Raymond Aloysius Pearce (played by Wade Andrew Williams) was a former salvage worker and U.S. veteran who committed several murders after being exposed to an experimental smart metal that was rapidly turning his body to metal alloy.
Ray Pearce served in the military during the Gulf War and became an alcoholic after being discharged, building up a minor record for drunk driving. In 1991, he turned his life around after meeting a woman named Nora, whom he married the same year. He went to rehab for substance abuse and eventually found work at Southside Salvage in Muncie, Indiana.
In 2001, a bioengineering company, Chamber Tecchnologies, illegally dumped an unmarked drum containing the metallized remains of former researcher Dr. David Clifton at the salvage yard. Dr. Clifton had been working on a groundbreaking smart metal with a genetic algorithm that was highly resistant to physical damage and would reshape itself after memory upon being indented. When Clifton became sick, unwilling to risk the firm's downfall, he wanted his superiors to keep quiet about his death and get rid of his body discreetly. Although the barrel was meant to be delivered to a designated disposal site, it ended up at a public scrapyard through a movement ordered by company accountant Owen Harris. Ray was accidentally contaminated, seemingly passing away after a short, painful illness, which Nora blamed on untreated Gulf War syndrome. Three days after his "death", however, it became apparent that Ray had somehow survived and sought vengeance on those he thought responsible. The smart metal had made him virtually immune towards damage, but was it was also converting him into metal, like Dr. Clifton before him.
Ray initially believed his former coworkers were involved in the illegal dumping of the toxic material and shortly after the funeral, Ray kills his workmate Curtis Delario by puncturing his head with his metal hand and leaves his body in a dumpster. He then targeted his boss Harry Odell, who had allowed the barrel's storage in spite of its obvious hazardous nature, who, after hearing about the authorities finding traces of Ray's DNA at Curtis' murder scene, attempted to kill Ray by shooting him with a shotgun when he ambushed Harry as he was shredding documents related to the shipping. This blew off Ray's now metal right forearm, but did not stop Ray from murdering him in the same fashion as Curtis.
Meanwhile, a volunteer at the halfway house he was staying, Larina Jackson, recognized Ray from his obituary and informed Nora of his presence, who, after seeing the pain and damage the metal had inflicted on him, tried to aid her husband in his revenge scheme by sneaking into police station and then supplying him with information from files related to Chamber Technologies in their archive. The next night, Ray attempted to kill Dr. Puvogel, Dr. Clifton's replacemen, in his office, but was captured after being locked in a closed chamber, though he would escape by punching a hole through the wall leading to the outside of the building and instead murdered Larina for notifying the police. Nora relented after being caught by FBI agents Scully and Doggett and being told of the murder of Larina, who was entirely uninvolved in his accident, agreeing to ask Ray to turn himself in without killing any more people. Ray, consumed by vengeance, forced his wife to tell him the name she found in the file under torture and tracked down Owen Harris in company of his wife and son. He prepares to execute Owen by crushing his jaw, but the man's family in fear, he realized that seeking someone to blame for the accident was wrong and that Owen was ultimately innocent. Ray spares him and to prevent himself from hurting anyone else, he committs suicide by activating the car press at his workplace and having it crush him in an act of repentance. (TXF: Salvage)
Trivia[]
- Ray Pearce's transformation into a "metal man" is openly inspired by the Japanese body horror movie Tetsuo: The Iron Man.