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"Mature Content Warning!" |
| “ | I'll tell you one place we will be watching. If this documentary thing you're making ever gets to the theaters, he won't be able to help himself. He will see this movie as many times as he can. We'll keep an eye on as many screenings as we can, because he'll be there. | „ |
| ~ FBI Agent Leonard Schway regarding the Water Street Butcher. |
| “ | You know, to be perfectly honest, I don't think either of us are gonna want you alive for the things I'm going to do to you. | „ |
| ~ The Water Street Butcher speaking to his next victim. |
Edward Carver, better known as the Water Street Butcher, is the main antagonist of the 2007 horror film The Poughkeepsie Tapes. He is an unstable serial killer who records all his murders so that the police can witness all his crimes.
He was portrayed by Ben Messmer.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
- His first victim was an eight-year-old girl named Jennifer Gorman, whom he kidnapped, raped, and murdered.
- He tricked a couple, telling them that he needed to go to a gas station and then asking if they could take him. Frank and Jeanette, the couple, decided to take him, but in reality, the gas station was abandoned, which would prevent the presence of witnesses. Carver took advantage of this and knocked out Frank by hitting him over the head with a hammer, then suffocated Jeanette with a chemical until she lost consciousness. He then awakened her to reveal that he put her boyfriend's head in her stomach and then beheaded her.
- He killed the tenant of a house off-screen and lived in that house for ten years.
- He stalked and later kidnapped Cheryl Dempsey and also brutally murdered her boyfriend, Tim Surrey, castrating him, gutting him, and smashing his head.
- He tortured Cheryl both physically and psychologically, beating her, drowning her, changing her name to "Slave," forcing her to say that she was happy he murdered her parents and that now he is all she has, and forcing her to wear a mask. He also forced her to commit several of his murders.
- He went up to Cheryl's mother and mocked her just for fun.
- He was about to murder two girl scouts who were selling him cookies. The only reason he let them go was because of the noise in the closet, which forced Carver to let the two girls go. It was also revealed that Cheryl was used as a table just so Carver could degrade her even further.
- When his crimes began to come to light, Carver changed his Modus Operandi, murdering several prostitutes and then hiding their bodies in the river (earning him the nickname Water Street Butcher), incriminating Officer James Foley, as Foley spent most of his time patrolling alone and had a record of being with various prostitutes. As a result, Foley was sentenced to death and executed by lethal injection on September 9, 2001, two days before the attacks on the Twin Towers. Carver, after that, murdered several people and hid them in the river, which proved that Foley was innocent, but nobody cared due to the attacks of September 11.
- He hijacked a police car and then tricked an English woman into getting into the car. After revealing her identity, he pulled the woman out of the car, presumably raped her, and then tied her up in his basement, where he murdered her by stabbing her neck with needles.
- When the police finally raided his house, they found more than 800 tapes of him murdering people and mutilating their corpses, in addition to finding several bodies buried in his yard, revealing that he murdered at least 38 people and possibly even more, including a baby. They also found Cheryl Dempsey, still alive but so mentally damaged that she developed "stockholm syndrome," professing her love for Carver despite all the physical and mental torture he inflicted on her.
- He was indirectly responsible for the suicide of Cheryl, who went insane as a result of his abuse and thought she could not continue living without him.
- He unearthed and stole Cheryl's corpse, leaving a tape at the site.
- At the end of the movie, a woman was shown with her mouth gagged, while Carver told her he would let her live if she didn't blink. It is unknown if he actually killed her, although given his utterly sadistic nature, it is highly likely that he did. Even if he didn't, he would still most likely torture her out of sheer sadism.
- He never receives punishment for his actions and is still at large by the end of the movie, continuing to commit heinous crimes and murder people.
- While The Poughkeepsie Tapes is an exploitation film, the film has a message about how serial killer documentaries accomplish little more than feeding the attention they desire, and Carver's worst crimes are either shown relatively tamely or only mentioned, so they aren't played solely for shock value.
