Antagonists who debuted in the last 8 volumes of Cause of Death. See this page for characters who debuted in the last 8 volumes.
Major Criminals refer to characters who are the main antagonist of a volume. Minor Criminals refer to characters who are minor or recurring antagonists.
All or most of these people fall under the following tropes (they won't be listed in their entry unless they are accentuated, downplayed, uniquely averted or otherwise Played With):
- Arc Villain / Big Bad: To save time:
- Livewire for V9.
- The Chemist (Nightmare) for V10.
- Pablo Salazar for V11.
- The Boogeyman for V12.
- Spinerette for V13.
- The Firstborn for V14.
- The Dismemberment Case Perpetrator for V15.
- Noroi for the first 4 chapters of V16, Firstborn for the last 3.
- Dark and Troubled Past
- Serial Killer: Predictably.
Major Criminals
- High-Voltage Death: How he kills his victims, and how Maria killed him.
- I Have Your Wife: He took Maria's daughter Annie and her boyfriend hostage. Needless to say, Maria wasn't so happy.
- Impersonating an Officer: He does this to expose his victims submission to authority.
- Police Brutality: He gained fame after working to expose corruption in the police department and the cartel world. So, corrupt cops (who, as the player would find quite interesting if they'd played the series, were actually Arnold Bosco and Jacob Fallon) kidnapped him and his wife and tortured them — his wife died, and he was sent in a five year coma.
- Artistic License – Chemistry: Plays with the suspension of disbelief a bit..
- Manipulative Bastard: He, over the course of several years, brainwashed Selene Mensra (Mal's girlfriend) into creating a second personality that made her his subordinate. As Mal comments in V 10 C 8's finale, Selene is just as much a victim as anyone else.
- Obfuscating Insanity: What he pretended to be in V 10 C 4 to deflect the suspicion that he was the killer.
- Psycho Serum: His drug, codenamed "Nightmare", not only causes its victims to hallucinate their fears, it causes them to become homicidal.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Reese Gable is a typical villain (single season) but his actions have quite a number of side effects. First off, if he didn't manipulate Serene so seriously, then she might've kept dating Mal. And most dramatically, if he didn't try to gas Oscar and Natara's wedding, then they would've married (probably, Natara might've failed to state her vows even if uninterrupted), which would've drastically stalled (or hell might've even prevented) Maltara.
- Wedding Smashers: He, because of the large count of high-profile guests that DA Oscar Santos' wedding would bring together, tried to gas out Oscar's wedding with Natara to drive everyone nuts.
In Season 11, finally sick to death of Jacob's trickery, he has his goons kidnap Mal as a hostage. This backfires on him in the worst way possible, as Jacob's decision to ensure Mal gets out by recruiting his SFPD comrades ultimately results in his death.
- The Coup: In what is probably the biggest Big Damn Heroes moment in the series (the only contender is the season finale), a seven man team of Jacob, Mal, Natara, Amy, Kai, Maria and Jeremy toppled his country. With the assistance of a local rebel group.
- Defeat Equals Explosion: He confronts Jacob Fallon, whose gut is punched through with a piece of the helicopter that was shot down. If he had simply shot him instead of taking the time to tell him he would kill his family, then he wouldn't have been killed by the explosion Jacob caused with the C4-loaded gun that he had already acknowledged having earlier on.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: His daughter. Not that he really internalizes that until after Carlito kills her to avenge Esteban.
- Faking the Dead: Although it could very well have been unintentional, he (because of his bulletproof vest) survived a rifle round punched into his chest by Mal, and tried to make one last power play but failed.
- The Generalissimo: He's the leader of The Cartel.
- You Killed My Daughter: He executes Carlito immediately after he executed Esme when Esme acknowledged that she killed Carlito's father Esteban.
Real name: Eli Rosely. Eli was effectively his father's--and possibly also his mother's--favorite scapegoat. Whenever his father was upset at how his life was turning out, but was unable or unwilling to confront the source, Eli got all the pain in their stead. At least until the night when career outlaw Jeb Cassidy killed Eli's parents right in front of him...but took pity on him and "recruited" him as an assistant in his robberies. During all this, Cassidy came to care far more for his captive than his parents ever did, and so arranged to turn himself in and keep Eli from getting any of the heat. Eli, meanwhile, had come to idolize the man who saved him from a lifetime of abuse, and actually thought that was why his parents were killed. As a result, he became an avenger of abused children in Cassidy's "stead", dressing up as a boogeyman to kill parents he deems deleterious to their children.
- The Apprentice: Eli thinks he was this to Cassidy. In 12-8, it turns out he plans to make Joy Hoskins his apprentice. Unfortunately, while Eli can't follow through on account of being consigned to an asylum, Andy Gillum has found her for Genevieve.
- Calling Card: The rag dolls. It's actually Eli's mad attempt to keep the victims' children from feeling lonely.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The first we see of him is as an unnamed clerk in 13-1, who just seems to be a random member of a hardware store's workforce. Then Natara pulls his mask off in 13-4...
- Magic Feather: What his mask is for him. Cassidy once told Eli that if he wore something as scary as that, he wouldn't have to fear the boogeyman or the like. Rather, they'd fear him.
- Parental Neglect: He makes this part of his criteria. 12-4's opener shows this.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Type C—he doesn't have much trouble fitting in with society and being a member of the workforce. However, the things he likes to do (besides the whole avenger-of-the-abused thing) are definitely childish. Just look at his treehouse.
- Serial Killer: His sickness, kill count and expertise is rather accentuated compared to the average killer. Mal comments in 12-1 that he can't promise gentleness on him when he sees the files.
- The Faceless: In what actually makes it a bit creepy and off-putting, the opening to 12-4 (which shows him being surprisingly nice to a little girl) doesn't show his facial portrait.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: He kills abusive parents. But he apparently doesn't have consideration for the loss of parents his victims suffer.
- I Have Many Names: She has many aliases.
- Spiders Are Scary: She has a natural immunity to the fictional Striped Recluse spiders, extremely venomous spiders.
- The Beastmaster: It appears she can have a tiny sense of skill in directing them.
- Spider Swarm: Her preferred combat means.
Real name: Alex Dominguez. Originally, he was known only through Zero referring to him as Genevieve's adopted son who died young. By season 13, though, this is completely overturned. He's Genevieve's biological son, he's very much alive, and he's even more death-obsessed as she is. Not to mention much more willing to kill with his own hands. Apparently, his goal is to take revenge on her for forcing him to run away. Later in (it's unconfirmed if he changed his mind or lied), he decides that he instead wants to get all her other Lilim to start killing right away, and from there go on to produce a world-wide paradise for killers. The real reason for killing her, or at least the foremost one, is so she can't renew their shackles.
He overtakes Genevieve as the Big Bad of the series in Volume 14. He is the series main antagonist from then until it's end.
- Ax-Crazy: Played With: He enjoys murder to an insane degree, but he can speak politely and like a Deadpan Snarker.
- Blood Knight: There is no place he's happier than while on a battlefield. Whoever he's opposing won't be so happy, though. He seriously believes that the battlefield is the only proper form of human existence, on top of that.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: He ha expert knowledge of the human anatomy.
- Dead Person Impersonation: He pretended to be Dr. Francis Cole, the doctor Blaise and Jeremy were seeing (we don't know how long he was though).
- The Dreaded: Leon Marquez and Angel Dominiguez both begged The Ghost to kill him when The Ghost revealed his presence. The Ghost then killed himself when he learned that he was coming. Even Kingfisher, as 13-1 reveals, is blood-stoppingly terrified of him.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good
- Evil Feels Good: For the most part, he doesn't feel much of anything when killing...unless it's on a battlefield, with lots of carnage and death. Then, he's ecstatic. He states in 14-9 that he finds the freedom on the battlefield to be unrivaled.
- The Faceless: For most of his time during his time in CoD, he keeps his face covered in bandages. He has a history of using plastic surgeons to change his face. We don't see enough of his other faces to know for sure if this is a case of Magic Plastic Surgery or if the changes are minute.
- Final Boss: Of Volume 14 and 16 (and therefore the series).
- It Runs in the Family: It seems he inherited his bloodlust from Genevieve. To make matters worse, his biological father is Zero. So double the inherited madness.
- Self-Made Orphan: He kills Genevieve at the end of 14-7. On top of that, he would have killed Angel Dominguez—his adoptive father—if the Ghost hadn't beaten him to it.
- To Create a Playground for Evil: He seriously believes that all humans are inherently as bloodthirsty as he is, and only abstain because of the law's threat to punish them. His broadcast to awaken all the other Lilim is ultimately his first stage of reproducing the pre-civilization "paradise" of wanton slaughter. He wants the world to free itself from society's repression.
- Evil Brit: Exactly who he is.