Paper Hearts

"Paper Hearts "is the tenth episode of the fourth season of the X – Files television series. The episode belongs to the "monster of the week" type and is not related to the main "mythology" of the series."

Mulder dreams of a red laser beam that leads him to a park in Manassas, Virginia, where the body of a little girl is buried. After waking up, Mulder goes to this place and finds there the skeleton of a girl, on the chest of which a piece in the shape of a heart is cut out of the dress. This detail allows us to determine that the murder was committed by John Lee Roche, who killed thirteen girls in the 1980s and cut a heart out of the clothes of each of his victims. While working in the violent crimes unit, Mulder worked on the Roche case and managed to catch the maniac, figuring out that he was a salesman and often traveled around the country. Although the hearts carved by Roche were not found, he confessed to thirteen murders and was sentenced to life in prison.

After conducting research, Scully finds out that the girl was killed in 1975-a few years before Roche, according to the FBI, began to commit murders. Mulder and Scully track down Roche's old car, where they find a book with 16 hearts cut out of cloth. The agents go to the prison, where they interrogate Roche, trying to find out the identity of the unknown victims. That night, Mulder dreams that his sister was abducted, and that the abduction was not done by aliens, but by Roche.

The next day, Roche claims that he was in Martha's Vineyard when Mulder's sister was abducted in 1973 and sold Mulder's father a vacuum cleaner. Roche tries to tease Mulder by talking about his sister. Mulder breaks down and punches Roche in the face, which gets him in trouble with his superiors.

When Mulder arrives at his mother's house, he discovers the vacuum cleaner that Roche was talking about, and after convincing Skinner to let him and Scully continue working on the case, he gets information from Roche about the whereabouts of one of the unknown victims. The autopsy shows that it's not Samantha Mulder. Roche tells Mulder that the last heart belongs to Samantha, but he will only reveal her burial place if Mulder takes it to the scene of the kidnapping. Mulder, unbeknownst to his superiors, releases Roche from prison and goes with him to Martha's Vineyard, located in the suburbs of Boston. Arriving at Mulder's parents ' summer house, Roche tells the agent how he kidnapped Mulder's sister from here. Mulder exposes his lies, as this house was bought after Samantha was kidnapped. At night, Mulder saves Samantha from being kidnapped in a dream, but when he wakes up, he sees that Roche has escaped, taking his FBI agent badge, gun, and phone.

Using Mulder's documents, Roche kidnaps a girl he saw on a flight to Boston. While checking out Roche's old apartment in Boston, the agents find him and the girl in a nearby trolley cemetery. Sitting in an old trolley, Roche blackmails Mulder, saying that if he kills him, he will never know where his sister's body is. Roche demands to be released, threatening to kill the girl, but Mulder shoots him. The girl runs away screaming, and Mulder is left with the last heart made of cloth, never knowing whether it belongs to Samantha or not.

Agent Mulder has dreams, the contents of which help him in the investigation of an old case. In the course of the plot, it turns out that during the investigation, he was so immersed in the psychology of the criminal that they established a telepathic connection. As a result, they both see images from each other's memories.