Paul Spector

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Peter Paul Spector, also known as Peter Baldwin, is a fictional character and the main antagonist of the BBC TV series The Fall. He is portrayed by actor and model Jamie Dornan.

Paul Spector is a husband and a father working as a bereavement counsellor in his native Belfast. Despite the outward appearance of normality provided by his family life, the audience is made aware from the first episode that he is also a serial killer (nicknamed "The Belfast Strangler" by the media) who is attacking young, professional and sexually active women in the city.

Early Life

Spector was born in Belfast on May 25th, 1979, to Irish Catholic Mary Garrison. His biological father was British Army private John Paul Spector, born John Paul Marshall and adopted by a North London Jewish couple who gave him their surname. Mary Garrison later married a man named Peter Baldwin; Spector himself would be known by that name until his early twenties.

On his eighth birthday, after Baldwin had abandoned them, Spector learned from his mother who his biological father was. Ten days later, she commited suicide by hanging herself with a belt on the back of her bedroom door. After a period of two years in a foster home that appears to have been a stable and safe environment, he was transferred to the Gortnacul orphanage, where he stayed from the age of ten to thirteen. Gortnacul House was run by a priest named Fiachra Jensen who was later tried and convicted for pedophilia. Spector suffered horrific abuse as Jensen's "favorite" for an entire year. Shortly before being sent south to a Dundalk home, Spector was due to nominate his successor as the focus of Jensen's attentions, following Gortnacul tradition. Instead of choosing his friend David Alvarez (as Jensen ostensibly preferred), he chose another boy, thereby earning David's deepest gratitude from then onwards.

In his new Dundalk home, the less aggressive aspects of Spector's paraphiliae and criminal tendencies began manifesting: crossdressing, breaking and entering where he ignored valuables and only took underwear, journal entries of his activities, a voyeur's map of the town detailing days of the week, times of the day and night, places where women could be observed, notes about their appearance, age, habits, etcetera.

Spector completed a degree in Psychology, and studied Literature in Stranmillis. In the student union bar he met medical student Rose McGill, who temporarily broke up with boyfriend (and future husband) Tom Stagg to embark in a short and tempestuous affair with Spector. It is in this relationship that Spector had his first known experience with aggression via rough, dominant sex, even choking Rose to the brink of unconsciousness in their first encounter.

He left for London around 2002, landing a job as a waiter in a Caribbean restaurant. He reconnected with fellow Gortnacul inmate David Alvarez and they shared a flat in Brixton, which they used to engage in profuse recreational drug use. They picked up a young woman Susan Harper, who had sex with David while Spector watched and was later asphyxiated to death by Spector in David's absence. Alvarez believed Spector's version of a kinky game gone accidentally wrong. He took the blame for her death in gratitude for Spector's protection in Gortnacul a decade earlier, was coaxed by incompetent interrogators to confess to murder instead of simple manslaughter, and was sentenced to life in prison.

Spector adopted his final legal name and returned to Belfast, where he met neonatal nurse Sally-Ann Goodall. They married in 2004; their daughter Olivia was born shortly thereafter, followed a few years later by son Liam. Spector started working at a suicide helpline for some years, followed by his latest job as a bereavement counsellor.

Victims

Spector's true number of victims is unknown. It is also unclear whether Susan Harper was his first. Spector's diary contains references to specific women (their names marked as initials) whom he had been stalking during the apparent hiatus between Susan Harper and Fiona Gallagher, although it remains unclear to law enforcement who these women were, and how many were attacked, if at all.

Spector's first onscreen victim, university lecturer Fiona Gallagher, is murdered on December 10, 2011. She is followed in March 15th, 2012, by architect Alice Parker Monroe. The fact Alice was married to the scion of a prominent Belfast loyalist family lends publicity to the case and is the reason why Spector's future nemesis, DSU Stella Gibson, is brought in from London to investigate. On April 16th, 2012, Spector murders solicitor Sarah Kay and Gibson finally convinces her supervising officer, ACC Jim Burns, that a serial killer is on the loose, earning Spector the media sobriquet "Belfast Strangler" and Gibson a promotion to Senior Investigative Officer (SIO) and head of Operation Musicman.

Four days later, on April 20th, 2012, Spector tries to strangle Annie Brawley in her home. The stalking routine on Annie had not been planned with enough detail by Spector, and the assault is interrupted by her brother Joe Brawley. In the ensuing scuffle, Spector stabs Joe to death with a pair of decorative shears and leaves the scene in a hurry. Annie is left alive, but in critical condition. Spector barely escapes the police and drops the shears somewhere between Annie's district and the airport. His journey across districts is captured by CCTV cameras and allows the police to recover the shears from a pond, although the cameras fail to capture his facial features.

Investigation and capture

Forensic expert Reed Smith tells Gibson about her friend Rose Stagg (née McGill), who was nearly strangled to death by a sex partner during her college years. Further conversations with Rose about that short-lived relationship lead Gibson to believe it is the Belfast Strangler; an e-fit strongly resembling Spector is produced and sent to the media for publication.

Spector appears on CCTV footage of Sarah Kay's last recorded movements near the Botanic Gardens and is convinced by Sally-Ann to go to the police in order to eliminate himself from enquiries; fingerprints and DNA samples are taken during the interview. Before entering the police station, he asks Sally to lie for him in order to provide him with an alibi. When pressed for an explanation, Spector lies to Sally by saying he had been conducting an affair with their underage babysitter, Katie Benedetto. In reality, Katie's crush on Spector had been unrequited until then. In the ensuing marital turmoil, Spector and Sally decide to move to Scotland and give their marriage one more chance.

Shortly before leaving Belfast, Spector contacts Gibson, declares his intentions to abandon his criminal activities and taunts her with the impossibility of capturing or even identifying him. Gibson, however, makes it clear that it is only a matter of time before he is caught; she does this by revealing precise, nontrivial knowledge about him and his past. This, along with the e-fit circulated by newspapers, leads Spector straight to the only person who could have provided Gibson with this information--Rose Stagg. He returns to Belfast and abducts Rose from her home, films her ordeal in captivity and then bundles her into the boot of a car, leaving her to die of starvation in a forested area. Meanwhile, in his role as a counsellor, he supports the recovering Annie Brawley, who is still unaware of who he is.

A partial print on the scissors that killed Joe Brawley identifies Spector as a suspect, and Gibson recognizes him as the young man who inexplicably walked straight in her direction before the Kays' press conference. Sally Ann is unable to alibi her husband for the Brawley murder and directs them to Katie, whose reaction makes Stella suspicious.

Spector persuades Katie that he is not the murderer and that his wish to sabotage Stella's investigation was out of anger by her perceived aloofness. A smitten Katie agrees to help him. Spector breaks into Stella's hotel room and hides in the closet. By eavesdropping on a conversation between Gibson and Burns, Spector learns that the PSNI are onto him and know about his past in Gortnacul. Before leaving the hotel room, Spector finds and reads Stella's dream diary and writes a taunting coda on it, thus making the cat and mouse game far more personal than it had been before. Annie finally remembers Spector to be the man who stalked her and killed her brother.

The police enter Spector's house whilst he and his wife - now temporarily together - are out but find nothing and are forced to leave after staging an accident. Spector is suspicious and continues to groom Katie to assist him in his criminal coverup.

Jim Burns, who was the arresting officer at Gortnacul House years earlier, visits Father Jensen in prison and learns about Spector's earlier legal name (Peter Baldwin) and underage criminal history. The police arrest Spector after he has been involved in a confrontation with violent loyalist James Tyler, whose wife left him after Spector counselled her. Stella is horrified to find that Spector has made a video of Rose Stagg begging him to release her. With Spector in custody Stella locates his burnt-out car and the house where Rose was imprisoned but there is no sign of Rose herself. Stella gets Tom Anderson to interview Katie, who blithely brags about her sexual relationship with Spector whilst Sally Ann inadvertently provides evidence of her husband's guilt.

In their first meeting face to face, Spector is initially defiant and insolent but Stella breaks down his defences by taking things to a personal level and drawing on his past. He reciprocates by using his knowledge of Gibson's dream journal to taunt her with his interpretation of her emotional fixation with her deceased father. For reasons not entirely specified, he complements his narcissism with a full confession to the murders and reveals where he is holding Rose. The police take Spector to the forest where they find Rose still alive, but James Tyler has followed them and a shoot-out ensues, leaving Tyler dead and Spector and Anderson wounded.

Anderson, Spector and Rose are taken to the general hospital, where the doctors battle to save Spector's life. Gibson's shock turns to numbness as she panics at the prospect of Spector not surviving and justice not being delivered to the victims' families, and her reaction is mistaken by others as genuine concern for Spector's wellness. Rose demands to leave the hospital after discovering Spector is in a bed only a few feet away. Katie complicates her situation by attacking out her former friend, who spoke to the press about Spector, and is sentenced to a juvenile detention centre. Sally Ann secures one of Belfast's most well-known defence lawyers, Sean Healy, to plead Spector's case.

Spector regains consciousness and after interacting with his wife and daughter, it is apparent he is suffering from amnesia and does not remember anything after 2006. The remainder of his character arc in the series explores the degree to which his amnesia is believable, both to the other characters and to the audience. While Spector insists, in conversation with a psychiatrist and his lawyers, that he has no memory of any of his alleged crimes, Gibson and other police officers are firmly convinced of his malingering. Spector and his nurse, Kiera Sheridan, grow closer to each other.

Evidence from Spector's lock-up points to the possibility of at least nine additional stalking projects that may have materialized into murders, and Gibson instructs her team to identify the victims. Anderson complements this by looking into the list of Spector's fellow Gortnacul inmates in 1992 where he discovers David Alvarez who is currently serving life for the 2002 murder of Susan Harper in London.

The DPP wants to pursue charges against Sally Ann for aiding Spector. Desperate, Sally Ann feeds her children warm milk laced with sleeping drugs and with the children sleeping in the car, drives down to the beach. The car, nearly submerged in the high tide, is seen by a passerby just before it floats away. Sally Ann and the children are rescued and taken to hospital. The judge orders that Spector be transferred to a secure psychiatric facility to undergo evaluation to determine whether he is mentally fit for trial. Nurse Kiera bids him farewell by surreptitiously handing him a 20 pound note with the quote "He that loves not abides in death" from the Book of John; the reason for this act (as well as for the emotional intimacy she had developed with Spector, despite her physical resemblance to most of his victims) is left unexplained.

Anderson and Ferrington go to London to speak to the incarcerated David Alvarez, who recounts the horrific sexual abuse all boys experienced at Gortnacul. Alvarez also reveals the extent of Spector's abuse (contradicting earlier statements by Jensen and Spector), and the reasons for David's gratitude and willingness to take the rap for a crime years later. Later, in an interview with Spector and his lawyer, Anderson and Gibson press for information about Alvarez and Susan Harper. Convinced Alvarez is innocent and is protecting Spector, they announce that Spector is being charged with Harper's murder. Spector recounts the death of Susan Harper as a sex game gone wrong. Unimpressed, Gibson taunts Spector, telling him to grow up and stop feigning amnesia. The entire arc of her intervention, from keen interest in (and deep knowledge about) Spector to contemptuous indifference, apparently touches a nerve; faced with the impossibility of impressing, intimidating or outwitting Gibson, Spector unexpectedly and violently attacks her, leaving her severely battered. He also breaks Anderson's arm when the latter tries to intervene. Five security guards manage to restrain Spector and drag him out of the room, and Gibson and Anderson end up in the hospital.

After witnessing Spector's outburst, Burns has a nervous breakdown and is unable to hide his relapse into alcohol from his colleagues. Gibson visits Katie Benedetto in the juvenile detention facility, where she has been self-harming. She urges Katie not to ruin her life to impress Spector.

It becomes apparent to Spector that an insanity plea is now beyond reach. He persuades Mark Bailey, a fellow patient who had shown no remorse for raping and murdering his own 12-year-old sister, to create a distraction in the lounge. In the ensuing chaos, Spector beats up Dr. Larson and takes his belt. He uses it to strangle Bailey to death, before hanging himself on the back of the bathroom door with a plastic bag over his head and the belt, a reenactment of both his modus operandi and his mother's suicide. Gibson returns to her home in London. She hangs the 20 pound note left given to Paul by nurse Kiera on her refrigerator door.

References

This article "Paul Spector" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Paul Spector. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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