| Carl Matthews | |
|---|---|
 Matthews in full confession | |
| Vital Statistics | |
| Full Name | Carl Matthews |
| Gender | Male |
| Status | Incarcerated |
| Criminal Status | Serial Killer |
| Occupation | Security guard |
| Character Information | |
| Appearances | Disciple |
| Portrayed by | William Mapother |
Carl Matthews is a vicious, uncaring serial killer and a heavily implied proxy and accomplice of then at large serial killer Jerry "3XK" Tyson. Working as a security guard in New York, he used the job as a guise for his murders, at the very least all known ones sharing the same, consistent MO of steel fishing line noose hangings.
Matthews would confess later there were multiple murders never tied together in the investigation but extended to a prolific number of dead people. Two were conclusively tied to each other before the episode, in Florida, where two young women were hanged to death. But the NYPD would be dealt shockers when Pam Hodges and Daniel Santos, look-alikes to Lanie Parish and Javier Esposito, respectively, were murdered slowly in Matthews' fashion. He evaded suspicion because on his shift at night, Matthews "discovered" Hodges still suspended from the steel line.
The two dead doppelgängers to the NYPD personnel were uncanny matches to the detective and medical examiner, Pam wearing Lanie's clothes and perfume as well as having the same Chinese tattoo on her hip, and Daniel working from a voice sample of Esposito from police interviews to talk like him. Lanie remembers she was roofied at a club one night and woke up in her home seeming fine but not dressed the way she was when she went out, which is how her tattoo was found. Their surgeries were paid for and done at the office of Kelly Nieman, who took an uncomfortably close interest in Kate Beckett.
With no apparent motive that seems direct and in link with the case, Castle surmises something different: 3XK himself, a deadly adversary the NYPD could never catch and was always target by, survived a previous shooting and bridge drop into the New York waters, and is now back for revenge. The threat seems all the more terrifying when all evidence of his past serial killing cases are discovered checked out and stolen, fraudulently using Esposito's and Lanie's names to obtain them.
But the team finally catches a break when they find out Matthews is renting the room 3XK escaped from at the motel he was being housed in briefly, recognizing him as the "witness" to Hodges' murder. Staking him out back at the room, they find him, Castle breaking three of Matthews's ribs when furiously trying to demand Tyson's whereabouts. Matthews knows as well as they do they have mostly circumstantial evidence against him for the murders, despite the fishing line found in his backpack and forensically tied. But to their relief, he smugly gives and confesses to all four murders they found. Admitting there's more, Matthews insists on multiple blank confession forms to list his murders in official documentation. He gets wrong the offshore account used for Pam and Daniel, as well as the room he rented, but Matthews still denies working with Tyson and eagerly insists on his own full confessions he'll always remember even in prison, while contently forewarning the team that they don't have everything figured out. ("Disciple")
Victims[]
- Numerous unnamed victims (killed by unknown means for an unspecified extent of time)
- Florida: Two unnamed women (hanged with steel fishing line)
- Pam Hodges (the look-alike of Lanie Parish; hanged with fishing line)
- Daniel Santos (the look-alike of Javier Esposito; tortured to death by slowly hanging with fishing line)