John Doggett/Career

Overview

Career

Relationships

Background Information

Credits

Childhood

On April 4, 1960, John Doggett was born in Democrat Hot Springs, Atlanta, Georgia. — (Within,  )

Doggett's birthdate of April 4, 1960 is taken from "Improbable", Democrat Hot Springs as his place of birth is taken from "Within" and Atlanta, Georgia as his birth place is taken from "This is Not Happening".

John and his friends did some things that he later thought were stupid, but neither he nor his friends realized that doing them was stupid at the time. — ()

Early career

John Doggett pictured with Bravo Company.

In 1977, John Doggett was recruited into the United States Marine Corps — (). There, he served with Bravo Company, whose members included Ryan Bracker, Roger Erickson and Shannon McMahon. Doggett was once photographed with other members of Bravo Company — (). He also met and served with Knowle Rohrer during this time — (). As part of his group, Doggett field-tested thermal imaging technology that could detect body heat through walls. The equipment weighed almost 90 lbs and had to be cooled with liquid nitrogen — (). Doggett was 19 years old and serving as a marine when he first saw a dead body. — ()

While he continued to serve as a Marine, Doggett worked in Lebanon as a member of the Multinational Peacekeeping Force from September 1, 1982 until October 30, 1983 — (). He witnessed soldiers being shot in the war who kept on fighting, holding their own insides in their hands — (). In his last year as a marine, Doggett was serving in the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit during the Lebanon barracks bombing. He was later tattooed on his left shoulder in recognition of his work during the incident — (). Later that year, Doggett left the US Marine Corps. — ()

From 1983 until 1986, he attended Syracuse University's Maxwell School Of Citizenship And Public Affairs and earned a joint Juris Doctor/Master of Public Administration degree. — ()

In 1987, Doggett began working in the New York City Police Department's Fugitive Division — (). During this time, he saw several bizarre things, including a man who had dropped five stories dust his head off and go back to work, as well as an old lady who had been shot point-blank in a Chinese restaurant pluck the bullet out of her egg foo yung — (). Doggett also saw the bodies of several victims who had been skinned alive - a method commonly used by Asian gangs — (). Additionally, he encountered a ring of thieves who used children for breaking and entering, such as squeezing through cracked windows. — ()

Doggett in 1989 working for the New York Police. Department.

By 1989, Doggett had been partnered with Duke Tomasick. — ()

In Pursuit of Bob Fassl

For several weeks in 1989, a series of murders committed by Robert Fassl was frequently reported in the front pages of local newspapers. One rainy night, Doggett and his partner Tomasick responded to a 911 call from neighbors hearing screaming coming from a house on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, New York. After traveling to the house, Doggett stood outside as Tomasick pounded on the front door. When there was no reply, Duke bust the door open and entered the building as Doggett remained behind him. Both officers had their guns drawn as they entered. They found Robert Fassl standing inside, making no attempt to escape. Duke instructed him not to move but, when he saw a man's body lying in a pool of blood on the floor, he ordered Fassl to face a nearby wall and told his partner, "Jonny, check the other rooms".

Doggett made his way into the kitchen, noticing the sound of blood squishing under his shoes as he walked, and saw two female bodies lying dead on the kitchen floor. In shock, he reported, "They're all dead", before exchanging a horrified glance with his partner, Duke. Doggett approached Bob Fassl, who had been handcuffed by Duke, and told the suspected killer, "Got you, got you, you bastard". Doggett was subsequently responsible for the arrest of Bob Fassl, who was suspected of killing seven people, including the mother, father and their teenage girl whose bodies had been found by Doggett and Tomasick. Doggett was aware of an enormous sense of relief when Fassl was finally caught. — ()

Doggett's role in the capture of Bob Fassl didn't hurt when he put in for detective, the rank he ultimately reached in the police force — (Within). However, he later left the New York City Police Department in 1995. — ()

FBI career

In 1995, Doggett graduated from the FBI Academy in Quantico and began work as an FBI Special Agent assigned to the Criminal Investigations Division. — ()

Task Force Leader

Doggett with members of his task force, looking down at "Mulder"'s fallen body from the edge of a cliff in Arizona.

In 2000, Doggett was the leader of a task force organised by FBI Deputy Director Alex Krycek with the sole purpose of searching for Fox Mulder, who had gone missing in Bellefleur, Oregon.

Shortly after the search began, Doggett took statements from Mulder's partner, Special Agent Dana Scully, and his superior officer, Assistant Director Walter Skinner. Doggett reported the statements to Kersh but omitted AD Skinner's claim of having watched Mulder being abducted by a UFO, believing that alien abduction was extremely unlikely and seeing no way in which that account could help find Mulder.

While working in his office, Doggett saw a file being slipped under his door by an unseen person. The file contained information about Gibson Andrew Praise, a child prodigy who Mulder and Scully had first investigated in 1997. Believing that Mulder might be searching for Gibson Praise, Doggett sent his task force to Arizona, where the boy had last been seen, and journeyed there himself, by way of helicopter. Scully and Skinner also joined the search for Gibson Praise, initially without Doggett's knowledge.

At one point, Doggett saw Mulder pull Gibson Praise toward the edge of a cliff — (). He was able to negotiate the boy's release and tried to take Mulder into custody but witnessed Mulder back off the cliff and later found that Mulder's body had disappeared from the bottom of the cliff while he had not been looking. Doggett was unable to accept Scully's explanation that "Mulder" had actually been an Alien Bounty Hunter who had been attempting to take Gibson Praise back to the same ship where the real Mulder was.

After watching an attacker seemingly identical to Scully crush another agent's throat before becoming unfindable, Doggett traveled with Agent Scully to MacLaren Regional Medical Center, where Skinner had taken Gibson Praise. In the hospital, Doggett found Skinner (who was lying unconscious with badly wounded eyes) and, later, Scully (lying injured in a room with Gibson Praise and a puddle of slimy green fluid).

Doggett ascertained that Scully and Skinner were hospitalized and requested special protections for Gibson Praise. At the FBI's headquarters, he submitted a report to Deputy Director Kersh that included accounts of his recent experiences. — ()

Investigating the X-Files

Shortly thereafter, Doggett was assigned to work with Agent Scully in the X-Files unit, although he remained determined to find Mulder — (). Prior to his new assignment, Doggett had seen some "seriously screwed up" violent crimes — (). He had also encountered a drugs courier and had worked a lot of homicides, arresting many killers who had almost always fit a profile. — (Patience,  )

Doggett's encounter with a drugs courier is evidenced by him telling Scully, "we've all seen this kind of thing before", referring to the possibility that a man who frequently visited India may have filled a "latex balloon with heroin" and swallowed it in order to illegally transport the drug. It is unclear whether Doggett was referring to a singular criminal or multiple lawbreakers, when he encountered them (i.e. if he was working in the New York City Police Department or the FBI) and how their behaviours were similar to his theoretical one.

Doggett remained in the X-Files office over a weekend and looked through every X-file in one of the cabinets in the office. He saw that virtually all the cases broke with a leap in logic, but he himself was resistant to taking leaps as, in his experience, they only got people killed. He suspected that his reluctance to take leaps was perhaps due to the fact he was possibly just "an old-fashioned cop".

During Doggett's first investigation of an X-File, a human bat leaps at him.

At the start of the first X-file case that Doggett investigated with Scully, he was disturbed to see images of two gnawed victims, believing the pictures to show perhaps more extreme violence than anything he had previously seen. Although he and Scully saw indications that the killer was probably either human or animal, Doggett later discovered a newspaper article reporting that a dangerous human bat had been caught in 1956, when the report had been published, and he made the leap of believing that the bat thing was responsible for the recent murders. At night, Doggett was attacked by the human bat while in a small boat on Slade River and, after managing to fight the creature off in a frenzy of water and wings, he lost consciousness in the river. Once he had returned to land and found Scully, he was again confronted by the human bat, which flew away, screaming, as Doggett protected his new FBI partner and shot at the bat thing.

Two weeks later, Doggett had recovered from his injuries and told Scully that he was confident he had killed or at least injured the human bat. She assured him he would have a desk in Mulder's X-Files office, since Doggett, before beginning his first X-file with Scully, had expected to be allocated an area of the office. He subsequently returned to studying the X-Files. — ()

In 2001, Doggett was investigating a sighting of Mulder in a Pennsylvania town. He met Sheriff Kurt Frey who described the case the previous spring, claimed he did not know that Mulder was in the area just before he disappeared. Doggett met with Marie Hangemuhl and her husband to get information, but found them reluctant. He then went to Mulder's apartment to feed the fish and look for anything related to what he had heard. He found a gun taped to the underside of his sink, and he determined that it was shot at something close, possibly matching the rounds fired at the Hangemuhls. Skinner quickly disbelieved his train of thought, thinking it was just a made up story to get his reputation back. Doggett insisted he was keeping information close, submitting his findings to Skinner instead of OPR. The two went back to Pennsylvania to meet Frey and show him the death certificate he signed that previous May. Doggett challenged him, saying that the body was found just the morning after Mulder's sighting when the rounds were fired. Frey denied the insinuations, but pointed them to the graveyard. The body, however, had just been dug up and, further, there were stones arranged on the grave as well.

The two went to Hangemuhls and found Paul. Doggett deduced that Mulder was actually protecting the Hangemuhls and fired at the creature. He left to see the woman and found a cave under her house. He found Marie and brought her home. Understanding that the creature was actually helping Marie, and that the sheriff knew about it, he went back to the woman. She confirmed it was helping them, and that Mulder wanted the creature to cure himself. However, the creature was suffering and Mulder had actually killed it to stop the suffering. Unbeknownst to him, it cannot be killed and now the town knows it is alive. Just then, Doggett saw the creature and tried to take it away, but was confronted by Frey and lethally shot. While the creature sneaked away from the commotion, the people buried Doggett's body. The creature later found Doggett's body and healed him. Doggett woke up in the cave to find the woman watching over the creature, now lying dead on the floor, having taken his death from him. — ()

Doggett was approached by a man, Duffy Haskell, who claimed doctors implanted an alien baby in his wife and then had her killed after the baby was delivered. He brought Scully to hear him, but she was not interested in the case, despite the similarity to her own past. When he got a call from James Parenti, the doctor, he assumed Scully was investigating, but she assured him that Parenti was indeed her own doctor. Later, Skinner and Scully met with him late at night to inform him she was taking a leave of absence. Doggett asked her why, and again he got a cryptic answer.

He went to an old friend, Knowle Rohrer, to get information, but also could not get a straight answer. He then became convinced wherever Scully and the woman she was with, Mary Hendershot, were in danger and convinced Skinner to tell him where they were. He then told Rohrer and asked him to get Scully and was relieved to see her Scully safe. However, Scully pressed him, saying he must have known they had been both deceived from the start in order to get Hendershot's baby. — ()