Kill Room

Kill Room is a famous concept in the Showtime series DEXTER.

Multiple Kill Rooms are used throughout the series and, as their title indicates, they are places where Dexter Morgan murders his nefarious victims.

Design and Purpose[]

After targeting and vetting a victim, Dexter selects a place where he can carry out the kill. It might be in that person's home, garage, office, shop, road vehicle, or a vacant building. Most of the time, he chooses a setting that his target is familiar with. Dexter will prepare the “room” by enclosing it in sheets of plastic so that no traces of evidence will be found. He also tapes photos of his target’s victims on to a nearby wall as a reminder of the murders committed.

To subdue and capture his target, Dexter performs a sleeper hold or injects M99 tranquilizer into the neck. Both of these techniques cause his victim to quickly pass out. Dexter then undresses his victim and secures them to the top of a table (using shrink wrap, duct tape, or belts). Once the victim is awake, Dexter performs his kill ritual, which he finds “intoxicating.” First, he slices a cheek with a scalpel and draws a sample of blood with a syringe. A blood drop is placed between two blood slides and kept as a trophy. Before he performs the kill, Dexter spends time confronting and intimidating the victim. Dexter may open up about himself, knowing that his secrets will go no further.

To end life, Dexter typically stabs his victim in the heart, but he does step outside of his mainstream routine. This includes sawing out a neck, decapitation with a cleaver, slashing or stabbing a carotid artery, or even strangulation. After Dexter completes the kill, he usually dismembers the body and puts the parts inside several black trash bags. The victim’s possessions and plastic sheeting are stuffed into additional trash bags. Then, he carefully and thoroughly cleans up the area. Using his fishing boat, he disposes of the human remains in the Underwater Graveyard and, later, the Gulf Stream.

At times, Dexter has to improvise with methods and locations.

Related Pages[]

Notes[]

Dexter rarely ever uses the same Kill room location for more than one kill (not counting occasions when he's killed two people at the same time). The only known times he used a location for multiple kill rooms was when he used the Kill Room initially set up for Jimmy Sensio in his first attempt on Little Chino, and the Cabin in the Everglades, using it for both Santos Jimenez and Jose Garza.
Harry Morgan unexpectedly walked in on Dexter while he was dismembering Juan Ryness in a kill room. ("There's Something About Harry")
James Doakes witnessed Dexter kill Jose Garza through the plastic of the kill room when Dexter was holding him captive in the Cabin in the Everglades, as well as witnessing Dexter dismember Garza afterwards. ("There's Something About Harry")
Debra Morgan saw Dexter kill Travis Marshall on a "kill table" in a church. ("This is the Way the World Ends")
Maria LaGuerta found an empty, prepared kill room inside a shipping container, but Dexter had fled moments before. ("Do You See What I See?")
Just two people ever escaped from a kill room. Little Chino broke free and escaped but Dexter recaptured and killed him. ("It's Alive!" and "Waiting to Exhale") Anthony Moretti escaped but was hit and killed by a car while Dexter was chasing him. ("Fender Bender")
Dexter released six people from kill rooms (Jimmy Sensio, Robert Brunner, Hannah McKay, Joe Jensen, Hector Estrada, Zach Hamilton). He later killed Estrada.
Dexter once prepared a kill room for his father Harry to show him how he had learned from previous mistakes in restraining his victims. ("F is for Fuck-Up")
Dexter's kill room for Jonathan Farrow was more striking then usual due to the photography equipment owned by Farrow.
While Dexter is highly meticulous when it comes to planning his Kill Rooms, there have been several occasions where he has been forced to improvise with materials on hand. All of these improvised Kill Rooms came about due to the circumstances surrounding the murders and are listed below.
- Due to Boyd Fowler having tranquilized him in return when Dexter used M99 on him, he captured and improvised a kill room in Boyd's home. Boyd was restrained with duct tape instead of plastic, with the kitchen being covered in newspaper as an improvised way to catch any blood. Dexter was disappointed in having to improvise, as he was particularly proud of the Kill Room he had set up for Boyd.
- Since he had initially been captured by Jordan Chase, Dexter didn't have a Kill Room set up in advance for him. He and Lumen Pierce tied Jordan down to a table with straps and cables. No plastic was laid down, though the kill itself took place behind a sheet of plastic.
- The kill room for Ben and Roger was atypical due to the fact that Dexter didn't lay down any plastic wrap and he only chained them to gurneys inside their ambulance. As he killed them by using a defibrillator to stop their hearts, he may have had a different location that he prepared their bodies for disposal.
- The kill room for Viktor Baskov was atypical for a number of reasons. Due to having captured him at the airport, Dexter set him up on a table in the airport storage unit, strapping him down with bungee cords and other straps. The only plastic that was used was the plastic bag that Dexter placed over Viktor's head before he bludgeoned him to death with a fire extinguisher. Viktor's murder was also atypical as Dexter could not dismember the body and snuck it out of the airport to dispose of it by dumping it whole into the Gulf stream.
- When Dexter killed Ray Speltzer, he didn't lay any plastic down. He restrained Speltzer to the table leading into the crematorium with straps, with the crematorium also allowing him to dispose of Speltzer's body and any evidence by cremating the remains.
- When Dexter prepared his kill room for Matt Caldwell, he had to improvise some of the materials due to the fact it was an impulsive kill, as well as his first kill in almost a decade. The majority of the plastic wrap came from his green house, and as there wasn't enough to fully restrain Matt, he tied his wrists down with rope, noting that the knots couldn't be undone if Matt struggled. Dexter even noted that it was messy compared to his previous kill rooms, as he was out of practice due to the fact he hadn't killed in almost a decade.

Gallery[]

Videos[]

Dexter Season 5 The Kill Room