The Puppet (played by Stuart Charno) was a serial killer with psychic abilities. His name was never given, but Clyde Bruckman and the Stupendous Yappi called him a "puppet" because both deduced that the killer believed himself to be a puppet, i.e. a man with no control over his life. According to himself, he suffered from recurring visions of the future, wherein he inexplicably killed seemingly random people. He eventually decided to follow through on his visions, going on a murder spree in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, targeting fortune tellers from whom he sought answers for his actions. A distinct part of his modus operandi was leaving the removed eyes and entrails of his victims to be found, in apparent reference to the ancient practice of anthropomancy, through which one seeks to predict the future by "reading" the intestines of deceased human beings.
1995 murders[]
On the evening of September 16, the Puppet kills his third victim, a palm reader named Madame Zelma, strangling her and piercing her eyes with her own crystal ball after she failed to "predict" her own death. Coincidentally, he had run into Clyde Bruckman, an actual psychic seer, shortly before the murder. Later, the Puppet strikes again when he had a sexual encounter with a doll collector/amateur tasseographer, later killing her and leaving the eyes and guts to be found in her room. The Puppet would be present when police secured the evicerated and enucleated bodies of Madame Zelma and the doll collector when they were found in a backalley and a nearby lake respectively.
Mulder, despite Scully's objections, enlisted Bruckman's assistance in the investigation, due to him having been aware of several details about the murder after finding Madame Zelma's corpse in the dumpster outside his apartment. He later describes a vision regarding the location of the tasseographer's body and leads the agents to a forest where the most recent victim Claude Dukenfield had been dumped. The Puppet sends a death threat to Bruckman's address, although again simply because he foresaw it in his mind, not even knowing to whom he is writing, leading to the FBI giving him a room at Le Dampino Hotel under police protection, unaware that it was where the Puppet was employed. Bruckman is able to receive one of the Puppet's visions, in which he kills Mulder by slitting his throat. Meanwhile, the killer was having a tarot reading with another fortune teller, who, unlike previous victims, impresses the Puppet with his predictions before he kills him when the reader uncovers the final card, the Death Tarot.
Aware of what fate had in store for him, Bruckman knowingly opens the door when the Puppet knocks on his door to deliver room service, only then recognizing Bruckman as his final destined target, the one who will actually provide him with answers, and, at knife-point, asks him for the reason why he kills. He flatly responds that it's simply because he's "a homicidal maniac". The Puppet ponders this and satisfied with the explanation, he is about to kill his last victim when he is interrupted by Bruckman himself, who says that he doesn't die yet. In that moment, the remaining guard, Detective Havez, having finished his smoke break, emerges from the bathroom. The Puppet rushes Havez before he can reach for his gun, allowing Bruckman to escape. The Puppet flees when the FBI agents return to arrest him and prepares to ambush Agent Mulder in the kitchen, as foretold by Bruckman. Remembering this, however, Mulder is ready and fights back, much to the Puppet's confusion. He does manage to gain the upper hand after a struggle, only to be shot by Agent Scully. (TXF: "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose")
Trivia[]
- Yappi's vague description of the Puppet was that of "a white male, age seventeen to thirty-four, with or without a beard, maybe a tattoo... who's impotent".