their severed body parts in refrigerated trucks as “The Ice Truck Killer.” Brian tries to assassinate Debra in order to get closer to Dexter. Dexter, who was very protective of his sister, was not going to let that happen. Let the fratricide begin! Dexter was so impacted by killing the last person who genuinely knew and accepted him that he is unable to kill again in the Season 2 opener “It’s Alive!” Thankfully, he’ll be back to his old self as America’s favorite serial murderer in no time.
Dr Emmett Meridian (Season 1)
Dr. Emmett Meridian (Tony Goldwyn) was a psychiatrist who preyed on wealthy women and persuaded them to commit suicide. When Dexter learned of Dr Meridian’s activities, he set up an appointment with him under the alias Sean Ellis.
Dexter was trying to be intimate with his partner, Rita, and a few sessions with Meridian helped him tremendously (Benz). However, by the fourth session, Dexter had challenged Meridian about his indirect murders before injecting him with M99 and setting up a kill room in the shrink’s office, where a newly-confident Dexter confessed his penchant for serial killing. Meridian was the first victim to be restrained during the execution to prevent him from ‘psyching’ himself out of death. Dexter, ever the gentleman, thanked Meridian for assisting him in resolving his intimacy issues before murdering him.
Joe Walker (Season 6)
One of Dexter’s most darkly humorous murders is that of Joe Walker (John Brotherton). Walker, a former high school quarterback, went to school with Dexter and later married Janet McKellin, a classmate of Dexter’s (Alex Rose Wiesel).
Walker is irritated when he sees the “lab geek” at their 20th high school reunion since Dexter’s unusual line of work means he gets more attention. Walker subsequently reveals that he murdered Janet and faked her suicide to avoid an expensive divorce in response to Dexter’s probing queries regarding her death. Walker’s ego is on full display even while he’s attached to Dexter’s murder table, which is made out of a scoreboard. “What would Jesus have done?” Dexter wonders, pointing to a tattoo of Jesus on Walker’s chest. Walker declares that “God is a tremendous fortress” and that he cannot be killed. With a sledgehammer to the forehead, Dexter easily disproves him.
Ken Olson (Season 2)
Ken Olson (Silas Weir Mitchell) was a Dexter impersonator and “Bay Harbor Butcher” knockoff. He killed his employer and pretended it was an accident after having an affair with his boss’s wife. On a deadly spree, he attempted to assassinate a petty burglar who had stolen into his mother’s retirement home and staged the crime to appear like the Butcher’s work.
Dexter’s method of killing is one thing he does not take lightly. When Dexter discovers that Olson is the real “Bay Harbor Butcher,” he is obliged to kill him… but not before giving him a lesson on how to set up a kill room correctly. Unlike his past murders, Dexter leaves Olson’s mutilated body for the cops to find as a deterrent to other would-be killers.
Lila West (Season 2)
When Dexter tells his girlfriend, Rita Bennett (Julie Benz), that he has a “addiction,” she assumes he means heroin and sends him to a Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meeting. There, he meets Lila West (Jaime Murray), who takes a liking to Dexter right once and offers to sponsor him. West’s fixation with Dexter grows stronger, and she exerts more control over him. When Dexter refuses to pursue her, Lila burns down her loft and sleeps with Lt Angel Batista (David Zayas), accusing him of date rape. Sgt James Doakes (Erik King) informs Lila that Dexter is the “Bay Harbor Butcher,” and Lila kills Doakes out of warped devotion to Dexter.
Dexter abducts Rita’s children, locks them inside her loft, and sets it on fire before Dexter can kill Lila (again). Dexter tracks Lila to Paris, France, after narrowly escaping the fire. He gives Lila an epidural injection instead of etorphine (M99) to sedate her so she won’t feel the knife to the heart that takes her life.
Miguel Prado (Season 3)
Miguel Prado (Jimmy Smits), one of Season 3’s three primary adversaries, is a Miami Assistant District Attorney (ADA) who crosses paths with Dexter when his brother, Oscar, is murdered (by Dexter, albeit in self-defense). The two become fast friends, bonding over their shared passion for assassination. When Prado kills Ellen Wolf (Anne Ramsay), a defense attorney, on his own, Dexter understands he’s been duped from the outset. Dexter intervenes after learning that Prado is about to murder Lt Maria LaGuerta (Luna Lauren Velez).
Prado is shackled to Dexter’s murder table, and Dexter chastises him for not having a Code. Instead of stabbing, Dexter strangles himself and leaves his partially skinned body in a public park to draw attention away from the season’s second nemesis, “The Skinner” (Jesse Borrego).
Oliver Saxon (Season 8)
Oliver Saxon (Darri Ingolfsson) was a serial murderer who migrated to Miami after executing murders around Europe and North America. He was dubbed “The Brain Surgeon” because he loved to scoop out a bit of brain from his victims. Oliver Saxon was actually Daniel Vogel, the son of Dr Evelyn Vogel (Charlotte Rampling), a neuropsychiatrist who was invited in to consult on the “Brain Surgeon” murders. Daniel/Oliver was born to kill: he drowned his younger brother at the age of 14 and was committed to a mental institution; at the age of 17, he set fire to the institution, murdering seven youngsters. Daniel was believed to have died in the fire when, in fact, he had feigned his own death and taken the name of Oliver Saxon.
Dexter finally catches up with Saxon after hunting him for the majority of Season 8 and prepares for his kill ritual. Saxon is interrupted by his sister Debra (Jennifer Carpenter), whom he shoots. Following Saxon’s arrest, Dexter pays him a visit in prison and, in retaliation for his sister’s murder, stabs him in the carotid artery with a pen. Fortunately for Dexter, security footage clearly reveals that he acted in self-defense (even though we know otherwise).
Santos Jimenez (Season 2)
Santos Jiminez (Tony Amendola), the man responsible for the murder of Dexter’s biological mother Laura Moser, felt totally justified in killing Dexter (Katherine Kirkpatrick). Laura was a snitch, and Jiminez was reporting to – and having an affair with – Harry Morgan (Remar). Jiminez used a chainsaw to murder Laura on the orders of his boss, Hector Estrada (Nestor Serrano). He was then placed in the Witness Protection Program after turning state’s witness.
Dexter acquires a tape recording of his mother for Harry after being compelled by romantic interest Lila West (Murray) to confront his history. With this knowledge, he travels to Jiminez’s remote Everglades cabin, where he lures him outside, sedates him, and straps him to the killing table. The offer of cocaine in exchange for Dexter’s life by Jiminez fails. Dexter executes poetic justice by murdering Jiminez the same way he murdered his mother: with a chainsaw.
Zoey Kruger (Season 4)
Policewoman Zoey Kruger (Christina Cox) murdered her husband and kid, blaming the house invasion murder on a dead drug dealer. When the blood evidence at the crime scene doesn’t stack up, Dexter intervenes and takes a piece of plastic glove covered in blood and gunshot residue. Kruger had used her police-issued handgun to murder her family, and the case was closed.
Kruger comes into Dexter’s house to conduct another home invasion, but is apprehended by Dexter and wakes up on a kill table in her dead daughter’s chamber. Dexter makes sure that the last picture Kruger sees is a photograph of her deceased family before beginning his killing ritual.
