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Now, Betty, I have very important work to do. My ascension removes me from the disc and the loop. I'm near final stage. Some mornings, I can see the infernal plane.
~ Errol Childress
Do you wanna know what they did to me? What I will do to all the sons and daughters of man.
~ Errol Childress to Rustin Cohle.

Errol William Childress is the main antagonist of season one of the HBO series True Detective. He is a serial killer who rapes, tortures and murders women to perpetuate an old tradition having an arcane ritual passed down through the Tuttle cult which is his own family. After he murders Dora Lange in 1995, Childress is pursued by Louisiana Homicide Detectives Martin Hart and Rustin Cohle for the next 17 years.

He was portrayed by Glenn Fleshler, who also played Cordell Doemling in the TV series Hannibal, One of the Smileys in Manhunt, Timur in Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony, Goran Pazar in Barry, and Myron Gold in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Overview[]

Errol Childress was born in Louisiana into a cult that worshiped a demonic entity called Hastur, and whose rituals included child sexual abuse and human sacrifice. His father, Sheriff Ted Childress, trained him to rape, torture and murder women as "tribute" to the Yellow King, and made sure he was never arrested. When the elder Childress died, Errol preserved his body and talked to it as if Ted was still alive. It's implied that his father sexually abused them and gave him the scars on his face, and Errol is continuing his father's legacy by raping and torturing children while giving them drugs.

He commits his first known murder in 1995, killing a prostitute named Dora Lange and attaching antlers to her head post-mortem as part of his ritual. He then commits a long series of murders from 1995 to 2012, all the while pursued by Louisiana Police Department detectives Rust Cohle and Marty Hart. Though Cohle and Marty assumed that they got the killer by stopping Reggie and Dewall Ledoux, but Errol continued his killings.

Childress works as a simple groundskeeper, but is very intelligent and self-educated, with a vast knowledge of diverse subjects such as literature, science, and religion. He is involved in an incestuous relationship with his mentally handicapped half-sister, Alice.

Biography[]

Early Life[]

Sam Tuttle had an affair with an unnamed woman who gave birth to Ted, which would later be learned towards the end of the series. Ted would abuse his son Errol, and it's implied that he gave him the scars on his face, and trained him to kill, rape and torture women and children as sacrifices to the Yellow King. Becoming a follower of the Tuttle cult, Errol would become associated with Reggie and Dewall Ledoux, who were also followers of the cult and drug manufactures. Ted would use his position on the police force to have the case on Marie Fontenot closed.

Errol is self-educated and possesses extensive knowledge of literature such as "The King in Yellow" by Robert Chambers, as well as Ambrose Bierce, who coined the term "Carcosa" and created the character Hastur. At some point, he became the groundskeeper to Childress and Sons. He would often sexually abuse children and take pictures of them at the Shepard's Flock elementary school. During this time, Errol was hired to paint a home a shade of green, and a drop of the paint got on one of his ears. When he was chasing a girl, she identified him as the "Green-Eared Spaghetti Monster" due to the green paint on his ear and his scarred face.

At an unknown point during his murders, Errol would take the corpses of his victims and turn them into a makeshift altar of Hastur in the catacombs beside his family residence. He would go on to kill his father presumably due to his abuse, tying his father to a bed in a locked shed.

True Detective[]

1995[]

In 1995, Errol meets Dora Lange in the winter at a church revival tent and starts tormenting and sexually abusing her. Afterwards, Errol killed her and posed her corpse in a cane field with the assistance of Reggie. This would led to the LSPD detectives Martin Hart and Rustin Cohle to investigate into the murder, with Cohle noting that Dora wasn't the killer's first victim since the staging was too specific. Errol would continue his crimes, such as abusing young girls at Reggie's meth labs before they were killed. When Reggie was killed by Hart, Cohle assisted him in covering up the crime scene by making it appear that Reggie fired at them. The police department thought the case was resolved, but Errol was still out there committing his crimes.

2000s[]

During the 2000s, Errol continued to act as the groundskeeper of Billy Lee Tuttle's school and was briefly seen by Cohle who had returned to investigate the Yellow King case. After Hurricane Katrina hit the south hard in 2005, Errol continued to kidnap and murder many people without suspicion due to the chaos.

2012[]

In 2012, Errol killed another woman and posed her just like he did to Dora, which caused a stir that the Yellow King killer was still at large. While driving a lawnmower, he was greeted by detective Thomas Papania, who asked the location of the Son of Life church. After revealing that he knew about the place, Papania left as Errol stated that his family was in Louisiana for a long time. Cohle and Hart interrogate the late Sheriff Ted Childress' deputy, and finally learn the identity of the killer they've pursued for so long. They go to Childress' house and find him in his makeshift underground lair, where he has constructed an altar to the Yellow King made from the remains of his victims. Childress badly wounds both detectives, but Cohle shoots him dead just as he is about to kill Hart.

Quotes[]

My family's been here a long, long time.
~ Errol Childress on his family after speaking to Thomas Papania.
Yes, my dear. Top-notch walk this morning. Top-notch constitutional. It's been weeks since I left my mark...would that they had eyes to see.
~ Errol Childress to his half-sister, Alice.
Come on inside, little priest. To the right, little priest. Take the bride's path. This is Carcosa.
~ Errol Childress.
Take off your mask.
~ Errol to Rust, his last words.

Gallery[]

Trivia[]

  • Despite being the primary antagonist of the season, he only appears in three episodes.
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