X-Files Wiki
Register
Advertisement

Donald "Donnie" Addie Pfaster (played by Nick Chinlund) was a serial killer from Minneapolis, Minnesota. He initially seemed, by all outward appearances, an extraordinarily ordinary man, however, it soon became apparent that Donnie was a recluse and a "death fetishist".

In addition to his borderline necrophilia, Pfaster was also a trichophile and had a fascination with fingernails. He liked to collect the hair and nails from female dead bodies, particularly from blondes. He worked at a funeral home, and was fired when his fetish was discovered. Eventually, Donnie began to yearn for living prey, and started murdering women in the streets of Minneapolis.

At times, Pfaster's appearance was seen to shift visually, usually to something resembling a demon. His employer briefly saw his demonic silhouette while seeing Pfaster in the dark and when Scully was abducted by Pfaster, she witnessed him change appearance several times, including several human guises as well as his demonic form. In interviews, Chris Carter remarked that this was influenced by victims of serial killers recounting how their captors seemed to change shape during their encounters. Whether or not this shape shifting is reflective of Pfaster's true demonic nature or possibly either a paranormal or mutant ability of Pfaster's he unknowingly or willingly makes use of is open to debate.

History[]

Early life[]

Pfaster was born in 1967 in the Twin Cities, into a normal household, the youngest of five children and the only boy. Mulder theorizes that, despite his unremarkable upbringing, his pathology may have evolved as a result of a negative relationship to a female relative, likely his mother or his siblings. As an adult, he began working as an assistant mortician at Janelli-Heller funeral home in St. Paul and states that he took a course in cosmetology as part of his mortuary training. Pfaster attended evening classes in mythology and was majoring in comparative religions at a community college, claiming to be a "very religious" person. He had no prior criminal or psychiatric record.

Crime spree[]

In 1995, Pfaster was caught cutting off the hair of a recently deceased young woman named Jennifer by his boss and immediately lost his job for his vile behavior. Shortly after, he began taking up grave robbing, digging up a recently buried young woman, snipping off her hair with pinking shears and leaving the unearthed body at the cemetery, which led the MPD to call in an investigation by the FBI, due to distinct M.O. of the crime.

In the following three days, Pfaster exhumed two more graves, cutting off the hair of the first and taking the nails of the other with a pair of tweezers, before deciding to move on to a live kill to satisfy his escalating paraphilia, and picked up a working girl nicknamed Satin, offering her extra payment if she let him shampoo her hair while she took a bath in ice cold water. When she discovered that he had decorated his bedroom with mourning flowers and bereavement wreaths, she tried to flee, but with Pfaster having locked the door, she was stabbed to death. The corpse was dumped in an alley and even more desecrated than the previous one, having sheared her head completely bald and taking several of her fingers before leaving her to be found by authorities. It was later revealed that Pfaster had by then developed a taste for cannibalism, eating his "ladyfingers" with a side of peas and carrots. In-between the killings, Pfaster would use the trust of his delivery customers, who were primarily composed of families, to enter their houses and rifle through bathroom trash cans for hairlocks, which he would then smell and caress, apparently to keep himself gratified during his cooling-off phases.

Some nights later, he chose to go after a fellow co-ed, stalking her to a parking lot and attempted to prevent her from entering her car, but she fought back by kicking him in the groin and called the police, whereupon he was arrested on one count of assault. He was let go, however, when the woman agreed to dropping the charges if he regularly began visiting a psychologist, as neither she nor the officers connected him to the murder. During his short stay, he chatted up a man the police had arrested as a suspect for Pfaster's crimes, who gave him the name of one of the leading agents, Scully.

First Encounter with Dana Scully[]

Iresistible Scully

Dana Scully held captive by Donald Pfaster

Mulder and Scully became involved in the investigation, which proved to be very difficult for Scully due to her recent brush with death. Things became worse when Pfaster targeted Scully herself. Pfaster held Scully captive and defenseless as he prepares to perform his sadistic ritual. Once distracted, Scully manages to escape from her bonds and Pfaster chases her around the house while armed with Scully's firearm. When Pfaster was about to kill her, Mulder and the FBI saved her. Pfaster was convicted of five premeditated murders and sent to prison in Marion, Illinois to serve a life sentence without the possibility of parole. (TXF: "Irresistible")

Second Encounter with Dana Scully[]

Donald Pfaster Demon

Donald Pfaster in his demon form

In 2000, Pfaster escaped the penitentiary through the help of Robert Gailen Orison, a prison chaplain who thought it was his divine duty to release prisoners sentenced to life so that he could kill them himself. Orison possessed supernatural hypnotic powers, which he used to induce a mass hallucination in the prison workshop, which allowed Pfaster, the only one unaffected, to leave the facility unnoticed. Pfaster immediately planned resumed killing women in nearby Harrisburg, by which point Orison caught up to Pfaster as he was luring a woman called Blueberry at a diner by offering her a private manicure. Orison helps Pfaster flee a police patrol by hypnotising a patron into attacking a waitress, but as he chases after him, the reverend is run down by Pfaster as he drives off in Orison's car with Blueberry.

Taking Orison's identity and apartment, after murdering Blueberry, Pfaster hires a high-end escort with red hair, clearly as a substitute for Scully, whom he come to view as "the one that got away", which has led to his newfound preference for redheads. After her bath, Pfaster notices that the woman is wearing a wig and furiously tears it off, but the escort is able to fend off her attacker and knocks him out cold before running away to alert the authorities. When Pfaster comes to, Orison has returned after escaping hospital custody, and forces him to dig his own grave outside at gunpoint. Orison is killed by Pfaster when he, much to the reverend's shock, shapeshifts into a demonic being.

Donald Pfaster Scully

Donald Pfaster looks upon Dana Scully before she kills him

Pfaster made his way to Washington, D.C. where he found Scully in her apartment. After a struggle, Pfaster wins the upper hand, ties her up and prepares her a bath in preparation. Scully frees herself just as Mulder arrives at her apartment in time to save her, but Scully shoots Pfaster dead before there was a chance to arrest him. The incident was very traumatic for her, but she believed that what she had done was right. (TXF: "Orison")



Appearances[]

TXF:[]
Advertisement