Is The Hunting Party's Couple-Obsessed Killer Roy Barber Based on a Real Murderer?
From couple killers to a murderous vigilante, these real-life killers share some chilling similarities with The Hunting Party's latest target, Roy Barber.
The Hunting Party's latest target had an obsession with love — and it led to some deadly consequences.
In the March 3 episode, Rebecca “Bex” Henderson (Melissa Roxburgh) and her team were on the heels of escaped serial killer Roy Barber (Leif Gantvoort), a man with a chilling reputation for targeting couples.
Roy, once a caricature artist turned police sketch artist, was linked to the murders of 16 people, leaving no trace behind of his victims beyond their blood-drenched vehicles. Over time, authorities in the series discovered the remains of some of his male victims in the Florida marshlands, but none of the female victims were ever recovered.
With Roy back on the loose in Episode 5 after an explosion at a secret government prison gave him an unexpected chance at freedom, the race was on to track down the dangerous killer before he could claim more victims.
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As Bex believed, Roy’s own violent childhood at the hands of his abusive father led him to become “absolutely fascinated by love,” choosing to indulge his sick obsession by targeting unsuspecting couples. But was his character based on any real-life murderers?
The fictional Roy Barber may not be based on any one killer, but he does share some disturbing similarities with some of history's most notorious serial killers. To find out how he measures up to some terrifying real-life counterparts, read on below:
Joseph DeAngelo, aka The Golden State Killer
Much like the fictional Roy, the elusive Golden State Killer — later identified as Joseph DeAngelo — also had a penchant for torturing couples. During his decades-long reign of terror in the 1970s and 1980s, it's believed DeAngelo raped more than 50 women and killed at least 13 people across 11 counties in California, according to The Los Angeles Times.
DeAngelo began his criminal career as a rapist with a unique hallmark to his crimes. In at least 29 instances, DeAngelo not only targeted the women but also tied up the men or boys at the victim’s home, forcing them to witness him sexually abusing their loved ones. In one such instance, Victor Hayes told The Los Angeles Times DeAngelo broke into the home he was sharing with his girlfriend, held the couple at gunpoint, tied Hayes up, and then placed a metal lid and salt shaker on his back. DeAngelo told Hayes that if he moved he’d “blow his f------ head off,” then proceeded to rape his girlfriend, frequently returning to Hayes to taunt him.
DeAngelo eventually graduated to murder after his control over the couples began to wane, and two of the couples escaped. Another man broke free and attacked him, the paper reported.
The similarities between DeAngelo and the fictional Roy don’t end there. While Roy used his role as a police sketch artist to get unprecedented access to those investigating the very same crimes he carried out, DeAngelo was once a police officer himself.
For decades, the identity of The Golden State Killer remained a mystery until the use of genetic genealogy led to DeAngelo’s arrest in 2018.
The Zodiac Killer
California’s infamous Zodiac Killer also mercilessly targeted unsuspecting couples. The killer — who has never been identified — terrorized the Bay area in the late 1960s and was formally linked to five murders, although some speculate that his actual number of victims could be much higher, according to Oxygen.com.
The killer was known to target couples in desolate or romantic areas. His first known victims were high school students Betty Lou Jensen and David Arthur Faraday. The couple had been on a date on Lake Herman Road, a remote area known as a Lover’s Lane of sorts, when the killer approached their vehicle and attacked them. They were found by a passing motorist outside Faraday’s station wagon with gunshot wounds. Both died in the attack, but some of The Zodiac Killers’ later victims, such as Michael Renault Mageau and Bryan Hartnell, would survive their injuries and live to tell a haunting tale.
The brazen killer was also known for taunting the public with cryptic letters and ciphers often sent to media outlets like The San Francisco Chronicle. To this day, his true identity remains a mystery.
Gary Heidnik
While reviewing Roy’s FBI profile on The Hunting Party, Bex described him as a “schizoid with full blown sociopathy,” or someone who had little to no interest in forming relationships with others.
That’s not unlike notorious killer Gary Heidnik, who, according to All That’s Interesting, was once diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder himself. Heidnik, once a charismatic church Bishop, was known to keep women chained up in a pit in his basement, where he could freely torture and abuse them. In one disturbing incident recounted by the media outlet, after one of his victims died, he allegedly chopped and ground up her body, mixed it with dog food, and then fed it to the other victims — although some have questioned that account.
Heidnik’s sadistic practice came to an end in 1987 after one of his victims, who he had enlisted to help him kidnap and torture other victims, escaped and called 911, the outlet reported. His home was raided, and the remainder of his surviving victims were freed from his basement lair.
Heidnik’s dark deeds would eventually serve as one of the inspirations for Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).
Pedro Rodrigues Filho
The mission to track down Roy took an unexpected twist when Bex realized the initial FBI profile had been wrong: Roy had never been attacking couples, instead he was secretly working with the women to kill their abusive husbands, in honor of his own mother, who’d lost her life at the hands of his father. The women were then able to disappear and begin a new life while he took the blame for the killings.
“I’m not a bad guy,” Roy insisted. “I’m a protector.”
His desire to target bad men is reminiscent of real-life serial killer Pedro Rodrigues Filho, a man once dubbed “Brazil’s biggest serial killer,” according to Le Monde. Filho claimed to be a vigilante, often targeting drug dealers, rapists, and other criminals.
Filho — who has drawn comparisons to the fictional serial killer Dexter Morgan in the Showtime hit Dexter — claimed to have killed at least 100 people. His list of victims even included his own abusive father, who he stabbed to death while visiting the man in prison, according to The Thought Catalog.
Filho spent 42 years behind bars for homicide, where his killings continued until he was ultimately released, Le Monde reported. He was shot to death in 2023.
Fortunately for The Hunting Party’s elite squad, Roy’s foray back into the world as a free man was short-lived, and he was taken back into custody by the episode’s end.
But he wasn’t the last escaped killer on the run. To find out who the team will be tracking next, watch The Hunting Party Mondays at 10/9c on NBC or available streaming on Peacock the next day.
