Ted Harris

Ted Harris is a traumatized, psychotic serial arsonist and serial killer who appears in Burnt Offerings in Profiler.

Background
Ted Harris maintained himself as a successful insurance broker as well as a staffed nurse at Atlanta General, working in the trauma units. He was happily married to a woman named Lydia and shared what assistance he could with people who needed it, including a nurse named Taylor who had serious medical problems. Ted assisted her in getting her insurance company to pay so she could keep her house up, which led her to see him as a flawless godsend and close friend who helped her significantly. But sadly, he was struck with trauma and loss when he lost his wife in a house fire, she having smoked in bed while he was away at work. With his life shattered, his mind soon went, making him hope for his wife so much he went into a severe psychosis he eventually directed into resurrecting his wife back to be together again with her. He was under a fantasy of a Persian god named Atar, the god of fire in said mythos, "wanting" him to find a "chosen one" to burn alive "to return his wife like the phoenix". With this religion-based insanity in his perspective, he sought out people in the hospital he worked in who survived near-death experiences or had their health severely endangered. He began a series of fires in their residences to see if they would live; if they died, he couldn't personally burn them alive under his delusions "to resurrect" his dead wife.

Burnt Offerings
After killing the Van Owen couple, Ted moves to the Culver mother and daughter, which he furiously rips the TV out over once seeing he failed again, Brittney Culver being in Chloe Waters' class. He then targets Evan McDice, but he and three of his frat brothers don't make it out of the frat house alive, leading him to shed a tear for Lydia onto Evan's photo. He then tries once more in setting the Putnam house on fire, and although the parents and son die, the intended victim, Claire Putnam, who survived frostbite on a ski trip, lives through the fire. He then illicitly checks Claire out of her room, lying that she's going or x-rays, to kidnap her and take her to his abandoned hideout. He continuously rants on how "Atar chose" her from her successful survival, before he releases the doves he never used as animal sacrifices to set them back out into the wild. When he fails to calm her and she screams once her gag's off, he prepares to throw her through a line of fire he ignites from gas pipes while she's tied to a wheelchair. Despite the FBI's failed attempts to talk him down, Ted's stalled long enough when he shoves Claire forward, John Grant catches her and saves her live. Even though he's finished, Ted refuses to surrender and walks into the flames he lit, successfully committing suicide to the horror and shock of the agents responding.

Modus Operandi
Harris targeted survivors of near-death experiences of life-endangering battles. He would break into their homes, or in one case a frat house, and he would set the scene with a live dove in a cage of sandelwood. He would then with that same gel spray paint the name of Atar, the Persian god of fire, on a wall of the basement to "evoke" him, before burning a photo of the intended victim and then lighting the graffiti on fire, which would incinerate the doves alive before spreading the fires through the buildings. He waited first in the basement, then left the house to watch the news, in hopes the intended victim wouldn't die in the fire. If they did, he would choose another victim to "test" with the same MO. If they lived from the fire, after the previous death experience, he would allege them "the chosen one" and abduct them to try and force them through a "wall of fire" under his highly wrong hopes of "resurrecting" his dead wife Lydia. He tried to do this once Claire Putnam survived her house's fire, but the FBI stopped him. He them stepped into the fire he set to kill himself and reunite with Lydia in the afterlife.

Known Victims

 * The Van Owen house fire
 * Albert Van Owen (the intended victim; lived after falling 10 stories from one of his architectural office buildings)
 * Gloria Van Owen (Albert's wife)
 * The Culver house fire
 * Mary Culver (the intended victim; survivor of breast cancer)
 * Brittney Culver (Mary's daughter)
 * The Theta Pi Sigma Frat House Fire
 * Evan McDice (the intended victim; barely hit by a truck while skateboarding)
 * Three Unidentified Frat Members
 * The Putnam House Fire
 * Jonathan Putnam (Claire's father)
 * Cathleen Putnam (Claire's mother)
 * Christopher Putnam (Claire's brother)
 * Claire Putnam (the intended victim; only living victim of frostbite on a skiing trip; survived the first fired, then kidnapped, restrained and gagged to a wheelchair, and attempted to burn alive a second time; was rescued)