Unidentified Suspect

Known as
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 Gender
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 Voice Actor

**“***It's tonight's sacrifice...***”**
— **The suspect to himself while watching his latest inferno**

The **Unidentified Suspect**, also referred to as the **Riverside Ripper**, is the playable killer and unseen villain protagonist in *The Riverside Incident*.

## Description

### Appearance

According to a criminal sketch by Hudson authoritites, the Unidentified Suspect is an adult Caucasian male in his 30's with dark hair and a slight beard. The unsteady movement of the camera and the slow walking pace suggest that he has a limp or leg injury of some sort. His true physical appearance is unknown.

### Personality

At first glance, the Unidentified Suspect comes across as a stereotypical religious fanatic with an unending bloodlust, seemingly having the sole goal in life to appease some sort of dark deity, which he does with fervent, homicidal ardency. Beyond this clearly apparent motive, the express purpose of these acts, or more specifically, the use of the body parts he harvests from his victims during his spree, is unknown. Additionally, the suspect doesn't solely focused on his cultist pursuits, as one drawer inside his base is filled with various pieces of women's underwear, quite possibly stripped from his female victims out of plain sexual perversion. The fact that he stuck around to observe the fire he caused in spite of police presence might also be related to this deviant behavior, as his pyromaniac tendencies could very well serve to satisfy in paraphilic desires, something he seems to try to hide, given his repressed tone on tape and the recurring acts of overall incessant firestarting in what is framed as a Satanic campaign. This behavior may also point to him either seeking infamy from the reporting media or a desire to mock authorities by showing off his brazen acts, as seen by his needlessly dumping evidence in a public place after his last known murder.

### History

No background is provided for this man; even his actual name is unknown. It is revealed throughout the course of the game that he is a self-styled dark occultist, likely of a Satanist branch, responsible for many murders, kidnappings and arsons in the American Midwest, with known incidents taking place in eastern Minnesota and northern Wisconsin, always carried out under the guise of night. His modus operandi consists of stalking the dwelling of his victims, which have almost exclusively been suburban detached houses with one or more occupants, some hours before breaking and entering, managing to get the jump on the people inside through unknown means. Then, the suspect proceeds to either torture them or mutilate their bodies post-mortem in implicitly satanic rituals, methods usually including dismemberment, bone fracturing, flaying and eviceration, through use of a bladed instrument, presumably a machete, one of the tools later seen in his arsenal. Occasionally, he will keep one or more of the removed body parts or organs for unspecified purposes and once finished, he would set the crime scene ablaze, allowing alerted passerby and the arriving fire department to discover the gruesome aftermath. In at least one instance, the suspect was known to have stayed behind to watch and record the fire on tape while first responders were on their way.

He appears to be based in one of the counties surrounding Dodge County, Minnesota, squatting inside Riverside State Hospital, an abandoned mental facility, where he stores equipment, such as blunt and edged weapons, fuel canisters, rope, tarps, a shovel (arranged in a box to be part of a kill kit), and canned food, and plans his attacks, as seen by a blackboard describing methods and instructions for extracting organs, such as the brain and heart, from cadavers. Inside the building, symbols associated with infernal cultism can be found written on walls, such as the number 666 and pentagrams, apparently made by the suspect to pledge his allegiance to malevolent forces.

It is implied through newspaper articles and several audio interviews found playing that he was formerly institutionalized at the very same asylum and had unspecified history with a fellow patient, one Amanda Thomas, a mentally disturbed woman with a split identity disorder, who was interviewed by Dr. Richard Eckhardt in 1976, recording her different states, which included a naive young girl with a fixation on her doll and a casual, yet cryptic Southern woman, all but Amanda herself, who the personalities refused to be questioned. Imbedded within her confusing ramblings were the occasional, yet nonetheless outrageous claims about devil-worshipping activity in the area, with her suicide later that year garnering widespread local attention. Dr. Eckhardt was booted from the staff soon after, following his own decline when he began to believe the late Amanda's statement and began obsessively researching on the topic.

A number of torn newspaper articles, apparently collected by the suspect as trophies, show a rough timeline of the suspect's most recent crimes, all taking place within the states of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Sometime before 1989, he massacred a family of five in Hastings during a series of home invasions in late October, dismembering their bodies and smearing most of the home in their own blood as part of a Satanic ritual. At some point after having crossed the state borders, he did the same to the family of Dr. van Houten in Hudson, this time taking the oldest child's arm with him. In Shakopee, he set a Ford Bronco on I-35 alight after abducting the vehicle's occupants, then brutally killed Dr. Eckhardt, a retired psychologist of Riverside State Hospital, in Mantorville, decapitating him and placing a black feather crown on the stump of his neck. Notably, the suspect went through the effort of burning many of Eckhardt's research papers before leaving. Another attack occurred in Stillwater, where he torched the rental home of Liza Sidney, killing her two roommates. Sidney, as well as Marvin Delaney and his girlfriend Megan Nelson, the Ford's passengers, were presumably taken alive to be used for ritualistic sacrifices or to have their organs removed, though their exact fate is ultimately never given.

## *The Riverside Incident*

### May 19th 1989

#### 6:24 PM

The Unidentified Suspect starts recording in the middle of a decrepit office of the empty Riverside State Hospital. He exits through a door into the redlight-bathed hallway, filming many more equally ruined rooms, including a kitchen, a common area, a bathroom and a couple of storage spaces before climbing a set of stairs to the next floor, entering a sterile medical room. Graffiti can be found on most walls, typically depicting crudely drawn pentacles or the number of the beast. At 6:30 PM, the first of many jumpcuts happens, in which a new part of the facility is entered.

#### 7:15 PM

The suspect appears in the patient accomodation wing, which, besides the expected half-empty bedrooms, strangely features a nursery with a number of cradles. A second area, seemingly the main treatment sector, reveal not only a looped recording of a counselling session, but also multiple claustrophobic exam rooms, each featuring a disturbingly medieval-looking restrainment chair. The suspect eventually makes his way to a recovery area, which appears to be the lived-in part of the hospital, being stocked with gas and fuel canisters, as well as an assortment of tools. As the suspect crosses a corridor, the tape cuts forwards, skipping over the course of approximately two hours.

#### 9:40 PM

The suspect is now in a different hallway and the previous silence is now replaced by the faint sound of indiscernible music from an unclear source. Many more rooms are traversed before a circle of lit candles is found inside one. By this point, static begins to both visually and audibly affect the footage, before the video completely breaks off.

### May 20th 1989

#### 11:30 PM

This time, the suspect has drastically changed his position and is on the outskirts of a forest in an unknown location. After taking a few steps, a modern luxury house becomes visible, lights turned on within, with the suspect seen heading for an open back entrance. From here on out, the filmed material cuts off repeatedly, returning to the suspect already inside the home, sneaking his way up the house to the top floor when another cut occurs right as he enters. The camera was seemingly dropped to the ground and is now recording on its side. The single frame shows a couch and, more harrowingly, splatters of blood covering the floor, all the while screams from a struggle can be heard in the background, presumably from the occupant as she tries to defend herself against the suspect.

#### 11:34 PM

The previous screams blend into the blaring sirens heard approaching from afar. The suspect is now stood atop a hill recording the house burning beneath. The person behind the camera, mute until this very moment, is now mumbling unintelligibly. Only the phrase, *"It's tonight's sacrifice"*, can be reasonably established.

### July 1991

Two years later, a group of hikers discovered a bin bag containing a VHS tape and some articles of clothing in Spring Forest state park. Said hikers turned the VHS tape to police. After viewing the footage, police released limited portions of the tape to the public in hopes of identifying the suspect. The status, whereabouts and fate of the suspect as of this date are unknown.

## Victims

* The van Houten family
	+ Dr. James van Houten (father)
	+ Janet van Houten (mother)
	+ Arnold van Houten (eldest child)
	+ Unnamed youngest child
* The Lawson family
	+ Darren Lawson (father)
	+ Janice Lawson (mother)
	+ Susan Lawson (child)
	+ Catherine Lawson (child)
	+ Benjamin Lawson (child)
* Marvin Delaney
* Megan Nelson
* John Valdez
* Caitlyn Nordstrom
* Liza Jemma Sidney
* Dr. Richard Eckhardt
* Unnamed woman

## Trivia

* The Unidentified Suspect and his crimes are based on the 1987-1988 Stockton arson case, in which two teenagers set fire to several unfinished buildings and nearby grassland in Stockton, California and the surrounding area. One of the youths, who was later institutionalized, infamously left a tape for police to find, on which he filmed himself observing a house he had set alight earlier while whispering in nonsensical, esoteric prattle directed at an apparently demonic figure named Omar. This exact scene is mirrored in the game's ending, even using some excerpts from the footage.
	+ The homicidal and burglary aspect of the Unidentified Suspect seems to have taken inspiration from Richard Ramírez, a serial killer who committed a series of deadly home invasions in California during the 70's and 80's, in which he would often extensively mutilate victims and leave his calling card by including Satanic elements in his murders, such as drawing pentagrams at the scene and/or forcing surviving victims to pledge their allegiance to Satan. Although Ramírez was vocal and consistent about his beliefs, criminologists generally agree that his pathology wasn't truly driven by Satanism, but primarily sexually motivated, given the predatory acts towards his female victims. The Satanic imagery was used more as both shock factor and as a flimsy excuse for his acts, a notion which is inferred to also apply to the Unidentified Suspect, who similarly gloats about his misdeeds and harbors some form of sexual deviancy, i.e. his implied pyrophilia and hidden undergarment fetish.
* Some fans falsely assume that there are two protagonists: one being an urban explorer and the other being the Unidentified Suspect, using the victim's camera after murdering him after the video cuts off before the night of the break-in. This seems unlikely, as the tapes appear to have been made by the same individual, seeing as both times, the camerman has a slow, limped gait.
* Due to his rituals involving human sacrifices, satanic inspiration and the sheer number of items in his hideout indicating that he may not be acting alone could imply that he is a member of CFV.
* The screams of his final victim are taken diectly from the Ruth Price 911 Call, a shock video featuring audio of the supposed 1980 murder of an elderly woman by an intruder, mirroring the exact scenario in-game. Though the call itself is authentic, Ruth Price was not killed in the actual attack, with the audio having been reused for emergency hotline training to showcase the mistakes the operator had made.
* One of his victim, Marvin Delaney, shares his name with a victim of the Night Shift Abductor. That Delaney, however, an Oklahoma college student working as a gas station clerk with no known relatives or friends, was kidnapped at work in his hometown, while the other Delaney was taken by the interstate near Shakopee, Minnesota, during his trip to Durand, Wisconsin, to visit his parents' home, accompanied by his girlfriend.
* His placeholder name is likely in reference to the generic FBI term "unknown suspect/subject", which is commonly used as profiler terminology on American crime shows, most prominently *Criminal Minds*. The purpose of this practice is to prevent descriptive nicknames given by the media from glorifying offenders, as many criminals thrive from the public attention they receive with their newfound notoriety. These sobriquets also give way for immortalizing them and potentially spawn fandoms surrounding them. In the worst case, this may encourage an active perpetrator into embracing this secondary persona and goad them into continuing or even escalating their crimes.
* "Riverside State Hospital" is the pseudonym of a real-life abandoned insane asylum in an undisclosed location in the United States.

## Documents

Driver's license of Liza Sidney, one of the latest victims.
## References

1. ↑ https://twitter.com/PuppetCombo/status/1245368025773203456
2. ↑ https://opacity.us/site12\_riverside\_state\_hospital.htm