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| “ | Seeing her, I heard the revelations. Arrayed in scarlet, decked in gold and stones, offering abominations of filth, of fornications. But I will save her. I'll save them all. | „ |
| ~ Paul Devildis revealing his planned murder spree in prayer. |
Paul Devildis is the main antagonist of the Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "Family Values". He is a serial killer who murders people who offend his ultraconservative religious views, including members of his own family.
He was portrayed by David Harbour, who also portrayed District Attorney Frank Scanlon in The Green Hornet, Gregg Beam in Quantum of Solace, Jay Carlin in Law & Order, Terry Jessup in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Ray in A Walk Among the Tombstones.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Devildis is a family man and a devout Christian who follows a conservative fundamentalist reading of his faith.
Five months prior to the events of the episode, he lost his job as a banker at Chautaqua Savings after managing several bad subprime loans. He was too ashamed to tell his wife Mary or teenage daughter Katherine, believing that he had failed as a provider and as a Christian. He pretended to go to work every day, all the while descending into despair and violent religious fanaticism. He came to believe that God was testing him in order to reveal his true purpose - to "cleanse" the world of sin by any means necessary, including murder. He became fixated on the idea of "saving" his family from a sinful world by killing them and sending them to Heaven, and was tormented by increasingly incestuous feelings for Katherine, who was beginning to blossom into womanhood.
"Family Values"[]
While watching Katherine play Roxanne in her school's production of Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, Devildis becomes agitated at the sight of his daughter in a low-cut dress and has to go outside. In his car, he begins praying fervently, telling God that he has seen a "revelation" and that he must "save" his family.
Devildes kills Mary's sister Millie Stegeman, whom he has always considered "immodest", by crushing her skull with a hammer, and then he kills her husband Joe in the same manner. Before leaving, he covers Millie's chest with a towel. He and Mary then go to the police to identify the bodies, and he is visibly disturbed when Mary reveals that Millie was pregnant.
A few days later, he confronts Katherine's drama teacher, Vilma, at her office about her plans to cast Katherine in a production of Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth, which he disapproves of because of Williams' homosexuality; he also objects to Vilma, a lesbian, teaching his child. Devildis crushes her skull with the same hammer he used to kill Millie and Joe, which he throws into a nearby dumpster. He then builds a pipe bomb and sends it to his former boss, Ray Balger, who is killed when it explodes.
Balger's assistant, who survived the bombing, tells Detectives Robert Goren and Alexandra Eames of the NYPD's Major Case Squad that Devildis had called the branch saying he was going to send them his restructuring plan. That information, in addition to Devildis' circumstantial ties to the murders of Millie, Joe, and Vilma, and his rattled reaction to Goren asking him about his religious objection to Katherine studying to be an actress, makes him their prime suspect. They go with a SWAT team to Devildis' house, where they discover that he has killed Mary and the family dog. Goren profiles Devildis as a "family annihilator" who believes he is "saving" his family by sending them to Heaven, while punishing those who would "corrupt" them.
After killing Mary, Devildis picks Katherine up from a sleepover and takes her to the family's cabin, intending to spend a few more hours of quality time with her before killing her and himself. When Katherine hears about Mary's murder on the radio, she realizes that her father killed her and runs from him for in terror. Devildis subdues her and promises to save her from becoming a "harlot", and to send them both to "God's kingdom" after "saving" his elderly mother from the pain of knowing what he has done. Katherine buys time by pretending to understand what he wants to do and making him promise to let her see her grandmother one last time.
Devildes calls his mother's nursing home pretending to be his late uncle, asking to pick her up at a nearby bus stop. The suspicious orderlies call the police, and Goren and Eames head to the nursing home to arrest Devildes. He shows up, alone, and they take him into custody. Goren and Eames find etchings that Katherine had made in the dirt when he father kidnapped her, and decide to use it to make Devildis reveal where he took her.
At the cabin, Goren confronts Devildis about the hypocrisy of killing innocents in God's name, and says that the voice he hears telling him to save Katherine is in fact his own voice telling him to destroy the object of a sexual desire he knows is wrong - a lust for his own daughter. Finally, Goren tells him about the etchings Katherine had left to reveal her location, her way of praying to God to be spared; he tells Devildis that God stayed his hand just as he prevented Abraham from killing Isaac. Devildis sees this as proof that God wants Katherine to live, and he laments that he has "served evil". Goren replies that he can still redeem himself by revealing Katherine's location. Devildes leads Goren and Eames to a nearby cemetery, where he had left Katherine alive, tied to a tree. He is then imprisoned for life.
External links[]
- Paul Devildis on the Law & Order Wiki
