Beware of spoilers, only spoilers from the seventh and eighth seasons are meant to be blacked out. All character sheets contain major spoilers. Proceed reading at your own risk.note
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Mary AKA First Nurse
Played by: Denise Crosby
Murder Method: Stabbed
Dexter's very first victim, although not the first seen in the series or the books. She was a nurse who killed her patients via overdose, and almost did the same to Harry until Dexter got to her.
- Asshole Victim: She regularly murders her patients with overdoses.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She came off as a compassionate nurse who just wanted to help her patients, but in reality she murdered them with overdoses.
- Creepy Souvenir: Likes to collect her victim's obituaries.
- Deadly Doctor: A nurse who deliberately overdoses her patients.
- Posthumous Character: She’s dead before the first episode, since the series starts well into Dexter's serial killer "career", and her death was Dexter's first kill.
- Serial Killer: An "Angel of Death" type who injects her patients with fatal overdoses.
- Starter Villain: As mentioned above, she was Dexter's first victim.
Father Mike Donovan
"I couldn't help myself, I just couldn't... please you have to understand."
Played by: Jim Abele
Murder Method: Neck sliced open with a power saw
Murder Location: Abandoned pump station where Donovan buried the bodies
The first victim we see Dexter claim in both the TV show and novels, though not his actual first victim. A Pedophile Priest, he raped and murdered three young boys.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: He cries and begs when faced with Dexter's brand of 'justice'.
- Asshole Victim: He's a pedophile and child murderer, but he’s the first victim the viewer sees and he begs for forgiveness and tries to say he can't help himself, so there's a tiny drop of pity.
- Dirty Coward: He begs like crazy when he realizes Dexter is going to kill him.
- Pedophile Priest: The reason Dexter selected him. He abducts, rapes and murders young boys.
- Please Kill Me if It Satisfies You: In the novel, it's all but stated outright that the priest ultimately accepts his death as the only way to stop himself from killing, as he thanks Dexter for it through his gag.
- Serial Killer: Three victims (seven in the book) makes him one.
- Sinister Minister: He's a priest who enjoys some rape and murder on the side.
- Tears of Fear: He cries when Dexter nabs him.
- Would Hurt a Child: He's a child rapist and murderer.
Jamie Jaworski
Played by: Ethan Smith
Murder Method: Decapitated with a cleaver
Murder Location: Construction site
A sadistic valet who raped and murdered a woman in order to make a snuff film. In the books he's a janitor at a local school who kidnapped young girls to make pornographic videos before killing them.
- Alliterative Name: His first and last name start with a "J".
- Asshole Victim: A rapist and murderer whose last words are telling Dexter he doesn't regret what he did.
- Bondage Is Bad: His home has plenty of bondage/rape porn, although it's the snuff that makes him a target for Dexter.
- Defiant to the End: He tells Dexter he's not sorry just before the cleaver comes down.
- Fat Bastard: He's an overweight rapist and killer.
- Jerkass: As if the rape and murder wasn't bad enough, he steals copper pipes! What a jerk!
- Off on a Technicality: He got away with his crime due to a faulty warrant.
Matt Chambers
Played by: Sam Trammell
Murder Method: Stabbed in the heart
Murder Location: Abandoned liquor store
A drunk driver who frequently caused traffic accidents, only to put on a convincing show in court. After escaping justice, he would move to a new town with a new name.
- The Alcoholic: He's constantly mowing down people in a drunken state.
- Armor-Piercing Response: Dexter gives him this just before he stabs him in the heart:Dexter: "You've done this too many times to be sorry."
- Asshole Victim: Shows absolutely no remorse for his crimes so the audience doesn't feel any when he's killed.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He's a master of the crocodile tears and tries his best to come off as sympathetic and pitiable, but in reality he remorselessly gets drunk and does hit and runs.
- Crocodile Tears: He puts these on for court, and Dexter even refers to this technique explicitly.
- Jerkass: He does perform hit and runs without remorse afterall.
- Manipulative Bastard: At his hearing, where he manipulates the jury into believing he's a remorseful innocent.
- The Sociopath: While Matt wasn't purposefully targeting his victims, he had a complete disregard for their lives.
Jorge & Valerie Castillo
Played by: José Zúñiga & Valerie Dillman
Murder Method: Jorge's neck was cut with a power saw, Valerie's jugular was sliced with a knife
Murder Location: Their boat
A rich couple who made their living smuggling immigrants across the border before bringing up unexpected 'charges'. When the families couldn't pay, Jorge & Valerie would then drown their hapless victims.
- Asshole Victim: They spend their last moments saying they love each other and genuinely mean it, but they're horrible serial killers nonetheless. Even when Miami Metro is investigating their deaths, Ángel believes that they deserved what they got, even stating that he'd love to shake hands with the guy who did it.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: While Dexter carves up Jorge's body as normal, he disposes of Valerie's body whole. However, this isn't the result of Dexter's not wanting to disfigure her, but rather his not having enough time to do his normal disposal routine with both of them.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Their last acts are to tell each other how much they love each other.
- Females Are More Innocent: Subverted; Dexter initially assumes that Jorge alone is responsible for the smuggling business and that Valerie is just an unsuspecting housewife, but when he finds out that she's in on the business and every bit as evil as her husband, he decides to take her out as well.
- Jerkass: They're both racist serial killers who drown people unable to pay a last second release fee for being smuggled into America.
- Posthumous Character: Valerie returns as a corpse to concern Dexter.
- Rich Bitch: Valerie, who's in on her husband's business.
- Serial Killer: Between them, they've managed to kill at least four immigrants.
- Slashed Throat: Both die from two variants.
- Unholy Matrimony: A happily married pair of human smugglers.
- Would Hurt a Child: Their victims include men, women, and children.
Emmett Meridian
"Well, for starters, you accept the fact that we all have a big bad wolf hiding inside of us."
Played by: Tony Goldwyn
Murder Method: Power saw to the neck
Murder Location: His office
Dexter: "I can't kill Meridian yet. I need another therapy session."
A psychiatrist who manipulates the patients of his that are powerful women into taking their own lives.
- Affably Evil: He's a competent, friendly psychiatrist who seems to actually want to help Dexter.
- Asshole Victim: A Manipulative Bastard who enjoys coercing mentally fragile women to kill themselves.
- Creator Cameo: Tony Goldwyn is both an actor and director. He's directed several episodes, including the one he guest starred in.
- He-Man Woman Hater: He only targets powerful women.
- Indirect Serial Killer: He manipulates women into killing themselves rather than doing the killing himself.
- Manipulative Bastard: He's one of the best seen in the series. He gets women to kill themselves by prescribing them medication, watches them go through withdrawal when he abruptly takes them off it, and all the while gently needles them with thoughts of suicide. It would be impressive if it wasn't so vile.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: He gives Dexter some useful advice, but see Manipulative Bastard to explain the rest.
- Non-Action Guy: He kills indirectly by manipulating his patients into committing suicide. Dexter easily overpowers him after revealing that he himself is a Serial Killer.
- Pet the Dog: While he pushes his female clients to commit suicide, he actually seems to do a good job with helping out his male clients, Dexter included.
- Psycho Psychologist: He's a professional psychologist who secretly films the sessions where he convinces his distraught patients to commit suicide.
- Oh, Crap!: When he realizes Dexter is telling the truth about being a Serial Killer.
Roger Hicks
Played by: Don McManus
Murder Method: Stabbed in the chest
Murder Location: The home of one of his victims
A used car salesman known to have raped and killed at least two women.
- Asshole Victim: A thoroughly unpleasant rapist and murderer whose last action is to call Rita a cunt.
- Consummate Liar: Dexter is impressed with his ability to lie fluently.
- Country Matters: He calls Rita this, which is what prompts Dexter to break from his usual Breaking Speech and angrily kill him.
- Honest John's Dealership: The dealership he runs is this.
- Lack of Empathy: The secret behind his talents for deception is that he has no regard for anyone or anything.
- Sexist Used Car Salesman: Hatred of women seems to be his motivation for killing them.
Ken Olsen
Played by: Silas Weir Mitchell
Murder Method: Decapitated with a cleaver
Murder Location: An abandoned train wagon where Olsen had previously attempted to kill a man
A half-cocked vigilante trying to mimic the Bay Harbor Butcher.
- Asshole Victim: He's a self-serving Jerkass who murders people who piss him off and pins it on an active serial killer, creating more work for the police and impeding the investigation.
- Jack the Ripoff: Tries to emulate the Bay Harbor Butcher, but he sucks at it.
- Karmic Death: Gets killed by Dexter in the same location where he tried to copycat him, but in a forensic-proof kill room up to Dexter's standards.
- Vigilante Man: What he sees himself as, but he's half-assed about it and only killed when he had something to gain from it, like killing a drug dealer in order to steal his cocaine stash for himself.
- Too Dumb to Live: When the real Bay Harbor Butcher tries to intimidate him into stopping, he decides it's a good time to mention that he's killed two people.
Fred "Freebo" Bowman
Played by: Mike Erwin
Murder Method: Oscar Prado's knife
Murder Location: The home of his victim
A petty drug dealer who killed two coeds but got off the hook due to a bad warrant.
- Asshole Victim: He's a double murderer, a drug dealer and generally an unpleasant person.
- Jerkass: As far as his attitude goes, he has no respect for anyone, especially women, and he occasionally gets high. He doesn't appear to show remorse for the victims that he's killed despite having no apparent animosity for them and doesn't seem to have any friends either, suggesting that he only cares about himself.
- Off on a Technicality: A bad warrant is the reason he wasn't put in jail.
- Small Role, Big Impact: He dies quickly, but everyone continues pursuit of him for the rest of the season.
Ethan Turner
Played by: Larry Sullivan
Murder Method: Stabbed in the heart
Murder Location: Cruise ship
A budding Serial Killer who marries frequently and kills his wives for their money.
- Asshole Victim: According to Miguel, he got away with his first wife's murder by staging it as an overdose of pain meds. More recently, he killed his second wife while on a cruise in international waters where Miguel has no jurisdiction. Dexter decides to investigate Turner himself.
- The Bluebeard: He marries women, then kills them soon after to claim their money.
- Would Hit a Girl: He killed both of his wives.
Clemson Galt
Played by: Blake Gibbons
Murder Method: Stabbed in the chest
Murder Location: The house of his victim
An imprisoned Neo-Nazi on Dexter's 'Top Ten' list.
- Asshole Victim: Nazi? Check. Killed his girlfriend because girlfriend was pregnant with child? Check. Extreme satisfaction when Dexter kills him? Check.
- Jerkass: He is a Neo-Nazi afterall.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: What with being a Nazi and all.
- Those Wacky Nazis: He's a high-ranking member of a Neo-Nazi gang.
- Would Hit a Girl: He murdered his girlfriend, Jenna Kendrick, for getting pregnant.
Benito "Benny" Gomez
Played by: Gino Aquino
Murder Method: Stabbed in the heart
Murder Location: An old boxing ring
A former boxer who beat several people to death.
- Asshole Victim: He's killed two people, including his girlfriend, who was beaten so badly they needed dental records to identify her.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: His inability to control his temper led to him beating and murdering others.
- Posthumous Character: He causes more problems for Dexter dead than alive.
- Smug Snake: Lets out a big, stupid grin when he realizes how badly Dexter has messed up his trial.
- Would Hit a Girl: He beat his girlfriend to death so bad that the dentist had a hard time identifying her.
Jonathan Farrow
Played by: Greg Ellis
Murder Method: Decapitated with a cleaver
Murder Location: His photography studio
A sleazy photographer suspected of killing one of his models.
- Asshole Victim: Even if he's innocent of the killing he's still an asshole.
- Evil Brit: He may be innocent (at least by Dexter's standards), but he's still a pretty vile guy.
- Jerkass: His crass and smug personality is what makes him such a suspect.
- Not Helping Your Case: When Dexter is getting ready to kill him, Farrow goes on a long, pretentious speech about his art and how he's immortalizing the women who model for his photographs. Unfortunately for him, he ends up delivering his speech in such a way that it sounds like the Motive Rant of a captured murderer, which just convinces Dexter that he's killing the right man.
- Obviously Evil: He acts like this, and gets killed for it.
- Poor Communication Kills: Literally; when he finds himself imprisoned, he mistakenly thinks that Dexter is some kind of Moral Guardian who's out to scare him, and tries to rebut Dexter with a lengthy justification of his artistic process. By the time Farrow realizes what's actually going on, it's too late, as he's unwittingly convinced Dexter that he really is a killer.
- Red Herring: Turns out that the assistant was the killer, and not him.
Stan Beaudry
Played by: Ian Patrick Williams
Murder Method: Neck power sawed
Murder Location: The back of his own truck
A truck driver believed to have killed a prostitute many years back. Dexter kills him to throw the police off Trinity's trail.
- Asshole Victim: As per all Dexter's victims due to the Code of Harry.
- Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit: Dexter plants evidence in Beaudry's shack that contains Trinity's DNA, leading the police to believe they have their man. It is only a temporary solution, as they quickly realize he is not the killer.
- Defiant to the End: He yells and curses Dexter in his last moment, under the impression that he'll get free and exact vengeance. He doesn't.
- Jerkass: He's aggressive and violent.
Rankin
Played by: Brad Carter
Murder Method: Bludgeoned
Murder Location: An abandoned gas station
A random schmoe who makes the mistake of pissing Dexter off at just the wrong time. He's one of Dexter's very few victims that doesn't fit Harry's code.
- All There in the Script: His name is given in the credits of the episode and in the list of Dexter's victims on the official website.
- Asshole Victim: Although no murderer, he is a thoroughly unpleasant excuse for a human being. Dexter does not regret killing him.
- Fiery Redhead: Has red hair and is a bad-tempered jerk.
- Hate Sink: He's on screen for under five minutes, and exists solely to piss Dexter off when he's already close to the slippery slope, going overboard by disrespecting the recently-deceased Rita in front of him. It doesn't even come across as shocking that Dexter killed him despite his innocence of any actual crime.
- Jerkass: In his limited interaction with Dexter, Rankin is shown to be a bad-tempered, foul-mouthed, obnoxious, rude man with little-to-no patience and a short fuse.
- Kick the Dog: While he probably didn't know if Dexter was being truthful or not, it was still in very bad taste of him to badmouth a person's loved one after they plainly state they have recently died.
- Speak Ill of the Dead: What triggers Dexter to kill him is that Rankin insulted his deceased wife.
- Too Dumb to Live: Wasn't really a good idea to make insensitive and foul remarks against another person, especially if said person is bigger than you and has a weapon.
Joe Walker
Played by: John Brotherton
Murder Method: Skull smashed with a sledgehammer
Murder Location: Groundskeeper's Shed
A former high school classmate of Dexter's who killed his wife to spare himself the expense of a divorce.
- Asshole Victim: He spends almost all his screen time acting arrogant and obnoxious, in addition to being a wife killer and Domestic Abuser.
- The Bully: What he was in high school, and continues to be.
- Domestic Abuser: Apparently he used to beat his wife before he killed her.
- Hypocrite: Despite being a Christian with a tattoo of Jesus, he still kills his wife to avoid a divorce.
- Jerk Jock: In high school he was an arrogant, popular football player. He's lost the football player aspect as an adult (and most of the fawning popularity), but he's still arrogant.
- Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up: He's still acting like a Jerk Jock when he's long out of high school.
- Would Hit a Girl: He killed his own wife.
Walter Kenney
Played by: Ronny Cox
Murder Method: Smothered with a pillow
Murder Location: Walter's own storage facility
A retired man from Oregon who was also the serial killer called the Tooth Fairy whom Dexter admired as a teen.
- Asshole Victim: A Serial Killer, racist and utter Jerkass.
- Broken Pedestal: Dexter admired him as a teenager, considering him an Evil Genius. He's disappointed to discover that Kenney has not only become a disgusting, crass, bitter old bastard, but even in his day he wasn't much. He admits to Dexter that he was drunk off his ass half the time and escaped justice by sheer luck.
- Dirty Old Man: Asks Dexter to buy him a copy of Barely Legal.
- Evil Old Folks: He may be old, but that hasn't stopped him from being any less of a terrible person.
- Fate Worse than Death: For him, at least. When it becomes clear that Dexter intends to off him, Walter gloats that the truth of his killings will come out once he disappears, and that it'll only further increase his notoriety and destroy his family. Dexter decides not to give him the satisfaction and smothers him with a pillow, so that his death will appear to be from natural causes and not be investigated any further.
- Jerkass: Besides the fact that he's a serial killer, he's extremely grumpy and unpleasant.
- Laughably Evil: His curmudgeonly demeanor is quite funny, as is his obliviousness to modern pop culture. That doesn't mean he's any less of a dangerous man.Kenney: (while holding Dexter at gunpoint) I checked your car registration while you were filling my prescription. And then I "goggled" your name.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: He might seem like a pathetic, witless old grump, but he does manage to trick Dexter after guessing he was a danger.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: One of his many complaints about Miami is that it's filled with people who don't speak English.
- Serial Killer: Known as the Tooth Fairy back in the day.
Ron Galuzzo
Played by: Andrew Elvis Miller
Murder Method: Unknown, presumably stabbed
Murder Location: His own kitchen
An exercise equipment salesman and part-time cannibal that Dexter suspects of being the Brain Surgeon. Notably, he's Dexter's final "ritual" victim.
- Asshole Victim: If Dexter is disturbed by your private life, you probably deserve to die.
- Blatant Lies: Claims to have no idea who Evelyn Vogel is, when she told Dexter that he was one of her patients.
- Faux Affably Evil: Galuzzo seems like a nice enough guy to his customers, but in secret, he's actually a cannibalistic serial killer, and may even use his occupation to lure victims.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Has a bunch of human body parts stored in containers and marinating in his fridge, with the obvious intention of eating them.
