10 Best 'Dexter' Kills, Ranked - Collider

It’s always best to leave the vigilante-style murdering to someone with a ‘Code’ that provides a series of checks and balances. Enter anti-hero Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), Miami's finest blood spatter analyst-cum-vigilante serial killer whose killing code was taught to him by his father, Harry (James Remar) to keep his Dark Passenger in check. The Code of Harry is simple: take out other murderers (and generally nasty people) who’ve managed to evade justice.

RELATED: All the Serial Killers of ‘Dexter’ Ranked, From Best to Bloodiest

Dexter – aka the “Bay Harbor Butcher” – was responsible for about 140 kills before he vowed to stop in the series finale (although eventually he returns to killing in Dexter: New Blood). Dexter’s kill count includes kills that stand out more than others because of the meaning they had for him personally. It’s time to pull back the plastic wrap and (forensically) examine Dexter Morgan’s most memorable murders.

10. Ken Olson (Season 2)

Ken Olson (Silas Weir Mitchell) was a Dexter wannabe and “Bay Harbor Butcher” copycat. After having an affair with his boss’s wife, he killed his boss and made it look like an accident. On a murderous roll, he tried to kill a petty burglar who had broken into his mother’s retirement home and sloppily staged it to look like the work of the Butcher.

If there’s one thing Dexter doesn’t take lightly it’s his method of killing. When Olson figures out that Dexter is the real “Bay Harbor Butcher,” Dexter is forced to kill him… but not before lecturing him on how to properly set up a kill room. Unlike his other kills, Dexter leaves Olson’s dismembered body for the police to find as a way of discouraging other copycats.

9. Miguel Prado (Season 3)

Image via Showtime

One of the three main antagonists in Season 3, Miguel Prado (Jimmy Smits) is Miami’s Assistant District Attorney (ADA) who crosses paths with Dexter after his brother, Oscar is murdered (by Dexter, albeit in self-defense). The two become close friends, bonding over the art of the kill. Things take a turn when Prado kills defense attorney Ellen Wolf (Anne Ramsay) alone and Dexter realizes he’s been manipulated from the beginning. After discovering Prado intends to kill Lt Maria LaGuerta (Luna Lauren Velez) Dexter intervenes.

RELATED: Gerard Butler to Star in Thriller Based on ‘Dexter’ Creator’s Book ‘Just Watch Me’

Strapped to Dexter’s kill table, Dexter upbraids Prado for operating without a Code. Resorting to strangulation instead of stabbing, Dexter leaves his partially skinned body in a public park to divert attention to the season’s other antagonist, “The Skinner” (Jesse Borrego).

8. Zoey Kruger (Season 4)

Policewoman Zoey Kruger (Christina Cox) murdered her husband and daughter, framing a dead drug dealer for the home invasion murder. When blood evidence taken from the crime scene doesn’t add up Dexter steps in and retrieves a piece of plastic glove with blood and gunshot residue on it. Case closed: Kruger had used her police-issue firearm to kill her family.

With Dexter on to her, Kruger breaks into his home to stage another home invasion but is subdued by Dexter, waking up on a kill table in her dead daughter’s bedroom. Before undertaking his kill ritual Dexter ensures, satisfyingly, that the last image Kruger sees is a photograph of her murdered family.

7. Lila West (Season 2)

Image via Showtime

When Dexter tells his girlfriend, Rita Bennett (Julie Benz) that he has an ‘addiction,’ she thinks he is addicted to heroin and sends him to a Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meeting. There he meets Lila West (Jaime Murray), who immediately takes a liking to Dexter and offers to be his sponsor. West’s obsession with Dexter increases, and she becomes more controlling. When Dexter halts her advances, Lila sets fire to her loft and sleeps with Lt Angel Batista (David Zayas), framing him for date rape. After being told by Sgt James Doakes (Erik King) that Dexter is the “Bay Harbor Butcher,” Lila kills Doakes out of twisted loyalty to Dexter.

RELATED:All Seasons of ‘Dexter’ Ranked From Worst to Best

Before Dexter can kill Lila she abducts Rita’s children, locking them inside her loft and setting it on fire (again). Narrowly escaping the fire, Dexter tracks Lila to Paris, France. Instead of using etorphine (M99) to sedate Lila, he gives her an epidural injection, so she can’t feel the literal knife to the heart that ends her life.

6. Dr Emmett Meridian (Season 1)

Dr Emmett Meridian (Tony Goldwyn) was a psychiatrist who manipulated rich women into committing suicide. When Dexter got wind of what Dr Meridian was up to, he scheduled an appointment with the good doctor under the alias Sean Ellis.

A few sessions with Meridian worked wonders for Dexter, who was struggling to be intimate with his partner, Rita (Benz). But by the fourth session – wherein a newly-confident Dexter confessed his penchant for serial killing – he confronted Meridian about his indirect murders before injecting him with M99 and setting up a kill room in the shrink’s office. Meridian was the first victim kept gagged during the kill, to prevent him from ‘psyching’ his way out of death. Ever the gentleman, before he murdered Meridian Dexter thanked him for helping to fix his intimacy issues.

5. Joe Walker (Season 6)

The murder of Joe Walker (John Brotherton) stands out as one of Dexter’s most darkly funny kills. Walker, a former high school quarterback, attended school with Dexter, dating and later marrying Dexter’s classmate, Janet McKellin (Alex Rose Wiesel).

Reunited with the “lab geek” at their 20th high school reunion, Walker’s upset that Dexter’s interesting line of work means he’s getting more attention. Dexter’s probing questions about Janet’s death elicit little grief from Walker who later confesses that he murdered Janet and faked her suicide to avoid an expensive divorce. Even when he’s fastened to Dexter’s kill table – fittingly fashioned from a scoreboard – Walker’s ego is on full display. When Dexter points to a tattoo of Jesus on Walker’s chest and asks, “What would Jesus have done?” Walker proclaims that he cannot be killed because “God is a mighty fortress.” Dexter quickly proves him wrong with a sledgehammer to the forehead.

4. Oliver Saxon (Season 8)

Dubbed “The Brain Surgeon” because he liked to scoop out a piece of brain from his victims, Oliver Saxon (Darri Ingolfsson) was a serial killer who moved to Miami after committing murders throughout Europe and North America. Turns out Oliver Saxon was really Daniel Vogel, the son of neuropsychiatrist Dr Evelyn Vogel (Charlotte Rampling) who was brought in to consult on “The Brain Surgeon” murders. Daniel/Oliver was born to kill: at 14 he drowned his younger brother and was sent to a psychiatric facility; at 17 he set fire to the facility, killing seven children. It was thought Daniel had died in the blaze when, in fact, he’d faked his own death and assumed the identity of Oliver Saxon.

RELATED: ‘Dexter: New Blood’ Becomes Most-Watched Showtime Series of All Time

After chasing Saxon for the entirety of Season 8, Dexter eventually catches up with him and prepares for his kill ritual. However, he is interrupted by his sister, Debra (Jennifer Carpenter), whom Saxon shoots. After Saxon’s arrest, Dexter visits him in prison and – avenging his sister’s shooting – stabs him in the carotid artery with a pen. Luckily for Dexter, the security footage shows he acted in self-defense (even though we know otherwise).

3. Arthur Mitchell (Season 4)

Showtime

Arthur Mitchell (a menacing John Lithgow) aka “The Trinity Killer” was a serial killer that had operated for at least 30 years and was being investigated by retired Special Agent Frank Lundy (Keith Carradine), who’d failed to capture the killer while he was working at the FBI.

CL Report

Dive into the world of entertainment with Collider, delivering the latest news, reviews, and exclusive updates from movies, TV, and pop culture Subscribe

CL Report

Dive into the world of entertainment with Collider, delivering the latest news, reviews, and exclusive updates from movies, TV, and pop culture Subscribe By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept Valnet’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime.

When Lundy tells Dexter he is hunting Trinity Dexter inserts himself into Mitchell’s seemingly perfect life, assuming the persona of Kyle Butler. But the longer Dexter shadows Mitchell the more he realizes they are alike in a lot of ways; both men were “born in blood.” When Trinity discovers Dexter’s true identity, Dexter decides it’s time to end him. Sabotaging Mitchell’s car, Dexter ambushes him. In a surprisingly tender moment, Dexter plays for Mitchell his sister Vera’s favorite song before smashing his skull with the claw side of a framing hammer. Although he had several opportunities to kill Mitchell throughout the season, he didn’t. In the end, he wished he had. Unbeknownst to Dexter, prior to killing Mitchell, Mitchell had murdered Dexter’s wife, Rita (Benz). Their child, Harrison is found in a pool of his mother’s blood in a scene that mirrors what happened to Dexter.

2. Santos Jimenez (Season 2)

Dexter was completely justified in killing drug dealer Santos Jiminez (Tony Amendola), the man responsible for the murder of Dexter’s biological mother Laura Moser (Katherine Kirkpatrick). Jiminez had discovered Laura was a snitch and was reporting to – and having an affair with – Harry Morgan (Remar). On the orders of his boss, Hector Estrada (Nestor Serrano), Jiminez murdered Laura using a chainsaw. He subsequently made turned state’s witness and was placed in the Witness Protection Program.

RELATED: ‘Dexter: New Blood’ Ending Explained

Urged by romantic interest Lila West (Murray) to confront his past, Dexter obtains a tape recording of his mother for Harry. With this revelation, he heads to Jiminez’s isolated cabin in the Everglades, lures him outside, sedates him and straps him to the kill table. Jiminez’s tactic of offering Dexter cocaine in exchange for his life fails. Exacting poetic justice, Dexter murders Jiminez in the same way Jiminez had murdered his mother: with a chainsaw.

1. Brian Moser (Season 1)

Image via Showtime

Simultaneously one of the best and the saddest kills in the series, Dexter was forced to take the life of his older brother, Brian Moser (Christian Camargo) to save the life of his adoptive sister, Debra (Carpenter). There was always (pardon the pun) bad blood between Dexter and his biological brother. Whereas Dexter was adopted by Harry Morgan, “Biney” was thrust into the foster care system and spent much of his youth in a psychiatric hospital having been diagnosed with – surprise, surprise – antisocial personality disorder.

While dismembering prostitutes and placing their severed body parts in refrigerated trucks as “The Ice Truck Killer,” Brian discovered he and Dexter shared a common bond: they were both serial killers. Dating Debra to get closer to Dexter, Brian attempts to kill her. Fiercely protective of his sister, Dexter wasn’t going to stand for that. Cue the fratricide! Dexter was so affected by killing the only person that accepted and truly understood him that in the Season 2 opener “It’s Alive!” he finds himself unable to kill again. Thankfully, it’s not long before he’s back to his old self as America’s favorite serial killer.

NEXT: 15 Shows Like ‘Dexter’ to Watch for more Cerebral Killers and Subversive Storytelling