History Characters / Mindhunter

[[foldercontrol]]

!Main

[[folder:Holden]]
!!Special Agent Holden Ford
->'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/JonathanGroff
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jonathan_groff_mindhunter.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"The only mistake I made was ever doubting myself."'']]

A special agent in the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit. After several years working as a hostage negotiator, he's reassigned to Behaviorial Science where he works as an instructor, and becomes intrigued by the idea of understanding criminals' actions and motivations.
----
* AdmiringTheAbomination: To hear him explain it, he simply finds serial killers interesting, and his actions show that he finds their deeds abhorrent. However, as time goes on, other characters find it creepy how eager he is to conduct interviews, how easily he can connect to his interviewees, and how talking to them doesn't seem to damage him.
* AloneWithThePsycho: Despite being warned by Bill and the prison staff, he finds himself at the mercy of Kemper at multiple points.
* AmbiguousDisorder: He seems to be on the autistic spectrum to some extent, considering his difficulty with social interactions and his specific focus on a singular goal. Holden also demonstrates a lack of empathy.
* AntiHero: Holden's goal in the BAU is to study criminals in order to prevent crime and does genuinely find the minds of the criminals he interview disturbing. However, it doesn't stop him from committing morally dubious actions, which his colleagues criticize him over. He also has a [[ItsAllAboutMe selfish]], [[NeverMyFault shift-blaming]], [[LackOfEmpathy uncaring]] attitude.
* BastardBoyfriend: Downplayed. As Holden becomes more [[TookALevelInJerkass arrogant and tactless]], he also becomes more dismissive towards Debbie. Examples including how he subtly [[SlutShaming slut-shames]] her for apparently sleeping with a number of men, not paying attention to her work but expecting her to give undivided attention to his, and then sarcastically but truthfully answering her question that he would like for her to be a "good girlfriend by shutting up and always supporting him"; meaning he never wants her to rightfully criticize him for his morally dubious actions.
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: He wants to understand outcasts, ends [[BecomingTheMask being an outcast himself]] because others can't understand how he thinks.
* BecomingTheMask: Several characters worry about the effects of him saying seemingly anything to make the interviewed killers comfortable with him or even consider him a kindred spirit.
* BreakTheHaughty: After the ''very'' uncomfortable expierence with Kemper in the hospital near the end of the first season, Holden is rather traumatized and spends quite a bit of the second season suffering from occasional panic attacks. The experience humbles him somewhat.
* CharacterDevelopment: Over the course of Season 1, he grows noticeably impulsive and terribly arrogant.
* CommonalityConnection: His main strategy to get interviewees talking. At first it's fairly harmless, like [[ADateWithRosiePalms an anecdote about his mother catching him masturbating]], but with time it degrades into Holden saying things that his colleagues find downright disturbing.
* CowboyCop: He's not rabid or HotBlooded, but he does go above the heads of his superiors multiple times.
* CrazyJealousGuy: Downplayed. Holden becomes irritated at Debbie's relationship with a male classmate, suspecting cheating.
* DisasterDominoes: The Season 1 finale delivers one after another: Debbie breaks ups with him, he's at odds with his colleagues over his methods, he will likely be suspended or fired for lying to the FBI, and he finds himself at the mercy of a serial killer.
* DudleyDoRightStopsToHelp: Holden takes the investigation of Principal Ward personally, even though he has not committed any crime.
* FreudianTrio: He's the Ego, with Bill and Wendy as the Id and Superego respectively.
* FreudianSlip: Of the non-sexual variety. After being subtly bullied into picking a certain sandwich from the prison commissary by Kemper, he orders an "Ed salad sandwich" in a restaurant with Debbie, proving Kemper is still on his mind.
* HeroicBSOD: After finding himself at the mercy of Kemper, he has a panic attack, collapses and thinks he's dying.
* HeWhoFightsMonsters: The investigation of the serial killers starts to rub into himself after a while.
* IncompatibleOrientation: He has an awkwardly blatant schoolboy crush on Dr. Carr, who unbeknownst to him, is a LipstickLesbian. Bill is irritated by the whole thing while Wendy either doesn't notice or pretends not to.
* {{Jerkass}}: Downplayed at first before being played straight. Earlier on, Holden could be a jerk but that was due in part of his AmbiguousDisorder and he still was tolerable. However, over the first season, he transforms into an arrogant, thoughtless jerk who his colleagues and girlfriend can hardly stand to be around.
* KangarooCourt: The way he sees the FBI's internal affairs commission. He points that while this started with a complaint from Speck about feeling disrespected by Holden, the investigating board itself has nothing but contempt for Speck and doesn't care about what he says.
* KnightInSourArmor: It is easy to see why he is the main character, but he is rarely the favorite one.
* LackOfEmpathy: A part of his AmbiguousDisorder and gets worse throughout season 1. Holden is notably detached to the emotions of others and doesn't feel guilt or shame for his less than heroic actions.
* LikeParentLikeSpouse: Debbie implies she's attracted to Holden because he looks like a Mormon... and her dad. Who is not a Mormon, but also looks like one.
* MeaningfulName: Shares his name with Holden Caulfield of ''Literature/TheCatcherInTheRye'', whom he is named after according to WordOfGod.
* MomentKiller: After watching Brudos masturbate to a pair of high heels, he can't bring himself to have sex within sight of a pair.
* NaiveNewcomer: Despite being an agent for a while and an expert in his field, he's still young and getting used to how the FBI bureaucracy and other law enforcers work.
* NeverMyFault: Whenever someone tells him he's gone too far, he refuses to accept it and feel guilty about it. He believes himself to be right but misunderstood.
* OldCopYoungCop: The Young Cop to Bill's Old Cop.
* OppositesAttract: He's instantly interested in Debbie, despite having little in common with her besides their mutual interest in psychology.
* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: Holden displays sexism towards women. First, Debbie notes how he doesn't like women smarter than him. Second, he is uncomfortable with the fact Debbie has apparently slept with a number of men.
* PrecociousCrush: Downplayed. Both he and Wendy are grown adults but it's shown that Holden does have something akin to schoolboy crush towards her. Bill and Debbie are quick to point it out.
* TheProfiler: He's the original.
* RedOniBlueOni: The impulsive, tactless red to Bill's calm, empathetic blue.
* SarcasmBlind: He tends to take sarcasm and the like at face value.
* SensitiveGuyAndManlyMan: Played with: physically and in his outward demeanor he is the sensitive guy to Bill's manly man, but in terms of their actual relationship and handling of suspects (being more detached with the victims vs. Bill's emotional and empathetic nature), the dynamic is inverted.
** Mostly averted in Season 2 during the hunt for the Atlanta child killer. Holden obstinately remains focused on finding a suspect who meets his pre-established criteria to the exclusion of other possible suspects. Unlike Tench though, Holden feels directly responsible to the mothers of the victims and is left unsatisifed and unhappy when they catch only one suspect who they can only pin two of the [[NightmareFuel 29 murders on]]. His parting visit to the STOP group makes it clear he deeply cares about the promises he made to the mothers.
* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Tends to wax eloquent when addressing his students or fellow police officers, to their bafflement or annoyance.
* SherlockScan: He gives one to Debbie (at her own request) and decides that her intention is to break with him. She does not confirm nor dissuade him of the notion.
* ThisIsGoingToBeHuge: Criminal profiling. He knows it will revolutionize the field, the only problem is making ''others'' believe it.
* {{Thoughtcrime}}: His zeal for profiling makes Shepard concerned that he may actually be aiming for an unacceptable level of crime ''prevention''.
* TokenEvilTeammate: Downplayed. Holden isn't "evil" but he does [[TookALevelInJerkass develop]] into an arrogant, self-righteous jerk throughout season 1. And of all of his colleagues, he is the one most inclined to do morally dubious actions.
* TookALevelInJerkass: The culmination of his CharacterDevelopment in Season 1. He was always a bit of a jerk, but it was inadvertent due to his AmbiguousDisorder, but his growing success and victories turn him into an utterly repulsive egomaniac in the last two episodes of Season 1. He becomes a swaggering asshole who talks down to Bill and Wendy when he isn't ignoring their very valuable advice, brushes off all the damage he's doing as inconsequential and becomes so arrogant that he endangers the entire study just because he doesn't feel adequately respected and he can't own up to his own mistakes. It takes nothing less than a terrifying encounter with Ed Kemper to knock him off his high horse, and for Kemper, it's almost a KickTheSonOfABitch moment.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Bill]]
!!Special Agent William "Bill" Tench
->'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/HoltMcCallany
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/holt_mccallany_mindhunter.jpeg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"He's gonna take the fucking'' ''[gun]'' ''away from you, he's gonna kill you with it, and then he's gonna have sex with your face."'']]

A special agent in the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit. Already interested in the subject of criminal profiling, he takes Holden under his wing, and despite their clashing personalities they generally work well together.
----
* AwfulWeddedLife: Bill loves his wife Nancy deeply and they've been together for a very long time, but his work with the BSU and troubles with their adopted son put a great strain on the marriage. Both of them have to put a lot of effort into making it work.
* TheCassandra: Despite being more experienced, his (often valuable) advice is rarely heeded by Holden. This is usually to Holden's detriment.
* TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes: An especially dark case, as [[spoiler:his son, Brian, is suspected of having sociopathic tendencies after an ill-conceived attempt to bring an accidentally killed toddler back to life by crucifying it]].
* DeadpanSnarker: He just loves dishing out snarky, under-his-breath lines.
* GenreSavvy: In season two a body is found on a property [[spoiler: Nancy is trying to sell. He helps her understand the investigation, cooperates with the police,]] and the local detective investigating is clearly not experienced with homicides, so he's very open to Bill's insight on the case.
* HappilyMarried: Despite the aspects that make his marriage an AwfulWeddedLife, he does still genuinely love Nancy, they're a partnership most of the time and it pains him that they're having problems for which he largely blames himself.
* LawOfInverseFertility: Bill and Nancy cannot have children naturally, so they adopted a son, Brian.
* TheLeader: A role in the unit he shares with Wendy. He has elements of both the headstrong and charismatic types, having the most commanding presence, but also knowing his way around internal FBI politics.
* {{Mangst}}: His adopted son is likely autistic, and despite Bill's best efforts, he has difficulty dealing with this. He can't get Brian to emote or open up to him or even hug him.
* NotSoAboveItAll: Despite his veneer as a tough, old-fashioned agent, his personal life is a nightmare and his job weighs heavily on him. He has a troubled relationship with his adopted son and his constant travel strains his relationship with his wife.
* OldCopYoungCop: The Old Cop to Holden's Young Cop.
* PapaWolf: Downplayed. When Holden is investigating Principal Wade for tickling his students' feet, Bill tries to tell the former to let it go as no crime has been committed; Holden then asks how would Bill react if a grown man was tickling Brian's feet. Bill remains [[TranquilFury calm]] but is nonetheless irritated at Holden for using his son as an example. And before leaving, Bill replies his reaction would be to tell the grown man to take his "fucking hands off" Brian.
* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: Averted for the most part, as Bill has shockingly progressive views for someone with ''that'' haircut, but played straight in other ways. He might have a keen eye on the future, but he's still a man of his time and as such still believes he needs to keep his feelings to himself and isn't averse to casually homophobic language.
* RealMenLoveJesus: He goes to Church on Sundays and (albeit jokingly) states that there's no way BTK goes to Church.
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: He's probably the only older guy at the FBI that could work with Holden.
* RedOniBlueOni: The calm, empathetic blue to Holden's impulsive, tactless red.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: It takes a lot to convince him to "get in the mud with the pigs", as Holden puts it, and when he does, he tends to be more sensitive to the killers they interview. This becomes most evident when it comes to dealing with Jerry Brudos, whom Bill has a very particular and very mutual hatred for. The interview with Brudos effects Bill to the point that for the final interview, he straight up refuses to attend.
* SensitiveGuyAndManlyMan: Played with: physically and in his outward demeanor he is the manly man to Holden's sensitive guy, but in terms of their actual relationship and handling of suspects (being more emotional and empathetic with victims vs. Holden's detachment), the dynamic is inverted.
* StandardFiftiesFather: Bill's appearance (including a shockingly square haircut) and gruff demeanor suggest a slightly more grizzled version of this, in contrast with younger and hipper Holden. However his relationships with his family are more flawed and also more affectionate than this trope typically evokes, and in action Bill actually has fairly liberal views. He makes the rather progressive (for the time period at least) point that a woman out alone having a drink might not be inviting company, and he also shows a great deal of respect for Wendy.
* TeamDad: At least to Holden: a grumpy, reluctant Dad looking after a pretty difficult son.
* WhatTheHellHero: He's as happy as Shepard to chew Holden out when he acts unprofessionally.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Wendy]]
!!Dr. Wendy Carr
->'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/AnnaTorv

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/anna_torv_mindhunter.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"I don't know what I expected. I've spent months of my life and I had hoped that we could complete our research before seeing it used to this end."'']]

A psychologist at a Boston university. Longtime friends with Bill, who asks her to consult with the Bureau for their study.
----
* AudienceSurrogate: As noted below, her thoughts on sexuality and gender are much more in line with modern day understandings of such things.
* BornInTheWrongCentury: She's a gay college professor who's socially progressive by modern day standards. At one point when discussing Brudos's murders, she gets annoyed with her colleagues associating his tendency to cross dress with the fact that he's a serial killer who sexually exploited and murdered women, noting that most people who experiment with presenting as the opposite sex aren't crazed murderers.
* BrainyBrunette: She's easily the most intelligent character in the series, and most characters (particularly Bill and Shepard) have a certain degree of reverence for her intellect.
* ByTheBookCop: She's not a cop, but as a scientist her interest is to gather data in a consistent manner so she can extract proper conclusions.
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Her claim that Nixon is a sociopath and that you pretty much have to be one to become The President has been taken universally as a jab against UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump.
* {{Gayngst}}: Downplayed; she is a lesbian, and a minor plot point in one episode involves her hiding her sexuality to ensure employment with the [=FBI=]. That said, she seems comfortable with being gay and there isn't much emphasis on it, at least until Season 2.
* IgnoredConfession: She reveals her affair with a female teacher to Elmer Wayne Henley Jr., which everyone assumes was just a ploy to get him to open up.
* KindHeartedCatLover: After moving to D.C., she leaves food for a street kitten in the laundry room.
* TheLeader: A role in the unit she shares with Bill. She is firmly of the levelheaded type, using her naturally calm nature and background in science to guide and inform the unit's decisions.
* LipstickLesbian: She has a girlfriend who is another example.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: She's freaked out when a guy who confessed to Holden and Bill is given the death penalty. Both because of it, and because it could jeopardize her investigation by making criminals less willing to talk.
* MythologyGag: In Episode Film/{{Seven}}, she's shown a cardboard box, and she asks what's inside.
* OnlySaneMan: Of the entire team, she's the most level-headed. Wendy is intelligent, savvy, pragmatic and careful, as befitting a scientist of her renown. She's always the first to point out when Holden and/or Bill are potentially screwing up their work.
* QuicklyDemotedWoman: Inverted. She's made unit chief upon her recruitment.
* TeacherStudentRomance: She had one with her girlfriend, who was her professor. After they break up, Wendy can see with fresh clarity that it was a very unequal partnership.
* TheSmurfettePrinciple: She's the only woman in the unit and the only one in Quantico (so far) that is not a secretary. It is somewhat justified due to the time period and the environment she works in.
* TheSpock: She is the most controlled, levelheaded and, due to her scientific background, analytical member of the team.
* TheyCallMeMisterTibbs: The treatment's Dr, not Mrs.
* WhatTheHellHero: She critiques Holden for going out of his way to investigate Principal Wade, saying that the attention he drew to himself reflected poorly on the project, as well as her and Tench. She later critiques him for his increasing arrogance, his refusal to even try to use the questionnaire the entire team put together and his lack of sincere respect for her as a colleague.
* WomenAreWiser: Between Bill, Holden and Wendy, she is easily the most intelligent and levelheaded.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Debbie]]
!!Deborah "Debbie" Mitford
->'''Portrayed By:''' Hannah Gross
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mindhunter_debbie.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"You're so good at reading people, you tell me."'']]

Holden's girlfriend and a post-grad student at University of Virginia. She triggers Holden's interest in exploring criminal behaviors through a broader psychological framework.
----
* BlackBraAndPanties: After finishing her cold and exams, she dons them as part of her reunion with Holden. It ends badly because of his MomentKiller.
* BrainyBrunette: A postgraduate student with an impressive knowledge of sociology. Holden (who otherwise isn't the most humble person) happily admits that she's smarter than him.
* DeadpanSnarker: Constantly trades barbs with Holden.
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Lampshaded in-universe. Her advice to Holden on how to charm his interviewees is clearly a description of flirtation, something Debbie as an analytical ''and'' sexually experienced type knows plenty about but Holden is surprised to find can be boiled down to recognizable mannerisms and body language.
* ManicPixieDreamGirl: An unusually abrasive example, but she still serves as something of an awakening for Holden despite seemingly getting nothing out of the relationship due to him being such a stuff-shirt with little interest in her life.
* MythologyGag: She drives the same car model as Ted Bundy, and at one point says that her father always reminded her to change the oil. The day before he was arrested, BTK called his daughter to remind her to change the oil.
* OppositesAttract: She's instantly drawn to Holden when she meets him in a bar.
* PutOnABus: She disappears after her relationship with Holden ends.
* WomenAreWiser: She may not work for the FBI but she's clearly the more grounded of the two.
* YourCheatingHeart: May have a fling with another student although it's not completely confirmed. Holden is not happy about the possibility.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Shepard]]
!!Unit Chief Robert Shepard
->'''Portrayed By:''' Cotter Smith
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cotter_smith_unit_chief_shepard_1510238499.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"The Bureau does not do that. We do not get involved until a crime is committed and has risen to the level of our radar."'']]

Unit chief of the FBI National Training Academy. Stern and by-the-book, he has a rough relationship with Holden and Bill who have to work to convince him that their work has merit.
----
* BaitAndSwitchTyrant: He's a close-minded jerk the first few times we meet him, and he only agrees to support Holden and Bill's research because of his friendship with Bill rather than believing it holds any value (and even then, only under the strictest of conditions). That said, Shepard grows more supportive of their efforts as the season develops, though he's still willing to call them on the carpet when they act out of line.
* BenevolentBoss: As humorless and lacking in imagination as he might seem to be, Shepard actually has a lot more patience than the BSU might expect from a higher-up in the time period. He doesn't have much belief in the BSU, sure, but he still makes sure their ship is running smoothly and doesn't impede them in any real way. He even risks a great deal to keep them running at Bill's urging.
* ByTheBookCop: Would rather solve crimes the old-fashioned way, and prefers suspects dead or in jail without caring much about their motivations.
* DaChief: The unit responds mostly to him.
* JerkassHasAPoint: ''Usually'' has a good reason for calling out Holden and Bill, though sometimes he simply seems to be mean. His outbursts also seem tailored to their circumstances. When the agents' actions serve a purpose (such as applying for funding without telling him), Shepard usually backs off after making a show of anger. When they cross an obvious line (especially in Episode Eight, when Holden ready to recommend charges against a school teacher without a formal investigation), he's much quicker and harder in coming down on them.
* LastNameBasis: His first name is unknown until Season 2, when it's given as Robert.
* ObstructiveBureaucrat: On his bad days. Usually, it's a result of genuine wrongdoing on the part of the BSU (specifically Holden).
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: [[spoiler:He furiously lets Holden know what he thinks of him after the incident with the OPR forces him into early retirement. It's hard not to sympathize with him, since Holden's uncontrolled ego not only resulted in Shepard's distinguished career ending in private disgrace, but moments before Holden had tried to hijack Shepard's ''own retirement party'' to humblebrag about the work of the BSU.]]
-->'''Holden:''' I just feel like--\\
'''Shepard:''' [[spoiler:Oh, I can't wait to hear how you feel! You arrogant, self-serving twerp. I put in twenty-seven years. Went from brick agent to corner office, and I'm leaving everything I worked for with the giant stain of you all over it!]]\\
'''Holden:''' [[spoiler:Sir, I--]]\\
'''Shepard:''' [[spoiler:Do you honestly believe I'm retiring? You vainglorious little shit. I'm being forced out because somebody has to take the fall for your insubordination, reckless lack of judgment, and titanic vanity.]]\\
'''Holden:''' [[spoiler:I took complete responsibility for--]]\\
'''Shepard:''' [[spoiler:You really are incredible. Is all of that fresh-scrubbed earnestness just an act? Or are you truly oblivious to the wreckage you leave in your wake? I survived a war, the streets of Baltimore, and Hoover. And I'm finally being finished off by ''you?'']]
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: What he truly is. Shepard is a straight arrow who might not believe in the work Holden, Wendy and Bill are doing, but he doesn't actively hinder it. He makes no allowances for [[CowboyCop Cowboy Cops]] and prides himself on running a tight ship; he is understandably furious that Holden's careless indiscretions mean he has to withhold information from the FBI.
* ReluctantRetiree: [[spoiler:His unfortunate fate. He tells everyone that he's simply retiring and keeps a brave face for the most part. However, when Holden tries to hijack his retirement party, Shepard angrily reveals that he's been forced out as a result of Holden's reckless and insubordinate actions with the OPR.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Nancy]]
!!Nancy Tench
->'''Portrayed By:''' Stacey Roca

* EightiesHair: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]]. Season 2 ends in 1981, after all.
* AwfulWeddedLife: Nancy and Bill quite clearly love each other and have been together for years, but Bill's work with the BSU and their adopted son's possible autism puts an enormous strain on their marriage.
* BaitAndSwitch: [[spoiler:She is visited by grieving mother of a baby that Brian put on a cross after some older children killed him. She expects the mother to be angry at her somehow, but she tells her that she has forgiven her and Brian already.]]
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: She encourages Bill to forget about work and socialize with the neighbors at a barbecue. He does, and they turn out to be very interested in his line of work.
* TheEveryman: She just wants to live a common life and has no interest whatsoever in crime and deviancy. Unfortunately, crime and deviancy seem to have an interest in coming near her.
* FirstDayFromHell: She becomes a realtor in Season 2. The ''first'' property she tries to sell becomes the scene of a murder.
* LittleNo: [[spoiler:Says this when the mother of the dead baby asks to meet Brian so she can forgive him in person.]]
* PromotedToOpeningTitles: For Season 2, after recurring through Season 1.
* ThousandYardStare: Devolves into this by the end of Season 2, as a result of the [[spoiler:Brian]] plotline.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Smith]]
!!Special Agent Gregg Smith
->'''Portrayed By:''' Joe Tuttle
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mindhunter_smith.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"Our family joke was that we'd never run out of guilt or oats."'']]

An FBI agent who joins the Behavior Science Unit in episode eight.
----
* BadLiar: He admits that he ''hates'' lying, isn't good at it, and feels so guilt-stricken about lying to the Office of Professional Responsibility about the Speck interview that he ultimately mails them the unredacted tape behind his colleagues' backs.
* ByTheBookCop: To a fault.
* GoodShepherd: While not a priest, he is nicknamed "The Padre" and other agents seek him out to confess.
* HappilyMarried: And with two little girls.
* TheMillstone: After he joins the unit, he does nothing but create problems for them.
* TheMole: Holden and Bill fear that he's this for Shepard. It's not the case -- he's simply too honest for everyone else's good of his own volition.
* {{Nepotism}}: His dad is an old friend of Shepard's and he's assigned to the unit despite Bill preferring a more qualified candidate. That said, he is a perfectly competent and hardworking agent; his faults lie elsewhere.
* NothingIsScarier: Holden has the idea of making him listen to the Bittaker & Norris torture tape to desensitize him. We don't get to hear much of it, but Smith is obviously having a strong reaction. The jury's out if desensitization was Holden's real intention or if he just wanted to bully and hopefully make him resign.
* PapaWolf: His reason for joining the team was because he wanted to make a safe world for his daughters.
* RaisedCatholic: Maybe, maybe not. His wife and mother are Catholics, but his father is a Quaker. In any case, he identifies as "Christian" and is religious, which is why he has a problem lying.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Gunn]]
!!Assistant Director Ted Gunn
->'''Portrayed By:''' Michael Cerveris

* TheCharmer: He wins over ''everyone'' in his introductory episode through his easy way with people. He tells Bill, Holden and Wendy exactly what they want to hear and repeatedly makes it clear that he absolutely believes in the value of the BSU.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Kay]]
!!Kay Manz
->'''Portrayed By:''' Lauren Glazier

* TheBartender: She tends a mildly divey bar with a regular clientele.
* ButchLesbian: [[AvertedTrope Averted]]. Despite being less of a LipstickLesbian than Wendy, she is still feminine.
* {{Hypocrite}}: Wendy accuses her of this for encouraging her to be committed about their relationship while she puts on a façade with her son and ex-husband.
* LoveInterest: For Wendy, come Season 2.
* ManicPixieDreamGirl: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]]. She comes across at first, but Wendy eventually learns that she is not always as carefree as she seems.
* TheMissusAndTheEx: She has a rocky relation with her ex-husband, who has custody of their son. He almost runs into Wendy while she is in Kay's appartment and it is clear that it would have not been nice if they met.
* OneOfTheBoys: She jokes and talks openly about her sexuality with the marines who visit her bar.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Wendy calls her out as a [[{{hypocrite}} hypocritical]] "bartender who takes advice from bus stop magazines" when [[spoiler:she breaks up with her.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Barney]]
!!Agent Jim Barney
->'''Portrayed By:''' Albert Jones

* TheAce: He's the top of Bill's list for the BSU for a reason: he's intelligent, adaptive, even-tempered, gets along with everyone and has enjoyed a distinguished career. The only reason he doesn't get the job is because he's black, and with so many of the interview subjects likely holding racist viewpoints, his very presence could corrupt the data.
* AscendedExtra: Jim appeared for only one episode in Season 1, for a very brief scene, but becomes a recurring character in Season 2.
* EarlyBirdCameo: Applies to join the BSU in the first season, but he is passed over due to his race. Becomes recurring in the second season.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: His first appearance is his interview with the BSU, when he's telling a story about how he caused a member of the KKK to incriminate himself on the stand by simply catching his eye and pretending to flirt with the KKK member's girlfriend, demonstrating that he's a quick-witted agent who's capable of thinking outside the box.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Based on FBI agent Judson Ray.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tanya]]
!!Tanya Clifton
->'''Portrayed By:''' Sierra [=McClain=]

Ahotel worker who brings Holden's attention the Atlanta Murders.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Camille]]
!!Camille Bell
->'''Portrayed By:''' June Carryl

A grieving mother of one of the Atlanta murder victims and an organizer of Stop Children's Murders.
[[/folder]]

!Recurring

!!!Relations

[[folder:Brian]]
!!Brian Tench
->'''Portrayed By:''' Zachary Scott Ross

Bill Tench's young son. He was adopted by Bill and his wife Nancy at age three, and his life before the adoption is a mystery. It becomes quickly apparent that he is not a regular child, and his unusual behavior worries his parents.

* AmbiguousDisorder: Brian is quiet, withdrawn and shies away from affection in a way that strongly implies he may be autistic. Of course, considering the time period, autism is a few years away from being placed in the DSM.
* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior: He stole a murder scene photo from Bill's office and kept it under his pillow. His possible AmbiguousDisorder further adds to this trope: Brian alternates between staring at other children to avoiding eye contact with adults, has no friends and talks very little. And while [[spoiler:he is witnessing a toddler being suffocated by his friends]], he does not leave the scene or call for help.
[[/folder]]

!!!Interview Subjects

[[folder:In General]]
Criminals subject of the study by the team of Ford, Tench, and Carr.
----
* ChromosomeCasting: So far, all the incarcerated killers interviewed or studied are men, primarily men who murdered women and girls. Truth in television, more or less, as the real-life FBI unit focused almost exclusively on male offenders, with female ones being little more than a footnote.
* ConsultingAConvictedKiller: Why they talk with these nutters. Unlike in the most common version of the trope, their intention is to get a general understanding of serial killers and maybe use that to catch them in the future, rather than catching one particular serial killer now.
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: All the incarcerated criminals interviewed for the study are real.
* MeanCharacterNiceActor: The show's casting director, Laura Mayfield, [[http://www.newsweek.com/mindhunter-netflix-david-fincher-cast-689791 stresses that the actual men playing these serial killers]] are kind, respectful, hard-working people. Presumably this is to avoid ActorRoleConfusion given how unpleasant the men they're depicting are.
* SerialKiller: Most of them, but not all.
* SerialRapist: Kemper, Rissell, and Brudos.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Berkowitz]]
!!David Berkowitz
->'''Portrayed By:''' Oliver Cooper
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/son_of_sam.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"You go out every night, but... maybe once every few weeks, you find the right girl in the right place, at the right time. I never knew what I was looking for, but I knew her when I saw her."'']]

A disorganized killer who shot eight couples in New York City between 1976 and 1977. His recent arrest spurs Holden's interest in researching the motives of killers.
----
* AffablyEvil: He's surprisingly forthcoming about his murders and methods with Holden and Bill, helping them to understand BTK.
* AttentionWhore: He was outraged when his murders were initially reported as simple sex crimes, and created the Son of Sam persona to gain control over his image.
* AxCrazy: He claims to have carried the murders on behalf of a dog, and everyone is at a loss to find a motive.
* TheDreaded: His arrest is the big news story at the time of the series debut. Upon interviewing him, Tench notes that he held an entire city in terror in a way no other killer in history achieved.
* TheGhost: The team can't interview him while his trial is underway, but they fully intend to in the future.
* IJustWantToBeSpecial: Yet some others believe that he did it for the wealth and notoriety, leading to the passing of a law that bans criminals from profiting off their crimes. Holden also manages to make him fess up his true motive for his murders by playing on this; when he implies to Berkowitz that people will just remember him as some madman who took orders to kill from a dog, the resulting look on Berkowitz's face betrays the fact that the idea ''really'' wounds his pride, and after some hesitation he admits that he made the part about hearing voices up to make his killings appear more interesting.
* ObfuscatingInsanity: After a bit of prodding by Holden, he admits the entire story about demons was made up.[[note]]The real Berkowitz did recant the story, but still later replaced it with another fanciful story that he’s actually the only member of a Satanic cult to get caught, which he continues to maintain.[[/note]]
* RedBaron: Known as the "Son of Sam", the name he claimed in his taunting letters.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Manson]]
!!Charles Manson
->'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/DamonHerriman
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mindhunter_manson.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"Well, you don't see it, but the only truth is now. Now is the only thing that's real."'']]

The leader of a cult responsible for ten killings in California in 1969.
----
* BeardOfEvil: He rocks the hippie look.
* BerserkButton: For Frank [=McGraw=], an old Fairfield detective who worked in Los Angeles for over twenty years and knows the detectives who worked the case. He doesn't take kindly when he thinks Holden is trying to paint him as a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds.
* TheCharmer: Was once a malicious version of this, and oddly seems to charm Holden enough so that he hands his sunglasses over to him without a second thought.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: He spends half his interview rambling about love, children, and himself in an utterly bizarre fashion.
* {{Cult}}: He led a serial-killing one.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: His mother was a jailbird and a prostitute, his uncle was an abusive zealot, and he was imprisoned and abused in jail for twenty years before he was released in [[TheSixties the Summer of Love]].
* TheDreaded: By 1977, he has already acquired mythical status; it is nearly impossible to see him in prison.
* TheGhost: An ominous and often referenced presence through the first season, but he never makes it in the flesh. He appears in an episode of Season 2.
* LargeHam: Very much this, especially towards the end of his interview.
* MessyHair: Just look at the picture.
* TheNapoleon: Kemper warns the agents not to stare at how short he is, and he perches on the chair back to look down at them.[[note]]The real Manson was variously measured from five-foot-two to five-foot-six.[[/note]]
* NeverMyFault: After a decade in prison, he continues to insist he wasn’t responsible for the murders, and the culprits acted on their own.
* NewAgeRetroHippie: What he presented himself as; in truth he was about as far from a hippie as one could get.
* NonActionBigBad: Despite his fame, he never killed a person with his own hands.
* ObviouslyEvil: He carved a swastika on his own forehead.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Kemper]]
!!Edmund "Ed" Kemper
->'''Portrayed By:''' Cameron Britton
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mindhunter_kemper.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"The only way I could have those girls was to kill them, and it worked. They became my spirit wives. They're still with me."'']]
A very organized serial rapist and killer who murdered eight women including his mother in Santa Cruz, California between 1972 and 1973, and also his grandparents in 1964.
----
* AbhorrentAdmirer: To any girl he might be interested in when he was out. He also looks like one when he keeps writing letters to Holden after he makes a name for himself... but his intentions are [[ControlFreak a lot darker than that.]]
* AbusiveParents: His mother bullied and abused him psychologically while she was alive.
* AffablyEvil: Kemper might be the most likable and personable rapist and murderer out there. He's polite, articulate, honest, forthcoming, insightful, quick-witted and despite his size, he's adept at disarming people who have every reason to be on their guard. Even Bill Tench likes him to a certain degree, and Ed seems to genuinely consider Ford to be his friend. It's suggested that the feeling might be somewhat mutual.
* BadassBoast: "I could kill you now, pretty easily. Do some interesting things before anyone showed up. Then you'd be with me in spirit."
* BatmanGambit: See WoundedGazelleGambit.
* BigEater: That body doesn't live off the air.
* BreakoutCharacter: Both character and actor have been universally lauded as the highlights of the first season.
* BullyingADragon: His mother was horribly abusive, and continued to goad him well after he had grown into a giant and was a known murderer. [[TooDumbToLive No guesses]] [[SelfMadeOrphan what happened to her.]]
* TheButcher: One of his nicknames is "The Co-Ed Butcher" because he killed college girls and dismembered them.
* CardboardPrison: The first time Holden goes to see him in prison, he is forced to sign a waiver freeing the prison of any responsibility if he is killed or maimed. We then see Kemper being led in by a single prison guard who's two-thirds his size ''at best''. It is very obvious that he could break out any time if he wanted to, and that's before we also learn that he is ''very'' intelligent and a ManipulativeBastard who effectively talked his way in and out of a mental institution before.
* ControlFreak: To the point of ordering an egg salad sandwich for Holden and making him eat it without ever asking if he wants to. The constant putting of hands on Holden probably has more to do with this than with being friendly. And when he learns that Holden has been mentioning their "relationship" outside, he doesn't like it at all and concocts an elaborate plan to punish him.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: He was forced to stop seeing his father at a young age; insulted and imprisoned in the basement by his mother while he was growing up, who was convinced he was going to become a rapist when he was only ten years old, and thought she had to keep him from having contact with other people. He had no friends, could not see girls and even his mother's cats didn't like him. When he was fifteen, he murdered his grandparents and was secluded in a mental hospital until he was an adult.
* DecapitationPresentation: He beheaded his victims before raping them, then took the heads home and planted them in his mother's rose garden right under her window.
-->''"know it's silly, but Mom always liked people to look up to her."''
* TheDreaded: Not nearly as famous as Manson or Berkowitz, but everyone is instantly horrified after hearing what he is capable of.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Like everything about Kemper, they're supremely fucked up standards, but he still shows an explicit distaste for Charles Manson. He despises Manson's lies and seems disgusted by the fact that Manson didn't kill anyone with his own hands. Ed refers to Manson dismissively as "the charlatan".
* EvilDetectingDog: His mother's cats avoided him as a child.
* EvilIsBigger: 6 foot 9 (2 meters tall) and 250 to 300 pounds (120 to 130 kilos).
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Bill's warning at the motel and every time Kemper puts his hand on Holden during their kitchen meetings presage what happens at their meeting in the hospital room.
* FreakierThanFiction: The real Kemper is even taller and much more muscular than Britton.
* GentleGiant: A king-size subversion. Due to Kemper's impressive size, he has obviously tailored his mannerisms to come across as harmless and affable as possible -- all the better to make friends with cops and disarm his victims, who were petite young women.
* GeniusBruiser: The largest and the most intelligent of the killers seen in the show, if not all characters.
* HiddenDepths: His intelligence, manipulativeness, easy way with words, and of course, how dangerous he actually is. He repeatedly makes others underestimate him.
* IJustWantToBeNormal: His life was basically ruined by his mother and his own size. When he applied to join the SCPD, the department was more concerned with his height than with his juvenile murder record, and was eventually turned down on that alone.
* IHaveYouNowMyPretty: After being left alone with Holden in a hospital room, whose security is obviously much more lax than the prison.
* ILoveTheDead: He raped his victims after killing and dismembering them.
* ManipulativeBastard: He was friends with everyone at the SCPD and nobody there had an idea that he was a serial killer until he personally called them and surrendered. It seems that he could befriend and lead anyone to a false sense of security until they are vulnerable, if he wanted to, and that this was how he provided his victims back in the day.
* NoMrBondIExpectYouToDine: No, Mr. Ford, I expect you to eat an egg salad sandwich. No, Mr. Ford, now I expect you to get a hug.
* RealityEnsues: He's a psychopathic serial killer, Holden. Keep an exit open when you meet him.
* RedBaron: Called "The Co-Ed Killer" or "The Co-Ed Butcher".
* SelfMadeOrphan: His first victims were his grandparents, and his last was his mother.
* SoftSpokenSadist[=/=]SophisticatedAsHell: His mild mannerisms contrasted with his frank discussion of his rapes and murders give him this vibe.
* TeenGenius: When he was bored of the mental hospital, he memorized the question results that would get him discharged and used them.
* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior: He dismembered and decapitated his sister's dolls, and fatally shot his grandparents when he was fifteen.
* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: In reality, the Season One finale meeting took place in the prison and was with ''Bill's'' loose RealLife counterpart, not Holden's. Also, his suicide attempt happened in a separate incident in 1974; it also wasn't meant to lure anyone to him.
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: Nobody in the college or the SCPD suspected him while he was at large.
* WoundedGazelleGambit: When he wants to take Holden down a peck, he names him his "next of kin" and cuts his arm with a pen case. [[BatmanGambit As predicted]], Holden flies immediately to meet him in his hospital room, where security is incredibly lax compared to the prison and the only thing holding him in place is an ankle chain long enough to let him move freely in the room.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Rissell]]
!!Montie Rissell
->'''Portrayed By:''' Sam Strike
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mindhuntermonterissell.JPG]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"Nobody wanted me, man. Nobody on this earth ever wanted me. Put that on your fucking tape."'']]

A juvenile serial rapist that later went on to murder five women in Alexandria, Virginia, between 1976 and 1977.
----
* AbusiveParents: His actual parents were okay, but then they divorced, his mother took him to California, and she married [[GuessWhoImMarrying an abusive asshole]] named Hank.
* BerserkButton: Feeling powerless in the presence of, and lied to by women. His first fatal victim was a woman who tried to fake that she was enjoying the rape, in an attempt to get over with it quickly. [[EpicFail He went bonkers instead.]]
* DarkAndTroubledPast: Ignored by his mother, abused by his stepfather, and betrayed by his girlfriend.
* {{Delinquent|s}}: A thief and rapist since he hit puberty.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: He let go a would-be victim who claimed to have to take care of her father with cancer, because he had a brother who died from it.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: He claims his cousin was this. So much, that [[NoodleIncident when he shot his cousin in the ass]], everybody applauded.
* HeManWomanHater: He has nothing but contempt for females.
* ParentalNeglect: From his mother.
* PetTheDog: His releasing a would-be victim because of her cancer-stricken father might count. Bill is understandably skeptical about just how genuine this act of "mercy" was.
* RippedFromTheHeadlines: In-universe. Wendy selects him for an interview because he's just been convicted. Today he is forgotten.
* SeriousBusiness: Every time he meets with the FBI, he demands a can of Big Red, a soda brand not marketed in the area the prison is in.
* SirSwearsALot: The pottiest mouth in the series.
* SmallReferencePools: The big aversion. He is an incredibly obscure serial killer, but he is real. A very surprising choice to portray just after Kemper.
* SpellMyNameWithAnS: His first name is spelled Mont'''i'''e.
* StartOfDarkness: Hard to name it this given that he was already a serial rapist, but he only started murdering when his one-year-older girlfriend left for college, told him she wanted to see other people in a letter, and he drove there and saw her making out with another guy.
* TeensAreMonsters: Committed his first rape at 14, and he was constantly in and out of probation, counseling and therapy as a teen.
* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior: He was bought a BB gun at age seven, and given alcohol and weed by his brother and sister while he was growing up. When he was ten, he shot his cousin in the ass.
* TheUnfavourite: Claims to be this growing up.
* UnreliableNarrator: He sees what his girlfriend did as cheating, but the truth is that she had already broken up with him.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Brudos]]
!!Jerome "Jerry" Brudos
->'''Portrayed By:''' Happy Anderson
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mindhunter_brudos_2.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"What can I say, I'm a collector."'']]

A fetishist killer who abducted, raped and murdered four women in Oregon between 1968 and 1969.
----
* AffectionateNickname: His ex-wife calls him "Jerr".
* BadLiar: Unlike Kemper, he refuses to take personal responsibility for any of his crimes, professing to be the victim of police coercion and the vindictiveness of his ex-wife. However, he can't resist the chance to relive his crimes by recounting them, so every word out of his mouth about the women he killed makes it perfectly clear both to the agents and the audience that he's responsible. It's arguable to what extent he cares about what the agents believe, since he seems to understand that there's a very low chance of him ever getting his case looked at again, let alone him being freed.
* CargoShip: With women's shoes. He had 100 pairs size 16 in his garage and he masturbated to them.
* TheCollector: Shoes, catalogues, body parts...
* CommonalityConnection: Holden tries to get him to talk by telling him that his mother caught him masturbating in his room. It works; Brudos is taken aback and overjoyed about Holden's embarassing story.
* ConsummateLiar: He half-heartedly keeps up his claim that he's an innocent man wrongfully framed by the police, and he never stops throwing lies at Holden and Tench. He lies about his life in prison, he lies about corresponding with Ed Kemper, he lies about his crimes and he even lies when confronted an incriminating photograph where his own reflection appears.
* CreepyCrossdresser: This trope is played with where Brudos is concerned -- he cheerfully admits to being a fetishist of women's high heels and more grudgingly admits to wearing some of the garments he plundered from local women. Tench and Ford [[TransEqualsGay needle him about this to no conceivable benefit]] until Carr calls them out. She points out that his crossdressing is largely irrelevant to his crimes, since crossdressing has been practiced in virtually every culture throughout history and it's typically a completely harmless form of self-expression that isn't even always sexual.
* ADateWithRosiePalms: When Holden gifts him a pair of the largest high heels in the shop, he soon begins to masturbate at the scene.
* DeadlyDelivery: Inverted. His first victim was a door to door saleswoman that knocked on his door.
* EvilLaugh: Has a deep and truly unnerving one.
* EvilRedhead: Not only is he the only redheaded character, it is a very bright shade of red, which makes it even more memorable.
* EvilSoundsDeep: Happy Anderson's naturally deep and resonant voice helps make Brudos even more intimidating.
* FakeTwinGambit: When he was 15, he pretended to be his own twin while forcing a neighborhood girl to undress at knifepoint.
* FatBastard: Overweight and personally unpleasant.
* HappilyMarried: He was married with children when he committed his murders, and claims the police alienated his wife from him.
* IHaveThisFriend: Holden gets him to open up about his crimes by asking him to describe the actions of a hypothetical killer doing the same thing. Brudos then brings Holden through his entire thought process, essentially just replacing "I" with "he".
* {{Leitmotif}}: Jason Hill's musical score grants Brudos his own little theme song, with a rumbling, "fee-fi-foe-fum"ish bassline and occasional off-putting industrial squeaking noises to prime the audience for his deranged mindset.
* ALoveToDismember: He kept the foot of his first victim and bronze molds of other victims breasts.
* NeverFoundTheBody: His first victim was never found and he was never convicted for her murder. He confessed to it in 1969, but now he denies she even died.
* PantyThief: In addition to shoe thief.
* PornStash: He is suscribed to women's fashion and shoe catalogues.
* RedBaron: "The Shoe-Fetish Slayer", although in the show he's just "The Shoe Guy".
* StartOfDarkness: When he was five, he found a couple of stilettos in a junkjard and brought them home. He played with them until his mother found out and burned them in his presence.
* TechnologyMarchesOn: In-universe. He was interested in technology before he was incarcerated in 1969. He is amazed by how much cameras and tape recorders have changed in a decade.
* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior: In addition to the incident as a five year old, he stole the shoes of his teacher during class. She found that incredibly funny.
* WhyCouldntYouBeDifferent: His mother wanted a girl before he was born, and wasn't shy about telling him so.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Speck]]
!!Richard Speck
->'''Portrayed By:''' Jack Erdie
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mindhunter_speck.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"Fuck you, peckerhead! - You know why those cunts died? Because it just wasn't their fucking night."'']]

A spree killer who murdered eight student nurses in a Chicago dorm room in 1966.
----
* BadLiar: He'll just shout the first bullshit he can come up with if he doesn't want to admit something. When his suicide attempt is brought up, he claims that he got those very obvious slash marks on his wrist from a fight with some unknown man he then killed but which wasn't reported.
* BerserkButton: His failed suicide, and apparently, women crying. Either one makes him become violently defensive and angry.
* CommonalityConnection: Holden tries to connect with him by calling the victims "eight ripe cunts." It backfires on an epic scale and causes problems for both him and the unit. For Speck's part, his reaction is the only time he displays anything other than bitterness or fury: he actually *laughs*, and looks a little shocked by Holden's language.
* DidntThinkThisThrough: He didn't even keep track of how many women were in the house, as a result he left one alive. The kicker? It was [[FailedASpotCheck the one woman who opened the door]] when he knocked.
* DisasterDominoes: The atack in the dorm room. He robs and rapes one girl, then another girl comes home, so he kills her. The girls kept coming home, and he kept killing them. In his own words, "they just kept coming".
* TheDreaded: Even his "deeds" are exaggerated by the public to make him look scarier.
* DrivenToSuicide: After the multiple murder, he slashed his wrists in a motel, but he was found before he died. Now he adamantly denies that it was a suicide attempt and claims that they were injuries from fighting some guy.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: When he's introduced, Speck is having his cell tossed, ranting and raving with a string of non-sensicial expletivies. He keeps this demeanour up.
* HairTriggerTemper: Why he really killed those women. It doesn't take him long to show it off during the interview.
* HellholePrison: Kept in a dark, overcrowded prison where alcohol and drugs are almost freely traded. The place looks like it's about to fall apart.
* HollywoodHistory: In-universe. He is said to have systematically tortured and raped eight women ForTheEvulz. The reality is that he got inside to rob the place, and then the victims just kept coming. He still didn't intend to do anything with them, but then he raped one. Her crying made him lose it and kill her, so he felt he had to kill all the others too.
* {{Jerkass}}: He's the least personable of all the killers interviewed. Kemper was polite and accommodating, Brudos was chummy in an AffablyEvil way and Rissell wasn't anywhere near as volatile as Speck.
* JerkassHasAPoint: Speck raises an official complaint against Holden for "fucking with his mind". From a certain point of view, this is exactly what Holden is doing.
* MoralityPet: He has a pet bird he fed while it healed a broken wing. But the trope is subverted when he [[KickTheDog kills it]] in front of the FBI agents during a fit of rage.
* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Throughout his conversation with Holden and Bill, Speck displays his homophobia, racism, and sexism.
* SirSwearsALot: A more raging, spontaneous example than Rissell.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Pierce]]
!!William Pierce, Jr.
-> '''Portrayed By:''' Michael Filipowich
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pierce_3.png]]

A serial killer who killed nine people between 1970 and 1971.
----
* BlatantLies: He claims to know seven languages, then proceeds to demonstrate that he clearly does not.
* DelusionsOfEloquence: He fancies himself a CunningLinguist, claiming to fluent in seven languages, and constantly peppering his speech with exotic words (or at least words he himself believes are exotic), but it quickly becomes rather clear that he has really no idea what some of these words means, or even how to probably pronounce them:
-->'''Pierce:''' You think I'm simple! Let me tell you somethin'! That judge on them cases? He said I was [[{{Malaproper}} continent]] to stand trial! So that there proves it!\\
'''Holden:''' Junior, I just wanted some clarity about you changing your mind.\\
'''Pierce:''' Oh. You can't figure that out? Think about it. I was intimated.\\
'''Holden:''' ''(to Barney)'' "Intimated"?\\
'''Pierce:''' ''(annoyed)'' Why you always repeating my words?\\
'''Holden:''' You have a very impressive... vocabulary. And I don't always understand your, uh, colloqualisms.\\
'''Pierce:''' Yeah... I got all the good words.\\
'''Holden:''' You certainly do.
* JerkassHasAPoint: He claims that he wrongfully confessed, and Holden says that's not how it works -- at least in the eyes of the law. Present day viewers, especially those versed in True Crime, know that in the American legal system there is a very real problem with investigators getting coerced confessions and with people giving guilty pleas for the guaranteed lighter sentence because they can't afford good lawyers and don't want to risk the harsher sentences that often come with pleading innocent and being found guilty.
* {{Malaproper}}: Is prone to these.
* SweetTooth: Jim Barney gets him to talk by offering him Mallomars, and Holden later sees a picture of Pierce with sweets all over his cell.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Watson]]
!!Charles "Tex" Watson
-> '''Portrayed By:''' Christopher Backus

A former follower of Charles Manson who participated in both the Tate and LaBianca murders.
----
* AffablyEvil: In spite of the terrible things he's done, he's polite and forthcoming with Holden, talking candidly about Charlie Manson's manipulative tactics.
* HeelFaithTurn: He certainly likes to believe that he has undergone this by becoming a born-again-Christian during his time in jail. Wendy is not so convinced, saying that he has merely replaced his worship of Mason with worship of God in attempt to cope with his guilt and distance himself from his own part in it all.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Henley]]
!!Elmer Wayne Henley, Jr.
->'''Portrayed By:''' Robert Aramayo

The former accomplice of serial killer Dean Corll. He ended Corll's crimes by shooting him in 1973.
----
* BerserkButton: He reacts ''very'' angrily to any insinuation that he's homosexual.
* DoNotCallMePaul: He becomes enraged when Wendy and Gregg try to call him by his first name, shouting that they will only address him as Mr. Henley. This is likely due to the negative association between the name and his father, who is implied to have been abusive.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Hance]]
!!William Henry Hance
->'''Portrayed By:''' Corey Allen

A serial killer who is believed to have murdered four women from 1977 to 1978, and was convicted of three of them.
----
* ComplexityAddiction: He devised an extremely confusing scheme to throw the police off his trail, which eventually backfired when he got caught. Given what he says about the Stocking Strangler being active at the time (and given that the Strangler was identified as another black man), he might have gotten away with it if it weren't for the aforementioned scheme.
* InsaneTrollLogic: The way in which he tried to divert the police from his crimes is so roundabout and ridiculous (i.e., sending letters claiming to be a vigilante group of seven white men holding his already-murdered victim hostage and ''telling the police where another one of his victims' bodies was)'' that Holden and Jim can't make any sense of it and give up on him.
[[/folder]]

!!!Investigated Criminals

[[folder:In General]]
Criminals (or suspected criminals) investigated by Bill and Holden at the request of local law enforcement and other people.
----
* MonsterOfTheWeek: Although they are sometimes stretched over two episodes.
* {{Mundanger}}: All are average people you could run into at any time.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Unlike the incarcerated killers, they tend to be fictionalized versions of real people with the name and other aspects changed. The exception is Devier, who is a full on HistoricalDomainCharacter.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Cody]]
!!Cody Miller
->'''Portrayed By:''' David H. Holmes
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mindhunter_cody_miller.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"How can you shoot what you can't see?"'']]

A mentally ill hostage taker whose actions give Holden the idea of the unit.
----
* AxCrazy: He thinks he's invisible.
* BoomHeadshot: He commits suicide with his own shotgun. This is the only instance of graphic onscreen violence in the first season.
* FanDisservice: We wish we could actually not see you, Cody.
* HappilyMarried: Until he went cuckoo, that's it. His wife is visibly worried about him.
* HostageSituation: He takes a group of people prisoner in an industrial area and demands to speak to his wife.
* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: Holden's inspiration was there as a sniper, not as the negotiator.
* WildHair: He definitely didn't visit the hairdresser before taking a bunch of hostages.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Broomstick Killer]]
!!Unknown
->'''Portrayed By:''' N/A

An unidentified killer in Fairfield, Iowa who raped a single mother and her son with a broomstick before killing them.
----
* AssShove: The victims were raped with the broom the mother used to swipe the churchyard.
* BoundAndGagged: The mother was tied and handcuffed to her bed.
* CanonForeigner: No similar case appears in the book.
* CrazyPrepared: The killer made an effort to leave no prints, hair and most evidence at the crime scene. Only some of his semen was found on a pillow, but it's almost useless [[TechnologyMarchesOn in 1977]].
* ForcedToWatch: The kid was forced to watch his mother being raped and murdered before the same happened to him.
* TheGhost: Only his 'work' is shown after the fact.
* IHaveYourWife: The detectives speculate that he threatened the boy to silence the woman, and viceversa.
* ItsPersonal: For Frank [=McGraw=].
* KarmaHoudini: By the end of Season 1, he still hasn't been found by either the FBI or the Fairfield Police.
* KnifeNut: Despite having access to other weapons, the killer used a knife to kill the victims, and in the mother's case, he also savaged her with it.
* TheLoinsSleepTonight: The killer is believed to be impotent.
* RiddleForTheAges: Common fan speculation is that the murderer is BTK, but neither the location nor the details of the murder match his real crimes.
* SlashedThroat: How he killed the boy.
* StalkerWithACrush: It is believed that the killer [[ChurchgoingVillain visited the church regularly]] or the area around it, and stalked the victims before killing them.
* ThatOneCase: For [=McGraw=], and to a lesser extent, Bill.
* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverKill: He stabbed the mother repeatedly on the face and thorax.
* TheWoobie: The mother was a nice lady that was kicked out of home for becoming pregnant and the boy was a good kid. This is why [=McGraw=] finds the case so disturbing. He can't understand why anyone would want to hurt them, let alone like this.
* WouldHurtAChild: In the worst way possible. The agents aren't sure if the kid or his mother was the main objective of the crime.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Dwight]]
!!Dwight Taylor
->'''Portrayed By:''' Tobias Segal
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mindhunter_dwight_taylor.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"I bump into things, I guess."'']]

A Sacramento budding serial killer with a vendetta against elderly women and dogs.
----
* TheAlcoholic: Why he bumps into things.
* BackAlleyDoctor: When he was twenty, his girlfriend got pregnant and his mother (implicitely) made her visit one.
* BadPeopleAbuseAnimals: He hates his mother's dog even more than his mother. He slashes pet dog throats from ear to ear as his signature.
* BasementDweller: Thirty years old, lives in a couch at his mother's house.
* DiscOneFinalBoss: Their stop in Sacramento marks the first local case Holden and Tench get fully involved with, and once they do they make short work of identifying Dwight and coaxing a confession out of him.
* KnifeNut: The first woman was only beaten up, the dogs and the second woman were all knifed.
* MommasBoy: She commands every aspect of his life, which is the reason of his resentment. His crimes are a way to symbolically respond to her without actually hurting her.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Altoona Three]]
!!Benjamin "Benji" Barnwright, Frank Janderman, and Rose Barnwright-Janderman
->'''Portrayed By:''' Joseph Cross, Jesse C. Boyd and Jackie Renee Robinson
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mindhunter_barnwright_janderman.jpg]]

The fiancé (Benjamin), his brother-in-law (Frank), and the fiancé's sister (Rose) of Beverly Jean Shaw, a babysitter murdered and sexually mutilated in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
----
* AllLoveIsUnrequited: Turns out Beverly Jean wasn't so sure she would marry Benji as he was.
* AnnoyingYoungerSibling: How Rose and Frank see Benji, despite Benji being [[InvertedTrope actually older]] than [[WomenAreWiser Rose]].
* BasementDweller: Benji continued to live with his mother as an adult, moving away only three months before the murder.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: The investigators' conclusion is that sensitive, outwardly-NiceGuy Benji beat and tied up Beverly Jean out of jealousy, then brought Frank to rape her as a way to humiliate her, with her murder being committed by both.
* BitchInSheepsClothing: Tench suspects that Benji is being overly nice and crying in order to not be considered a suspect. He is partly right, but Benji really ''is'' that emotional and submissive.
* BittersweetEnding: While the three are caught, the agents feel disappointed that Benji will likely get the chair while Frank will go just to a psychiatric facility for 5 to 20 years.
* TheCorrupter: Frank has a long rapsheet and it is very unlikely that the others would have turned to murder without his intervention.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: Frank was recluded in a psychiatric facility as a teenager for breaking a girl's nose with a wrench.
* DevilInPlainSight: Frank, who is instantly seen as dangerous before his expunged juvenile record is known.
* DisappearedDad: The Barnwrights' unnamed father left them when Benji was 12-13 and Rose was 11.
* DisproportionateRetribution: Benji thinks Beverly Jean is flirting with Frank, so he beats and ties up her, has Frank rape her, stabs her (posthumously, he claims), allows Frank to dump her in a landfill like trash, and comes back two days later to mutilate her breasts and bury them in his garden.
* DomesticAbuse: Frank has apparently beaten all his partners at least once, including Rose.
* TheFamilyThatSlaysTogether: Frank raped her, Benji mutilated her, and Rose helped clean the evidence. Benji, Frank, or most likely both murdered her.
* GenerationXerox: Benji apparently inherited his blubbering from his mother.
* GroinAttack: Benji stabbed Beverly Jean between her vagina and anus after Frank raped her.
* InelegantBlubbering: Benji cries his eyes out in the interrogation room. It actually helps him at first, since the agents interrogating him become uncomfortable with such a blatant display of emotion and want to get out of there as soon as they can.
* INeverSaidItWasPoison: Wendy realizes that Rose was at the scene when Beverly Jean was still alive because she says that her blood was "splashing," in the present tense.
* KarmaHoudini: The DA decides to prosecute Benji only for the murder because he did the mutilation and it would be easier to convince the jury that he did it alone than that all three did it.
* TheLoinsSleepTonight: Benji is either impotent or thinks he is. He only had sex for the first time as an adult with Beverly Jean, and he seems to think he did not perform like he should.
* ALoveToDismember: Benji cut out Beverly Jean's breasts sometime after disposing of the body.
* MommasBoy: Benji was babied as a child and lived with his mother until he bought a house for himself and Beverly Jean.
* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: The murder of Beverly Jean included rape (both literally by Frank, and then symbolically by Benji stabbing her in the groin) as a way to hurt and humiliate her before her murder.
* TeensAreMonsters: Frank was apparently one in high school and has not changed since.
* TownWithADarkSecret: The murder would have turned into this if the FBI hadn't get involved, given the local cops' reluctance to accept that one of their neighbors could have done it.
* UglyGuyHotWife: Beverly Jean was considered above average in Altoona and very much above Benji's level.
* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory:
** In the real 1979 case, the victim was murdered during a camping trip (so not in a bathtub) and "Frank" was a brother to both "Benji" and "Rose".
** The bits that don't match the 1979 case may have been [[RippedFromTheHeadlines lifted]] from the 1970 unsolved murder of Texan housewife ''Beverly Jean'' Hope, which was reopened in 2016 with her brother-in-law as the main suspect.
* WomenAreWiser: Despite being younger than Benji, Rose helped her mother take care of him and the house after their father left them.
* YourCheatingHeart: Beverly Jean and Frank were/are far less committed to their respective couples than they were/are to them, with Beverly Jean possibly not considering Benji her couple at all.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Wade]]
!!Roger Wade
->'''Portrayed By:''' Mark Kudisch
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mindhunter_principalwade.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"My covenant is with your son, not with you."'']]

An elementary school principal in the D.C. area with a compulsion to tickle children's feet.
----
* CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: If he had simply stopped the tickling when he was told.
* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Nowadays, the school board and law enforcement would have looked into his hobby a lot earlier.
* FriendlyTickleTorture: Every time kids get sent to his office for discipline, he has them take out their shoes and socks, tickles their feet, and gives them spare change. Most people who knows about this behavior find it at least somewhat weird, but relatively harmless, while some find it outright disturbing.
* HappilyMarried: With two teenage daughters. His wife goes to shame Holden in his home after he is fired.
* MonsterFangirl: His wife and the younger schoolteachers basically worship him.
* PaedoHunt: One of the most debated Season One aspects among the fandom is if he is really a pedophile and how much of a pass he should have been given.
* SelfInflictedHell: He was told to stop his strange behavior both by parents and a freaking FBI agent. He refused and got all mad instead, which caused him to get publicly shamed, fired and incapable of getting a job around children when he should be thinking in securing his retirement. And all for not stopping tickling children's feet and giving them money for it when the parents told him to. Long story short, Wade is either a pedophile with a compulsion that overrides all rationality in the interest of letting him continue to touch children's feet, or just TooDumbToLive.
* SeriouslyScruffy: Holden finds him in a store some time after he is fired, exhibiting signs of this.
* TooSmartForStrangers: He is introduced censoring a speech that Holden is going to give to a school class about the [=MacDonald Triad=], rendering it vague to the point of nonsensical.
* TheUnreveal: It is never established for certain if he is a pedophile or just has a fuzzy concept of social boundaries around children.
* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The principal that inspired him lived in Texas, was younger and unmarried (though he had a girlfriend), and was already fired before the school board asked Holden's RealLife counterpart for his opinion.
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: If he is indeed a pedophile. The police and at least half of his teachers consider him beneath suspicion.
* WhatAnIdiot: He was given multiple opportunities to stop tickling the children without repercussions but he kept on doing it anyway.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Devier]]
!!Darrell Gene Devier
->'''Portrayed By:''' Adam Zastrow
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mindhunter_devier.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"I kind of thought she was into me."'']]

A hebephilic treecutter who raped and murdered a 12-year-old majorette in a rural road near Atlanta in 1979.
----
* AppealToFlattery: During the interrogation, Bill and Holden tell him how handsome he is and how the victim must have been into him, to make him lower his guard.
* CommonalityConnection: Holden also goes on a very long tirade about how sexual teenage girls are and how it should be okay to lust after them if they have reached puberty, which makes one of the detectives present very uncomfortable.
* DeathFromAbove: He spotted his victim from the top of his lift, while cutting branches.
* FirstGirlWins: Married his first wife when she was 16, divorced, married another, divorced, and moved back in with the first one. All while fighting with them all the time.
* HarmfulToMinors: The first undisputable example besides BTK and the 'Broomstick Killer' (in case they are not the same).
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Unlike the other people investigated by the team.
* INeverSaidItWasPoison: When Holden reveals the murder weapon (a rock), he cannot get his eyes off it despite it being a rock not having been released to the public, and he immediately goes mute. Both are pointed to him by the FBI.
* LieDetector: He passed one, which makes him more comfortable entering the room.
* PerpSweating: The mood changes to this after the rock is revealed.
* YoungerThanTheyLook: He thought she was 14 or up, the age of consent in Georgia (it became 16 in 1995).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:BTK]]
!!Dennis Rader
->'''Portrayed By:''' Sonny Valicenti
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mindhunter_btk.JPG]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"House looks good. Can't think you need much beyond door and window sensors."'']]

An unidentified, highly-organized serial killer active mostly in Wichita, Kansas. Although already present in the first season, the main characters only become aware of him in the second.
----
* BeneathSuspicion: Being a family man with a steady career puts him completely outside the profile for serial killers the team has created by the time they find out about him.
* BoundAndGagged: He likes rope bondage and tying up his victims.
* ChekhovsGunman: Appears constantly throughout the show's teasers before his importance becomes clear.
* CrazyPrepared: He stalks his victims before killing them, has a "murder kit", and wears gloves whenever he kills or sends taunting letters.
* DeathByIrony: He is a home invader serial rapist/killer that installs home alarms for a living.
* TheDreaded: The nature of his crime and taunting letters spooked the entire police department and caused a lot of people to move away. He has, "the whole town twitching like prey".
* FailureIsTheOnlyOption: Season 2 focuses on the search for him, while we know Rader was never even considered as a suspect during the initial investigation.
* HappilyMarried: And with a baby daughter.
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Dennis Rader was, of course, a real person.
* {{Jerkass}}: The first time he appears, he is being a dick to a coworker for the sake of being a dick. In RealLife, [[ShownTheirWork people who met Rader]] before his arrest said he would abuse every possible way that would make him feel powerful over others.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: It is implied that the news of the unit's success make him burn the evidence and go dormant to avoid his arrest.
* RedBaron: BTK, a self-given acronym standing for "Bind, Torture, Kill".
* SerialKiller: And a very prolific one.
* StalkerWithoutACrush: He chooses his victims more or less at random.
* TeaserOnlyCharacter: An unusual recurring, villainous example. We only see tiny snippets of him, and none of the four murders (one of them quadruple) that he committed before 1980.
* TheUnSmile: After startling a woman while checking her home... for an alarm installation. Maybe.
* TheUntwist: Credited as the "ADT serviceman", blatantly obvious that it is BTK. Even Website/IMDb had Valicenti credited as "Dennis Rader" before the series came out (probably because Valicenti himself or his agent included it).
* WhamShot: The scene where he burns his drawings of the murders in his backyard.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Atlanta Child Murderer]]
!!Wayne Bertram Williams
->'''Portrayed By:''' Christopher Livingston
----
* AmbiguousSituation: Just as in real life, with Wayne protesting his innocence to this day and only two murder charges brought against him, it remains unclear just how many of the murders if any he was responsible for.
* AttentionWhore: Once he's caught, he ''thrives'' off the attention he receives from the press. He has around a dozen cars trailing his, and makes even more of a spectacle of himself by causing a scene at the mayor's house under the guise of protesting the media circus he's relishing.
* BasementDweller: Lives with his parents at the time of the murders.
* ControlFreak: Wayne's murders, and his desire to dictate both the BSU investigation and media coverage, are borne out of a desire for control that he lacks in his personal and professional lives.
* FauxAffablyEvil: He acts superficially polite, but he's clearly filled with contempt for others and delights in the attention he's getting. At one point, he catches on that he's being followed and buys Bill and Holden some fast food, just to rub their faces in their own failure.
[[/folder]]

!!!Local Law Enforcement

[[folder:[=McGraw=]]]
!!Det. Frank [=McGraw=]
->'''Portrayed By:''' Thomas Francis Murphy
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mh_mcgraw.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"How fucking dare you?!"'']]

A jaded, bitter veteran detective in Fairfield, Iowa who is skeptical of Tench and Ford's methods.
----
* HiddenDepths: He turns out to be a 22-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department who moved to Fairfield and knows the detectives who worked the Manson Family murders, which caughts Holden off-guard. He later surprises Holden again by requesting his insight into the Broomstick Killer case, instead of antagonizing him.
* ItsPersonal: He takes personal offense when he thinks that Holden is trying to make his audience sympathize with Manson, rather than just understand how he came to be. And again when Holden tells him that the FBI can't help him with the Broomstick case.
* JerkassWoobie: [=McGraw's=] abrasive attitude masks the fact that he is deeply shaken by the grisly, awful nature of the Broomstick murders, and troubled by his decades of work in homicide in general.
* KilledOffScreen: [[spoiler:He dies [[SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome between]] Season One and Two.]]
* ShutUpHannibal: Has very little patience for Ford's long-winded approach to discussing Behavioral Science.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: A very concise one after Ford simply gives up on the broom murder case.
* ThatOneCase: The Broomstick murders, due to their gratuitous sadism, extreme cruelty, and the fact that the victims couldn't have possibly angered anyone. He likely knew them [[ItsPersonal in person]] and it serves as his CynicismCatalyst.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Ocasek]]
!!Det. Mark Ocasek
->'''Portrayed By:''' Alex Morf
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mh_ocasek.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"It's what he told us. And I believe him."'']]

A mild-mannered Altoona, Pennsylvania detective who seeks Tench and Ford's help investigating the gruesome murder of local babysitter Beverly Jean Shaw.
----
* AcceptableTargets: In-universe, he is very eager to follow Holden's idea that the killer is a transient because the idea of a neighbor committing such a horrible crime perturbs him.
* CharacterDevelopment: Initially, he seems a little incompetent, but after some on-the-job training with Holden and Ford, he learns not to make assumptions based on prior knowledge or prejudices. He actually winds up as being one of the more competent and accomodating members of law enforcement that Bill and Holden meet.
* CloseKnitCommunity: Ocasek struggles with the possibility that Beverly Jean's killer might be a local, and initially seems intent on directing the investigation towards drifters and outsiders.
* HiddenDepths: Actually a pretty good investigator who picks up on a lot of cues from Tench and Ford, and is instrumental in cracking the Shaw case once he overcomes his initial assumptions and prejudices.
* NiceGuy: Initially to a fault. He compromises the investigation by letting Benji leave town to be with relatives and by not looking into the man who found the body as a possible suspect. However, he gets better later and actually starts [[ExploitedTrope exploiting]] his NiceGuy image to get the information needed to solve the case.
* ThatOneCase: He is not used to work murders, and Beverly Jean's is extra-whammy due to her gruesome injuries, to the point he has trouble reading them from the file.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Bill gives him a brief one when he points his reluctance to suspect the killer a local.
* ShameIfSomethingHappened: Ocasek gets Rose to talk after implying that her son could be taken from her if she is found to be involved.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Spencer]]
!!Det. Art Spencer
->'''Portrayed By:''' Nate Corrdry
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Carver]]
!!Det. Roy Carver
->'''Portrayed By:''' Peter Murnik

* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: He casually uses racial slurs to describe suspects.
[[/folder]]

->'''Portrayed By:''' Christopher Livingstone

* AloneWithThePsycho: Despite being warned by Bill and the prison staff, he finds himself at the mercy of Kemper at one point.

* IJustWantToBeSpecial: Yet some others believe that he did it for the wealth and notoriety, leading to the passing of a law that bans criminals from profiting off their crimes.

* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior: He stole a murder scene photo from Bill's office and kept it under his pillow. His possible AmbiguousDisorder further adds to this trope: Brian alternates between staring at other children to avoiding eye contact with adults, has no friends and talks very little. And while [[spoiler: he is witnessing a toddler being murdered,]] he does not leave the scene or call for help.

!Quantico

[[folder:Shepard]]
!!Unit Chief Robert Shepard
->'''Portrayed By:''' Cotter Smith
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cotter_smith_unit_chief_shepard_1510238499.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"The Bureau does not do that. We do not get involved until a crime is committed and has risen to the level of our radar."'']]

Unit chief of the FBI National Training Academy. Stern and by-the-book, he has a rough relationship with Holden and Bill who have to work to convince him that their work has merit.

!Relations

[[folder:Debbie]]
!!Deborah "Debbie" Mitford
->'''Portrayed By:''' Hannah Gross
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mindhunter_debbie.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"You're so good at reading people, you tell me."'']]

Holden's girlfriend and a post-grad student at University of Virginia. She triggers Holden's interest in exploring criminal behaviors through a broader psychological framework.
----
* BlackBraAndPanties: After finishing her cold and exams, she dons them as part of her reunion with Holden. It ends badly because of his MomentKiller.
* BrainyBrunette: A postgraduate student with an impressive knowledge of sociology. Holden (who otherwise isn't the most humble person) happily admits that she's smarter than him.
* DeadpanSnarker: Constantly trades barbs with Holden.
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Lampshaded in-universe. Her advice to Holden on how to charm his interviewees is clearly a description of flirtation, something Debbie as an analytical ''and'' sexually experienced type knows plenty about but Holden is surprised to find can be boiled down to recognizable mannerisms and body language.
* ManicPixieDreamGirl: An unusually abrasive example, but she still serves as something of an awakening for Holden despite seemingly getting nothing out of the relationship due to him being such a stuff-shirt with little interest in her life.
* MythologyGag: She drives the same car model as Ted Bundy, and at one point says that her father always reminded her to change the oil. The day before he was arrested, BTK called his daughter to remind her to change the oil.
* OppositesAttract: She's instantly drawn to Holden when she meets him in a bar.
* PutOnABus: She disappears after her relationship with Holden ends.
* WomenAreWiser: She may not work for the FBI but she's clearly the more grounded of the two.
* YourCheatingHeart: May have a fling with another student although it's not completely confirmed. Holden is not happy about the possibility.

[[folder:Nancy]]
!!Nancy Tench
->'''Portrayed By:''' Stacey Roca

* EightiesHair: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]]. Season 2 ends in 1981, after all.
* AwfulWeddedLife: Nancy and Bill quite clearly love each other and have been together for years, but Bill's work with the BSU and their adopted son's possible autism puts an enormous strain on their marriage.
* BaitAndSwitch: [[spoiler:She is visited by grieving mother of a baby that Brian put on a cross after some older children killed him. She expects the mother to be angry at her somehow, but she tells her that she has forgiven her and Brian already.]]
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: She encourages Bill to forget about work and socialize with the neighbors at a barbecue. He does, and they turn out to be very interested in his line of work.
* TheEveryman: She just wants to live a common life and has no interest whatsoever in crime and deviancy. Unfortunately, crime and deviancy seem to have an interest in coming near her.
* FirstDayFromHell: She becomes a realtor in Season 2. The ''first'' property she tries to sell becomes the scene of a murder.
* LittleNo: [[spoiler:Says this when the mother of the dead baby asks to meet Brian so she can forgive him in person.]]
* PromotedToOpeningTitles: For Season 2, after recurring through Season 1.
* ThousandYardStare: Devolves into this by the end of Season 2, as a result of the [[spoiler:Brian]] plotline.

[[folder:Brian]]
!!Brian Tench
->'''Portrayed By:''' Zachary Scott Ross

Bill Tench's young son. He was adopted by Bill and his wife Nancy at age three, and his life before the adoption is a mystery. It becomes quickly apparent that he is not a regular child, and his unusual behavior worries his parents.

* AmbiguousDisorder: Brian is quiet, withdrawn and shies away from affection in a way that strongly implies he may be autistic. Of course, considering the time period, autism is a few years away from being placed in the DSM.
* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior: He stole a murder scene photo from Bill's office and kept it under his pillow. His possible AmbiguousDisorder further adds to this trope: Brian alternates between staring at other children to avoiding eye contact with adults, has no friends and talks very little. And while [[spoiler: he is witnessing a toddler being murdered,]] he does not leave the scene or call for help.

[[folder:Kay]]
!!Kay Manz
->'''Portrayed By:''' Lauren Glazier

* TheBartender: She tends a mildly divey bar with a regular clientele.
* ButchLesbian: [[AvertedTrope Averted]]. Despite being less of a LipstickLesbian than Wendy, she is still feminine.
* {{Hypocrite}}: Wendy accuses her of this for encouraging her to be committed about their relationship while she puts on a façade with her son and ex-husband.
* LoveInterest: For Wendy, come Season 2.
* ManicPixieDreamGirl: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]]. She comes across at first, but Wendy eventually learns that she is not always as carefree as she seems.
* TheMissusAndTheEx: She has a rocky relation with her ex-husband, who has custody of their son. He almost runs into Wendy while she is in Kay's appartment and it is clear that it would have not been nice if they met.
* OneOfTheBoys: She jokes and talks openly about her sexuality with the marines who visit her bar.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Wendy calls her out as a [[{{hypocrite}} hypocritical]] "bartender who takes advice from bus stop magazines" when [[spoiler:she breaks up with her.]]

!Criminals and Suspects

!! Already incarcerated

!! Investigated
[[folder:In General]]
Criminals (or suspected criminals) investigated by Bill and Holden at the request of local law enforcement and other people.
----
* MonsterOfTheWeek: Although they are sometimes stretched over two episodes.
* {{Mundanger}}: All are average people you could run into at any time.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Unlike the incarcerated killers, they tend to be fictionalized versions of real people with the name and other aspects changed. The exception is Devier, who is a full on HistoricalDomainCharacter.

!Local Law Enforcement

[[folder:Barney]]
!!Agent Jim Barney
->'''Portrayed By:''' Albert Jones

* TheAce: He's the top of Bill's list for the BSU for a reason: he's intelligent, adaptive, even-tempered, gets along with everyone and has enjoyed a distinguished career. The only reason he doesn't get the job is because he's black, and with so many of the interview subjects likely holding racist viewpoints, his very presence could corrupt the data.
* AscendedExtra: Jim appeared for only one episode in Season 1, for a very brief scene, but becomes a recurring character in Season 2.
* EarlyBirdCameo: Applies to join the BSU in the first season, but he is passed over due to his race. Becomes recurring in the second season.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: His first appearance is his interview with the BSU, when he's telling a story about how he caused a member of the KKK to incriminate himself on the stand by simply catching his eye and pretending to flirt with the KKK member's girlfriend, demonstrating that he's a quick-witted agent who's capable of thinking outside the box.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Based on FBI agent Judson Ray.
[[/folder]]

* FriendlyTickleTorture: Every time kids get sent to his office for discipline, he has them take out their shoes and socks, tickles their feet, and gives them spare change.

* SelfInflictedHell: He was told to stop by parents and a freaking FBI agent. He refused and got all mad instead, which caused him to get publicly shamed, fired and incapable of getting a job around children when he should be thinking in securing his retirement. And all for not stopping tickling children's feet and giving them money for it when the parents told him to. Long story short, Wade is either a pedophile with a compulsion that overrides all rationality in the interest of letting him continue to touch children's feet, or just TooDumbToLive.

* TheUnreveal: It is never established for certain if he is a pedophile.

* TheSmurfettePrinciple: She's the only woman in the unit and the only one in Quantico (so far) that is not a secretary.

* JerkAssHasAPoint: He claims that he wrongfully confessed, and Holden says that's not how it works--at least in the eyes of the law. Present day viewers, especially those versed in True Crime, know that in the American legal system there is a very real problem with investigators getting coerced confessions and with people giving guilty pleas for the guaranteed lighter sentence because they can't afford good lawyers and don't want to risk the harsher sentences that often come with pleading innocent and being found guilty.

-->'''Holden:''' I just feel like--
-->'''Shepard:''' [[spoiler:Oh, I can't wait to hear how you feel! You arrogant, self-serving twerp. I put in twenty-seven years. Went from brick agent to corner office, and I'm leaving everything I worked for with the giant stain of you all over it!]]
-->'''Holden:''' [[spoiler:Sir, I--]]
-->'''Shepard:''' [[spoiler:Do you honestly believe I'm retiring? You vainglorious little shit. I'm being forced out because somebody has to take the fall for your insubordination, reckless lack of judgment, and titanic vanity.]]
-->'''Holden:''' [[spoiler:I took complete responsibility for--]]
-->'''Shepard:''' [[spoiler:You really are incredible. Is all of that fresh-scrubbed earnestness just an act? Or are you truly oblivious to the wreckage you leave in your wake? I survived a war, the streets of Baltimore, and Hoover. And I'm finally being finished off by ''you?'']]

* TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes: An especially dark case, as [[spoiler:his son is suspected of having sociopathic tendencies after an ill-conceived attempt to bring an accidentally killed baby back to life by crucifying it.]]

* DelusionsOfEloquence: He fancies himself a CunningLinguist, claiming to fluent in seven languages, and constantly peppering his speech with exotic words (or at least words he himself believes are exotic), but it quickly becomes rather clear that he has really no idea what some of these words means:
-->"You think I'm simple! Let me tell you somethin'! That judge on them cases? He said I was [[{{Malaproper}} continent]] to stand trial!

An unidentified, highly-organized serial killer active mostly in Wichita, Kansas, and whom the main characters are not yet aware of.

[[folder:Williams]]

The main suspect in the Atlanta-area child murders of 1979-81.

[[folder:Spencer]]
!!Det. Art Spencer
->'''Portrayed By:''' Nate Corrdry
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Jim]]
!!Agent Jim Barney
->'''Portrayed By:''' Albert Jones

* TheAce: He's the top of Bill's list for the BSU for a reason: he's intelligent, adaptive, even-tempered, gets along with everyone and has enjoyed a distinguished career. The only reason he doesn't get the job is because he's black, and with so many of the interview subjects likely holding racist viewpoints, his very presence could corrupt the data.
* AscendedExtra: Jim appeared for only one episode in Season 1, for a very brief scene, but becomes a recurring character in Season 2.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: His first appearance is his interview with the BSU, when he's telling a story about how he caused a member of the KKK to incriminate himself on the stand by simply catching his eye and pretending to flirt with the KKK member's girlfriend, demonstrating that he's a quick-witted agent who's capable of thinking outside the box.
[[/folder]]

!Other Characters

[[folder:Brian]]
!!Brian Tench
->'''Portrayed By:''' Zachary Scott Ross

Bill Tench's young son. He was adopted by Bill and his wife Nancy at age three, and his life before the adoption is a mystery. It becomes quickly apparent that he is not a regular child, and his unusual behavior worries his parents.

* AmbiguousDisorder: Brian is quiet, withdrawn and shies away from affection in a way that strongly implies he may be autistic. Of course, considering the time period, autism is a few years away from being placed in the DSM.
* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior: He stole a murder scene photo from Bill's office and kept it under his pillow. His possible AmbiguousDisorder further adds to this trope: Brian alternates between staring at other children to avoiding eye contact with adults, has no friends and talks very little. And while [[spoiler: he is witnessing a toddler being murdered,]] he does not leave the scene or call for help.

!Main

[[folder:Debbie]]
!!Deborah "Debbie" Mitford
->'''Portrayed By:''' Hannah Gross
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mindhunter_debbie.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"You're so good at reading people, you tell me."'']]

Holden's girlfriend and a post-grad student at University of Virginia. She triggers Holden's interest in exploring criminal behaviors through a broader psychological framework.

* BlackBraAndPanties: After finishing her cold and exams, she dons them as part of her reunion with Holden. It ends badly because of his MomentKiller.
* BrainyBrunette: A postgraduate student with an impressive knowledge of sociology. Holden (who otherwise isn't the most humble person) happily admits that she's smarter than him.
* DeadpanSnarker: Constantly trades barbs with Holden.
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Lampshaded in-universe. Her advice to Holden on how to charm his interviewees is clearly a description of flirtation, something Debbie as an analytical ''and'' sexually experienced type knows plenty about but Holden is surprised to find can be boiled down to recognizable mannerisms and body language.
* ManicPixieDreamGirl: An unusually abrasive example, but she still serves as something of an awakening for Holden despite seemingly getting nothing out of the relationship due to him being such a stuff-shirt with little interest in her life.
* MythologyGag: She drives the same car model as Ted Bundy, and at one point says that her father always reminded her to change the oil. The day before he was arrested, BTK called his daughter to remind her to change the oil.
* OppositesAttract: She's instantly drawn to Holden when she meets him in a bar.
* WomenAreWiser: She may not work for the FBI but she's clearly the more grounded of the two.
* YourCheatingHeart: May have a fling with another student although it's not completely confirmed. Holden is not happy about the possibility.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Wendy]]
!!Dr. Wendy Carr
->'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/AnnaTorv

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/anna_torv_mindhunter.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''"I don't know what I expected. I've spent months of my life and I had hoped that we could complete our research before seeing it used to this end."'']]

A psychologist at a Boston university. Longtime friends with Bill, who asks her to consult with the Bureau for their study.
----

[[folder:Nancy]]
!!Nancy Tench
->'''Portrayed By:''' Stacey Roca

* AwfulWeddedLife: Nancy and Bill quite clearly love each other and have been together for years, but Bill's work with the BSU and their adopted son's possible autism puts an enormous strain on their marriage.
* FirstDayFromHell: She recently became a realtor and in Season 2 [[spoiler:the ''first'' property she tries to sell becomes the scene of a murder.]]
* PromotedToOpeningTitles: For Season 2, after recurring through Season 1.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Kay]]
!!Kay Manz
->'''Portrayed By:''' Lauren Glazier

* TheBartender: She tends a mildly divey bar with a regular clientele.
* LoveInterest: For Wendy, come Season 2.
[[/folder]]

!Criminals and Suspects

!! Already incarcerated
[[folder:In General]]
Criminals subject of the study by the team of Ford, Tench, and Carr.

* ChromosomeCasting: So far, all the incarcerated killers interviewed or studied are men, primarily men who murdered women and girls. Truth in television, more or less, as the real-life FBI unit focused almost exclusively on male offenders, with female ones being little more than a footnote.
* ConsultingAConvictedKiller: Why they talk with these nutters. Unlike in the most common version of the trope, their intention is to get a general understanding of serial killers and maybe use that to catch them in the future, rather than catching one particular serial killer now.
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: All the incarcerated criminals interviewed for the study are real.
* MeanCharacterNiceActor: The show's casting director, Laura Mayfield, [[http://www.newsweek.com/mindhunter-netflix-david-fincher-cast-689791 stresses that the actual men playing these serial killers]] are kind, respectful, hard-working people. Presumably this is to avoid ActorRoleConfusion given how unpleasant the men they're depicting are.
* SerialKiller: Most of them, but not all.
* SerialRapist: Kemper, Rissell, and Brudos.

[[folder:Berkowitz]]
!!David Berkowitz
->'''Portrayed By:''' Oliver Cooper
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/son_of_sam.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"You go out every night, but... maybe once every few weeks, you find the right girl in the right place, at the right time. I never knew what I was looking for, but I knew her when I saw her."'']]

A disorganized killer who shot eight couples in New York City between 1976 and 1977. His recent arrest spurs Holden's interest in researching the motives of killers.
----
* AffablyEvil: He's surprisingly forthcoming about his murders and methods with Holden and Bill, helping them to understand BTK.
* AttentionWhore: He was outraged when his murders were initially reported as simple sex crimes, and created the Son of Sam persona to gain control over his image.
* AxCrazy: He claims to have carried the murders on behalf of a dog, and everyone is at a loss to find a motive.
* TheDreaded: His arrest is the big news story at the time of the series debut. Upon interviewing him, Tench notes that he held an entire city in terror in a way no other killer in history achieved.
* TheGhost: The team can't interview him while his trial is underway, but they fully intend to in the future.
* IJustWantToBeSpecial: Yet some others believe that he did it for the wealth and notoriety, leading to the passing of a law that bans criminals from profiting off their crimes.
* ObfuscatingInsanity: After a bit of prodding by Holden, he admits the entire story about demons was made up.[[note]]The real Berkowitz did recant the story, but still later replaced it with another fanciful story that he’s actually the only member of a Satanic cult to get caught, which he continues to maintain.[[/note]]
* RedBaron: Known as the "Son of Sam", the name he claimed in his taunting letters.

[[folder:Manson]]
!!Charles Manson
->'''Portrayed By:''' Creator/DamonHerriman
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mindhunter_manson.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"Well, you don't see it, but the only truth is now. Now is the only thing that's real."'']]

The leader of a cult responsible for ten killings in California in 1969.

* BeardOfEvil: He rocks the hippie look.
* BerserkButton: For Frank [=McGraw=], an old Fairfield detective who worked in Los Angeles for over twenty years and knows the detectives who worked the case. He doesn't take kindly when he thinks Holden is trying to paint him as a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: He spends half his interview rambling about love, children, and himself in an utterly bizarre fashion.
* {{Cult}}: He led a serial-killing one.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: His mother was a jailbird and a prostitute, his uncle was an abusive zealot, and he was imprisoned and abused in jail for twenty years before he was released in [[TheSixties the Summer of Love]].
* TheDreaded: By 1977, he has already acquired mythical status; it is nearly impossible to see him in prison.
* TheGhost: An ominous and often referenced presence through the first season, but he never makes it in the flesh. He appears in an episode of Season 2.
* MessyHair: Just look at the picture.
* TheNapoleon: Kemper warns the agents not to stare at how short he is, and he perches on the chair back to look down at them.[[note]]The real Manson was variously measured from five-foot-two to five-foot-six.[[/note]]
* NeverMyFault: After a decade in prison, he continues to insist he wasn’t responsible for the murders, and the culprits acted on their own.
* NewAgeRetroHippie: What he presented himself as; in truth he was about as far from a hippie as one could get.
* NonActionBigBad: Despite his fame, he never killed a person with his own hands.
* ObviouslyEvil: He carved a swastika on his own forehead.

[[folder:Kemper]]
!!Edmund "Ed" Kemper
->'''Portrayed By:''' Cameron Britton
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mindhunter_kemper.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"The only way I could have those girls was to kill them, and it worked. They became my spirit wives. They're still with me."'']]
A very organized serial rapist and killer who murdered eight women including his mother in Santa Cruz, California between 1972 and 1973, and also his grandparents in 1964.

* BornInTheWrongCentury: She's a gay college professor who's socially progressive by modern say standards. At one point when discussing Brudos's murders, she get's annoyed with her colleagues associating his tendency to cross dress with the fact that he's a serial killer who sexually exploited and murdered women, noting that most people who experiment with presenting as the opposite sex aren't crazed murderers.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: [[spoiler:He furiously lets Holden knows what he thinks of him after the incident with the OPR forces him into early retirement. It's hard not to sympathize with him, since Holden's uncontrolled ego not only resulted in Shepard's distinguished career ending in private disgrace, but moments before Holden had tried to hijack Shepard's ''own retirement party'' to humblebrag about the work of the BSU.]]
-->'''Holden:''' I just feel like -
-->'''Shepard:''' [[spoiler:Oh, I can't wait to hear how you feel! You arrogant, self-serving twerp. I put in 27 years. Went from brick agent to corner office, and I'm leaving everything I worked for with the giant stain of you all over it!]]
-->'''Holden:''' [[spoiler:Sir, I -]]

-->'''Holden:''' [[spoiler:I took complete responsibility for -]]
-->'''Shepard:''' [[spoiler:really are incredible. Is all of that fresh-scrubbed earnestness just an act? Or are you truly oblivious to the wreckage you leave in your wake? I survived a war, the streets of Baltimore, and Hoover. And I'm finally being finished off by ''you?'']]