Kevin Monk

Kevin Monk was a serial arsonist and serial killer who appeared in Ring of Fire.

Background
Kevin Monk grew up with a particularly violent childhood, with his parents battering and terrorizing him and his siblings. Their parents' preferred torture would be to lock the kids in the attic. At some point, Monk developed an unhealthy pyromania, setting multiple fires, harmless and dangerous; these instances destroyed the family boat and even left Monk with severe scars. Later on in his life, he left the house, but when his parents died and his sister sold the house, he snapped. His compulsion to destroy his childhood home overwhelmed him to the point of setting numerous fires to houses along Highway 65, two each in Atlanta and Nashville and one in St. Louis, destroying a room in each house beforehand and killing a total of four people in the fires.

Ring of Fire
Monk breaks into another home in St. Louis and knocks the elderly man inside unconscious, trashing the kitchen and starting the fire, killing the man when he tries to escape. He then sets two more fires in the other two cities before finally returning to his childhood house and drenching the front of it and himself with gasoline. He flicks his lighter just when the FBI and local police arrive and hold him at gunpoint; Waters, Malone, and Grant try to get him to not start the fire, all the while shouting at the family to get out of the house. Grant goes around back to help the family just as Monk lights himself on fire and breaks into the house. he and the family narrowing escape the house as it explodes, and Monk dies in the flames.

Modus Operandi
Monk targeted middle and upper class suburban houses, never carrying about its inhabitants. His signature would be vandalizing and trashing a different room in each house (living room, bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, etc.), going up the stories of the house to eventually reach the attic. He would then pour gasoline starting from outside and leading into everywhere he could in said room before starting the fire by lighting a dead rat. Anyone in the house would be killed by smoke inhalation and engulfed in the flames, except for the 70-year-old man in St Louis, who was incapacitated by blunt-force trauma but got up and tried to escape. When he returned to his childhood home, he poured gasoline on the front lawn and the front of the house before doing so on himself, afterwards lighting himself on fire and charging into the house to blow it up with the heat from the flames without considering the family inside.

Profile
White male, high school dropout, he could have a history of substance abuse, and he likes to watch his fires ignite. He has a lot of free time, so he doesn't have a job and may even be living off of disability. He travels by public transportation or in an old, inexpensive car. Pyromaniacs set fires for thrill, usually watching the fire in the crowd scene, but he's not a normal arsonist, and there's a lot of manic fury at the scenes. The rats may be a part of his ritual: the animal is considered sacred in certain cultures and are not usually victims of massive disasters, so he may feel indestructible, or he may just feel dirty and disgusting as rats are seen as pests commonly in modern day society.

Known Victims

 * Atlanta, Nashville, St Louis: Five house fires
 * Four unidentified victims (all died from smoke inhalation)
 * St Louis:
 * Unidentified 70-year-old man (knocked unconscious by blunt-force trauma pre-mortem; immolated)
 * Atlanta, Nashville:
 * Two victimless fires
 * His childhood home:
 * Unidentified family (attempted; all were rescued)
 * Unidentified father
 * Unidentified mother
 * Unidentified baby

Appearances

 * Ring of Fire

Trivia

 * Monk appears to share similarities to Paul Cox. Cox hated his parents and killed an innocent couple n his childhood home while drunk, forgetting the murders in an alcoholic blackout. After joining AA meetings, Cox confessed four years later as part of his recoverty, not being found for those four years due to his physical identification evidence not being registered in the system beforehand. Cox was arrested and convicted on manslaugter charges and senteced to prison time.