Dexter: New Blood True Story – The Real-Life Inspiration For The Runaway Killer
Dexter: New Blood’s Runaway Killer is partially inspired by one of the most notorious real-life American serial killers of the 20th century.
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Warning: SPOILERS ahead for Dexter: New Blood episode 6.
Dexter: New Blood’s Runaway Killer is one of the show’s most villainous characters yet, and is actually based on the true story of a notorious real-life serial killer. While Dexter Morgan will always be the series’ most important killer, the show has crafted some of the vilest murderers in TV history, many of which are based on real-life counterparts. Aside from New Blood’s menacing Runaway Killer, original Dexter serial killer, The Trinity Killer, was also based on a true story, pulling from the BTK Killer, Dennis Rader.
The Runaway Killer in New Blood, aka Kurt Caldwell, is a devious character that poses an incredible danger to Dexter due in large part to his friendship with Harrison. Kurt is responsible for dozens of missing women in Iron Lake, but has never been caught due to his wealth, popularity in town, and careful burial process. His M.O. consists of finding runaways—typically young women—who pass through Iron Lake in search of money and a place to stay. After bringing them back to his isolated cabin, he locks them in a secure room where he watches them via a security camera. After an undisclosed amount of time Kurt opens the door, letting them run out of the cabin and into the woods where he hunts them down with a rifle. Dexter: New Blood’s Runaway Killer then finds the body and uses medical supplies to clean, embalm, and cosmetically treat his victim.
As sickening as New Blood’s villain is, the Runaway killer is based on the true story of real-life Butcher Baker killer, aka Robert Hansen. The Butcher Baker operated out of the Anchorage, Alaska area from 1971 to 1983, a period in which he abducted, raped, and murdered at least 17 young women. Just like the Runaway Killer, Hansen would pick up sex workers or transient women and bring them back to his secluded cabin. After arriving, he would fly them to a remote area in the woods and let them run while he hunted them with a semi-automatic rifle and a knife. In Showtime’s official Dexter: New Blood Wrap-Up Podcast, writer Scott Reynolds confirmed that the secluded hunting aspect of Kurt Caldwell’s serial killer character is based on the true story of Robert Hansen.
Dexter: New Blood’s killer true story inspiration isn’t a direct one-for-one adaptation of real-life, however. The main differences between Kurt Caldwell and the Butcher Baker are the embalming rituals of the former and the sexual aspects of the latter. Hansen never embalmed his victims, but he did have an unsettling ritual in which he marked the locations of his victims with an “X” on a map. Conversely, New Blood’s Kurt Caldwell doesn’t have a sexual fixation on his victims, as most clearly demonstrated by when he became visibly and verbally repulsed after Chloe began taking her clothes off on the camera. Hansen, on the other hand, made sexual assault and violence part of his M.O., with law enforcement realizing his killing was partially due to his frequent rejection by women.
Dexter: New Blood has also seemingly drew inspiration for how one of the Runaway Killer’s victims has been discovered. In New Blood episode 6, Angela and Teddy search Iron Lake’s caves and find the body of Iris, her best friend who went missing decades ago, buried under a pile of rocks. One of Hansen’s real-life victims that led to his capture was similarly found buried under rocks in a gravel pit. Additionally, neither New Blood’s Kurt Caldwell nor the real-life Butcher Baker inspiration were considered serious suspects until more bodies were discovered. If Dexter: New Blood continues taking aspects of Hansen’s case for Kurt, it’s possible the former’s capture will shed light on the Runaway Killer’s fate.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/dexter-new-blood-runaway-killer-true-story-butcher-baker/