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We're here to help find who your department couldn't, detective: the one helping Jigsaw and Amanda Young.
— Strahm tells Hoffman why he and Perez investigate the Jigsaw Case[src]

Special Agent Peter Strahm is a fictional character from the Saw franchise. He serves as the deuteragonist of Saw IV and the main protagonist of Saw V.

He was portrayed by Scott Patterson.

Biography[]

The Fire[]

Peter Strahm was a special agent working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Thereby, he worked together with his partner, Special Agent Lindsey Perez, for five years. At one point they investigated a severe case of arson. After having been hired by a drug dealer, an addict named Mallick Scott had burned down an apartment building and thereby killed eight people. While investigating the case, Strahm and Perez didn't only suspect Mallick, but four other people who were in some way involved in the fire: Brit Stevenson, vice president of the Marshford Group, a real estate company, who had hired the drug dealer who in return hired Mallick, Luba Gibbs, a city planner who approved Brit's application for planning consent on the property of the burned house, Ashley Kazon, a fire inspector who faked a report and made the fire seem like an accident and finally Charles Salomon, an investigative journalist who had gained knowledge of the arson but refused to publish the truth as he was bribed. Strahm and Perez planned to bring a charge against all five of them. However, when the only witness, who was in fact the drug dealer, suddenly vanished, the investigation was ceased. (Saw V, VI)

The Jigsaw Case[]

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Strahm at Kerry's crime scene

Some time later, the agents got involved in the serial killer case of John Kramer, better known as the Jigsaw Killer. While not directly investigating the case in attendance, they were regularly supplied with information by Detective Allison Kerry, their informant in the Metropolitan Police Department, which investigated the murders. At one point, Strahm and Perez received a key and a message, which they believed to be from Kerry. The message said "Open the door and you will find me." Additionally, they were warned that two officers might be in danger. This was their last message from her as Kerry was abducted and killed shortly afterwards by one of Jigsaw's traps. When she was found by her colleagues four days later, Strahm and Perez went to the crime scene in a basement area, where they were greeted by Detective Mark Hoffman, the leading investigator. They told him that Kerry was their informant and asked him if he knew something about the meaning of the words "Open the door and you will find me." However, Hoffman denied this. After that, he led the agents to the corpse of Detective Kerry. Upon doing so, Detective Fisk, who had arrived at the crime scene as well, informed him about a bullet shell clamped between the device and the body which Hoffman ordered to be examined for fingerprints. When Agent Perez found the open lock of the trap she quickly came to the conclusion that this wasn't a Jigsaw trap. However when Hoffman said it was probably a trap by Amanda Young, John Kramer's apprentice, Agent Strahm negated this as Kerry weighed approximately 130 pounds while Amanda Young weighed only 107 pounds according to her arrest report and therefore couldn't have placed Kerry in the trap on her own, leading to the conclusion that a third yet unknown person assisted her and John Kramer.

After the discovery of the crime scene, the agents went to the police station along with Hoffman, where they interrupted Officer Daniel Rigg, the leader of the SWAT team which had found Kerry. He was watching the old recordings of the interrogation of Jill Tuck, John Kramer's ex-wife, by Detective Hoffman, as he was sure that she knew something about John and therefore maybe also about the whereabouts of Detective Eric Matthews, who had been abducted six months earlier. Rigg tried to convince Hoffman to let him continue his work, but Hoffman ordered him to go home once more and take some time off, stating that it was unlikely to find Eric alive after he had been missing for six months. Albeit Rigg initially refused to do so, he ultimately gave in and left the office. When the agents asked him what his problem was, Hoffman replied that everyone connected to Rigg seemed to die, which was the reason for his obsession with finding Eric.

Perez and Strahm

Strahm and Perez at the police station

When they were alone, Strahm and Perez discussed the current situation and debated on whether they should tell Hoffman about Detective Kerry's last message, according to which two officers might be in danger. At this moment, Hoffman interrupted them and asked for their progress. On this occasion, Fisk came to him and informed him about the disappearance of a doctor, Lynn Denlon, from the Angel of Mercy Hospital. Upon hearing this, Hoffman told Fisk that he would take care of it. When Perez saw a cuddly toy in his arm, she asked him if it was for a girl or a boy. Hoffman said it was for a girl, leading Perez to the assumption he was married. However, he denied this and left the station. (Saw IV)

Daniel Rigg's Tests[]

PeterRiggApartment

Strahm finds the secret message

Later that day, a fingerprint from Officer Rigg was found on the bullet shell from Kerry's crime scene. When Detective Fisk informed the agents about this, a young cop told him about a reported shooting at 23 Park Place, the location of Rigg's apartment. Shortly afterwards, the agents entered the apartment with the assistance of a SWAT team led by Officer Lamanna. Upon doing so, they found the humiliated corpse of Brenda, a pimp, in the living room, and thereby found out that another game had begun, which focused on Officer Rigg and his obsession with saving everyone around him. Numerous photos on the walls revealed to them, that Eric Matthews, who was still alive, and Mark Hoffman, who was seemingly abducted as well, were part of the game, leading the agents to the conclusion that they were the two officers who were in danger according to Kerry. While Perez suspected that everything in the apartment had been arranged to throw suspicion on Rigg, Strahm stated that Rigg himself could've set up the game to give himself an alibi. He took a black light from one of the CSI forensics and thereby revealed a message written on the wall with fluorescent color. This message said: "Four walls build a home." Assuming that this was a reference to the photos on the walls, which showed the victims of Rigg's game, Strahm found one that didn't fit the others as it showed Jigsaw's ex-wife, Jill Tuck. Therefore, they decided to talk to her immediately.

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Jill is interrogated by Agent Strahm

Minutes later, they went to the Homeward Bound Clinic, a recovery clinic ran by Jill, and took her to one of the interrogation rooms at the police station. Back at the station, Strahm ordered Perez to turn off the room's fresh air supply before they began their interrogation. When Perez told her that they wanted to talk about her rather than John, she became irritated and told her to come to the point instead of wasting their time. Perez then left the room and Strahm took over the interrogation. He asked her if she knew about the meaning behind the words "Four walls build a home." When Jill asked him for the reason of his questions, he showed her the photos of her found in Rigg's apartment. However she still refused to answer. Therefore, Strahm asked her about the words "Cherish your life". When she answered that this was John's motto, Strahm showed her a flyer of her clinic with the same motto. To provoke her, he mockingly asked her how she felt when John used the motto of her clinic, where she wanted to help the drug addicts, to justify his crimes. However, she merely responded that she had nothing to do with the dark side of her ex-husband. In an attempt to put her under pressure and make her talk, Strahm told her that they suspected her as the accomplice of her ex-husband and intended to charge her if she didn't help them. Therefore, she became nervous and eventually agreed to tell them about John's workshop. As she told Strahm about her marriage with John and her devotion to him, he asked her why she had separated, to which she responded that it was actually him who ended their marriage. Thereby, the conversation fell upon Gideon, her unborn son. Jill revealed that she had been pregnant and that John had meticulously planned their son's birth. However, she lost the child when one of her patients, Cecil Adams, robbed the clinic and thereby accidentally slammed a doorknob in her stomach. Strahm initially didn't believe her story, but before he could go on and on, he was suddenly interrupted by Detective Fisk, who informed him that another crime scene had been found at the Alexander Motel. Therefore, Strahm went to the scene and ordered Fisk not to let Jill leave the police station.

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Strahm and Perez at the motel

When he and Perez arrived at the motel and entered room 261, they found the dismembered corpse of a man who had already been identified as Ivan Landsness, someone who had been acquitted of rape three times. Besides his corpse and the trap, which he could've only escaped by gouging out his own eyes, there were numerous photos of the battered victims of his sexual assaults. While investigating the scene, Officer Lamanna came in and informed them that the room had been rented by a lawyer named Art Blank, who had been reported missing two weeks earlier. Strahm ordered him to find out his address. While discussing the new situation with Perez, he stated that two of the victims from the photos in Rigg's apartment as well as every partner he ever worked with were dead. Furthermore, he pointed to a message written on the door which said "Feel as I feel", and reminded Perez of a similar message written on the wall of Rigg's apartment which said "See as I see". Thereby, he concluded that John Kramer tried to teach his lessons to Rigg and suspected that Rigg had been recruited by him. Moments later, Lamanna reentered the room and told them that Art Blank owned several properties, the last known address being only two blocks away. They went to the address and entered the basement. After securing the area, they found two labelled files left for them on a table. Written on the first one was the message "Open the door and you will find me", while the second message warned them: "You are in danger of getting to close... step back." Additionally, a security camera was mounted to the wall and filmed them. Strahm removed it, realizing that he and Perez were in fact Jigsaw's targets. (Saw IV)

Test[]

Later that night, they accompanied the SWAT team once more when they were called to an elementary school after someone had activated the fire alarm. When they entered the school, they soon found Morgan and Rex, who had been trapped there and whose bodies had been impaled by numerous metal spikes. While Rex had died from blood loss after Morgan had removed the spikes, his wife was still alive. Upon taking a look at his corpse and a chart saying "Your life is in her hands", Strahm concluded that Rex had no chance to begin with as all of his major arteries had been impaled. Even though Perez stated that Morgan had identified Rigg as her savior, Strahm still didn't believe that he was innocent. Perez then received a call and informed her partner that all victim's of Rigg's game had been represented by the same lawyer, Art Blank, who caused all of them to be acquitted despite the fact that they were guilty of their respective crimes. Furthermore, Art was the lawyer of Jill Tuck as well. Seconds later, one of the forensic investigators accidentally activated a device which shot a spike in Perez' direction. Strahm managed to pull her away but instead the spike pierced the head of a police photographer, while Lamanna and the other officers watched in horror.

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Strahm and Perez enter the office

Following this incident, they left the room and discussed where they could possibly find the location where Rigg's game would end. Perez then informed Strahm that Jill Tuck was a co-proprietor of the school they were in, leading to the conclusion that there were still hints left for them to find. The agents separated to search the building and reunited shortly afterwards when they reached the principal's office. Upon entering the room, they discovered Jigsaw's mechanical ventriloquist puppet, sitting on a chair in a circle of candles with a tape recorder hanging from its neck. When Perez started the tape, it told her that her partner would soon take the life of an innocent man and warned her that her next move would be critical. However, instead of listening to the warning, Perez leaned forward to the puppet as it started whispering incomprehensibly. A few seconds later, the puppet's face suddenly exploded, severely injuring her face and neck with shrapnel. As Strahm was taking her to safety, the puppet mockingly laughed at her before it gave up the ghost. Strahm yelled for help, causing the police forces to call an ambulance, which arrived shortly afterwards. While lying on gurney, Perez handed him the key, which had been sent to them by Detective Kerry, before she was finally taken to the Saint Eustace Hospital. Following this incident, Strahm left the school as well and returned to the police station.

JillStrahm

Strahm threatens Jill

Upon his return, he called Perez' mother to tell her what happened to her daughter. His anger caused him to riot in the office but calmed down when he found a newspaper article about the Urban Renewal Group, a group founded by John Kramer and Art Blank. Meanwhile Jill waited in the room alone and her nervousness increased greatly. When Agent Strahm eventually returned, he was furious because of what had happened to Perez. Therefore, he showed Jill an official bill of indictment with her name on it to further put her under pressure. He angrily yelled at her and asked her about the puppet, the tricycle and about John's partner before his transformation to Jigsaw. He had also found out that her lawyer, Art Blank, had been John's partner despite Jill's claim that he never had one. When she refused to answer, he drove her into a corner and showed her Perez' blood on his shirt, stating that more people could die within the next 15 minutes. Frightened by him, Jill eventually gave in and told him about a dispute between Art and John, John's emotional detachment from her after Gideon's death, his cancer diagnosis and his attempted suicide. Upon Strahm's question whether she had tried to contact John afterwards, she affirmed this and eventually told him about a conversation between her and John during which he had revealed to her that Cecil Adams had become his first victim. However, as he was still unsatisfied with these information, Strahm eventually left the room angrily. Thereby he took another look at the headline of the newspaper article about John and Art, "Four walls build a home", and saw the abandoned Gideon Meatpacking Plant, John's very first building, thereby realizing the connection between the building and John's son. Therefore, he returned to Jill once more. When he urged her to tell him where the building was, she finally gave him the address at 11235 Blake Drive.

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Strahm kills Jeff in self defense

Shortly afterwards, he arrived at the building and called the police for reinforcements. However, as they needed some more time to get to the building, he decided to go in alone and entered the plant through the delivery entrance. There he found a small empty box, which was in fact a part of Rigg's game. As he went on and progressed through a storage area, he found a key with a photo attached to it. Unknown to him, this photo showed the Denlon family, the family of Dr. Lynn Denlon who had been reported missing earlier that day. When he went on, loud noises suddenly attracted his attention. Upon following them, he reached a large hall which contained the new makeshift workshop of John Kramer. Thereby, he heard voices coming from the next room, followed by gunshots and eventually the sound of a buzzsaw. When he approached the door to the room, it suddenly slammed shut. He carefully examined it and looked for any hidden traps connected to the door. As he didn't find anything dangerous, he attempted to open the door, albeit unsuccessfully. However, he still had the key in his pocket which had been sent to him by Detective Kerry. Thereby, he realized the true meaning of the words "Open the door and you will find me." With the key, he was finally able to open the door and therefore entered the room. Upon doing so, he found Jeff Denlon, who had been forced to play one of Jigsaw's games on his own, and told him to show him his hands. Jeff however aimed the gun at him and demanded to tell him where his daughter was, as she had been abducted as well, which caused Strahm to shoot him in self-defense. After Jeff's death, he went further into the room and was horrified when he found the corpses of John Kramer, Amanda Young and Lynn Denlon. (Saw IV)

StrahmJigsawCorpse

Strahm listens to his tape

As he was too distracted, he didn't notice how Detective Hoffman, who was in fact the real, yet unknown accomplice of Jigsaw, entered the workshop only moments later and locked him up inside the room along with the corpses. Seconds later, the lights in the room were turned off. Strahm attempted to open the door. However this attempt remained a failure. Therefore he tried to call the police, but this attempt failed as well as he had no signal. While looking for another way out, he eventually noticed the outlines of a hidden door as they glowed green due to a special fluorescent color. Upon opening it, he discovered a hallway and a tape recorder hanging from the ceiling. The tape, recorded by John Kramer, told him to stay where he was until the police arrived. However, Strahm refused to do so, and entered the secret hallway behind the door, leaving the dead bodies behind him. Eventually, he reached a room at the end of the hallway. However, only moments after he went in, he was attacked by a disguised Hoffman, who had been waiting for him and injected him with an anesthetic. Moments later, Strahm passed out. Afterwards, Hoffman put him in another trap in the same room, which was designed to kill him by drowning him without giving him any chance to survive. Hoffman then took everything that Strahm had in his pockets and placed it on a barrel before him. However, upon doing so, he forgot to remove a single pen from his pockets. Not noticing his mistake, Hoffman left the room, expecting Strahm to die shortly afterwards. (Saw IV, V)

Headboxtrap

Strahm in the Water Cube

When Strahm woke up again, he immediately panicked when he realized that his head was trapped in a glass cube. Frightened by the situation, he screamed for help and tried to free himself. While looking around, he noticed two tubes inserted through the top of the cube, which were connected to two water tanks. Moments later, after searching his pockets for anything useful, he saw all of his possessions on a barrel before him. Therefore, he tried to escape the cube by brute force, when suddenly, the cube began to fill with water. Realizing the dangerousness of the situation, Strahm further panicked as the water level increased quickly. After a matter of seconds, the cube was filled entirely. However, at this moment, Strahm finally found his pen in his pocket. In a last desperate attempt to survive, he rammed the pen into his windpipe and removed the ball pen refill, successfully performing a tracheotomy on himself which enabled him to breath. Minutes later, he was found by the police and a team of paramedics, who saved him from the trap and took him to the same hospital as Lindsey Perez. (Saw V)

Lindsey Perez' "Death"[]

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Hoffman condoles on Perez' death

Shortly after his arrival, he learned that Perez succumbed to her injuries and that her last words had been "Detective Hoffman." Therefore, he went to her room. Mourning her death, he sat down at her bed. Eventually, Hoffman arrived after he had been informed about Perez' death. He condoled with Strahm on the death of his partner. Strahm however reacted angrily and told him that her last words had been "Detective Hoffman", which further fueled his suspicion towards him. Therefore he confronted him with the events at the Gideon Plant, stating that he didn't believe Hoffman's story according to which he had escaped when his arm straps broke. Irritated by Strahm's accusations, Hoffman angrily left the hospital.

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Strahm talks to Erickson

Later, after he had returned to his own room, Strahm was visited by his supervisor, Special Agent Dan Erickson. Erickson criticized him for going to the Gideon Plant without waiting for the reinforcements. Nonetheless, Strahm told him that he wanted to interrogate Jill Tuck one more time. Erickson however dismissed his request and informed him that over a dozen dead victims had been found at the plant, including Detective Eric Matthews and Officer Rigg. Strahm tried to defend himself by claiming that many lives had been saved by him as Jigsaw was dead. Erickson however told him that he was off the case on his orders and eventually left the hospital. (Saw V)

Further Investigation[]

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Strahm in the FBI lab

Following his discharge, Strahm decided to continue his investigation on his own and released himself from the hospital. After that, he went to the local FBI headquarters. Unnoticed by Erickson, he entered the research lab and used one of the computers to search for Hoffman in the international criminal database. However, this remained unsuccessful as there were no criminal records of him. After that, Strahm went to the room where the FBI's files were kept and examined the files of potential Jigsaw victims. Thereby, he noticed that Detective Hoffman had participated in every investigation related to Jigsaw after a man named Seth Baxter had been found dead. Strahm returned to the computer and locked up Seth Baxter. Upon doing so, he found out that he had killed his girlfriend, Angelina Acomb, who was in fact Hoffman's sister, during a domestic dispute. However, due to a technicality he was released from prison after five years, despite having been sentenced to life in prison, before he was found dead in a trap the next month. With these new information, Strahm took Seth's file, left the lab and thereby crossed Erickson's path. When the latter asked him what he was doing here, Strahm claimed that he followed Erickson's orders to take some time off and only wanted to get some things from his office. Despite his suspicious behavior, Erickson let him go.

Peter Strahm in Saw V

Strahm arrives at the crime scene

Shortly afterwards, Strahm went to the crime scene where Seth Baxter had been found shortly after the beginning of the Jigsaw murders. Thereby, he briefly examined the metal table to which Seth had been strapped. During his investigation, he noticed a door to the next room as well as a peephole in the door's window. Upon looking through it on his own, he realized that from this position, Seth's killer had been able to look directly at his face at the moment of his death. Therefore, he concluded that Hoffman had killed Seth and had arranged everything so it looked like another murder committed by Jigsaw. Following this discovery, Strahm left the crime scene and returned to the FBI's research lab once more. After his arrival, he took a look at the file of Paul Leahy, the first victim after Seth Baxter, and suspected that this had been the first time that John and Hoffman had worked together. Therefore, he left the headquarters again and took all the files with him this time. Unknown to him, Erickson noticed his presence. However, he was able to leave the building before his supervisor caught up with him.

Strahm then went to a basement where Paul Leahy's corpse had been found, approximately three weeks after bleeding to death in a cage full of razor wire. While searching the area, Strahm entered the next room and turned on the lights, thereby noticing another peephole in the door which had been used to observe Paul's game and his eventual demise. As he thought about the connection between Hoffman and Jigsaw, he came to the conclusion that he had assisted him in many other ways than just abducting the victims, and suspected that he had provided Jigsaw with files of former convicts, as it was easy for him to obtain those due to his work as a detective.

In his attempt to reconstruct Hoffman's development as John Kramer's accomplice and eventual successor, he went back to the room at the Gideon Meatpacking Plant where John had been killed. The circumstance that nobody but Hoffman and he himself survived the events at the plant as well as the fact that he wasn't supposed to escape from his own trap, finally led him to the conclusion that Hoffman had planned long before that no one who could endanger his identity would survive. Furious and angry, Strahm swore to himself that he would stop him and finally put an end to the games.

Peter Strahm (Crow-S1)

Strahm in the Nerve Gas House

After his brief revisit of the plant, Strahm went to the police station and observed the entrance from his car. When Hoffman eventually left the building and drove away, Strahm pursued him unobtrusively. Unknown to him, Hoffman had noticed him and in fact wanted him to follow him. Eventually, Hoffman stopped his car and entered a building. Shortly afterwards, Strahm followed him. This building was actually the Nerve Gas House which had been used for another one of Jigsaw's games about six months earlier, which had resulted in the disappearance of Eric Matthews. While carefully making his way through the house, Strahm eventually found a trapdoor on the floor in one of the rooms, which led him down to an underground tunnel network. In the tunnels, Strahm stumbled upon a blood trail on the ground left by Eric Matthews when he had tried to escape his imprisonment in a dilapidated bathroom. He traced it to the closed door of the bathroom but decided not to open it, as he was trying to find Hoffman. (Saw V)

Death[]

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Strahm is trapped in the Crushing Room

Shortly afterwards, he found a room with a large glass coffin in its center. The coffin was filled with broken glass shards, as well as a tape recorder. Strahm grabbed it and played the message left for him by Hoffman, but stopped when he heard Hoffman's steps behind him. He quickly went into hiding behind the door and waited for the detective. When Hoffman arrived and entered the room, he found the tape lying on the floor, and Strahm calmly approached him from behind while holding him at gun point. However, Hoffman saw a reflection of Strahm in the coffin glass and so thwarted his surprise attack. The two men engaged in a fight and eventually Strahm managed to lock Hoffman inside the coffin. Seconds later, the door to the room closed, and Strahm furiously demanded Hoffman to tell him how to open it, but Hoffman just calmly pointed at the tape. When the agent listened to the second half of the tape, the coffin was slowly lowered down into a hollow space in the floor, while the walls of the room started to move towards each other. Strahm desperately tried to find a way out and angrily yelled at Hoffman. However, he was eventually crushed to death by the walls, while Hoffman averted his gaze in disgust. (Saw V)

Post-Mortem[]

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Strahm's corpse

Moments later, Hoffman was transported to another room nearby where he was able to open and leave the coffin. He returned to the hallway and used a switch which caused the walls that killed Strahm to return to their original position. Upon reentering the room, he saw Strahm's mutilated corpse which was still clinging to a grate at the ceiling with one hand. When he approached it, it fell down to the floor. However Hoffman realized that the now severed hand, which still clung to the grate, was almost unharmed. Therefore he removed it by using pliers and took it with him in order to use it to place Strahm's fingerprints on his future crime scenes.

Strahm's Fingerprints VI

Hoffman leaves Strahm's fingerprints on Eddie's corpse

Feeling safe now, Hoffman continued the games undaunted. His next two victims were Simone and Eddie, two ruthless money lenders who had ruined the economic existence of numerous people by granting them high credits even though they knew that these people couldn't pay them back. Therefore, he set up a game for them in a factory and abducted them. Each one of them had a vicious device put on their heads which would pierce their skulls with drills after a timer of 60 seconds went off. The only way to survive was to cut off their own flesh and put it on a scale in the middle of the room. Only the person who sacrificed the most flesh would survive. Eventually, Simone was able to win the game by cutting off her left arm. After that, she tried to flee in an attempt to get help. When he was alone, Hoffman entered the room, used Strahm's severed hand to place the latter's fingerprints on the scale and Eddie's eyelids and cut a jigsaw piece from his victim's skin, before he left. Shortly afterwards, he was called back to the crime scene, which had been found by the police by then.

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Erickson shows the fingerprints to Hoffman

Upon his arrival, a female officer informed him that the FBI was now in charge of the investigation and had asked for Hoffman to come to the crime scene as soon as possible. When he entered the room, he was surprised to see Agent Erickson. The agent told him about the fingerprints and showed them to him with a black light. Furthermore, he informed him that the fingerprints had already been identified as those of Peter Strahm, while voicing his surprise and dismay of this new situation. However, he also stated that they had prepared a surprise for Strahm on their own and led Hoffman to the next room. Hoffman was shocked, when he saw Lindsey Perez standing before him. Erickson revealed that they had staged her death in order to guarantee her safety until they knew more about Jigsaw's unknown apprentice. During their conversation, Perez informed Hoffman about the arson case she and Strahm worked on earlier. The five suspects involved in the case had been found by Erickson after they had been forced to play one of Hoffman's games. This led them to the conclusion that Strahm had chosen them in order to take revenge. As they now believed to know that Strahm was the secret accomplice of Jigsaw, they asked Hoffman to work together. Hoffman initially hesitated as the agents hadn't informed him about Perez' faked death earlier, but ultimately accepted the offer when Erickson promised him to inform him about all future information and FBI activities regarding the Jigsaw Case.

Shortly afterwards, Hoffman received a call from Erickson and was ordered to come to the FBI headquarters. When he arrived, he was greeted by Erickson and Perez, who informed him about an anomaly found in Strahm's fingerprints. Perez told him that they had found traces of Freon, more explicitly Dichlorodifluoromethane R-12, a chemical substance which wasn't produced anymore since 1994. In order to find out if the crime scene of the latest game was polluted or if Strahm's fingerprints were already contaminated with the substance before, Perez and Erickson planned to find out what was formerly produced in the building where Simone and Eddie's game had taken place. Erickson was then interrupted by a phone call from the FBI's technical lab. Due to some connections between the murders of Eddie and Seth Baxter, Erickson had ordered the lab to examine the tape from Seth's crime scene, suspecting that it might have been recorded by someone else than John Kramer. Moments later, Erickson told them that the original voice on the Seth Baxter tape was soon going to be decrypted and told Hoffman and Perez to accompany them to the external lab.

The group reached the lab soon afterwards. When they came in, FBI technician Sachi was still working on the tape. As they had to wait some more time, Hoffman took a cup of coffee from the machine in the room. Noticing Hoffman's increasing nervousness, Perez tried to put him under pressure and began to discuss Strahm's motivation for helping Jigsaw and stated that she had never suspected him to be mentally unstable during the five years she had worked with him. Erickson then talked about the possibility that Strahm had killed Seth Baxter to throw suspicion on Hoffman. However there was still some detail that didn't fit the picture and therefore he finally revealed to Hoffman, that Strahm, judging by the analysis of his fingerprints, must have already been dead by the time he left his prints at the crime scene of Simone and Eddie's game. Seconds later, Sachi restored the tape, finally revealing the voice to be that of Mark Hoffman. However, before the agents could react, Hoffman quickly pulled out a knife from his pocket, slashed Erickson's jugular vein and threw the hot coffee in Perez' face. Then, he cut off the power and grabbed Sachi, who was shot in the back three times by Agent Perez as Hoffman used her as a human shield. Upon doing so, Hoffman was able to approach Perez and stabbed her multiple times in the abdomen with his knife. He then asked her who else knew about him, to which she responded with her dying breath that everyone knew about him. Calling it a lie, Hoffman stabbed her one final time, killing her in the process.

Strahm's Finderprints

Hoffman leaves Strahm's fingerprints in the lab

Following the massacre, Hoffman threw away his knife and ran out of the lab. Seconds later, he returned with the severed hand of Strahm, which he had kept in a cooling box in his car trunk, and a gas canister. He placed Strahm's fingerprints all around the room and also on Perez' gun as well as the screwdriver which he had used to cut off the power. Afterwards, he poured the gasoline all over the floor, the corpses and the technical instruments. When he approached Erickson, he briefly hesitated and smiled when he saw that the latter was still alive, before he poured the fuel over him as well. Then, Hoffman set the lab on fire before finally fleeing the scene. (Saw VI)

Personality[]

Strahm was a generally rude individual, tending to speak down on both suspects and members of the police. The only people he seemed to respect to some degree were his colleagues at the FBI. Perez described him as "a bit of a hothead", as he often reacted in a loud, aggressive way when things didn't work the way he wanted and got angry rather quick.

Despite this, he was a dedicated agent, eager to bring justice to criminals. Therefore, he was generally wary of the people around him. To convict criminals, he went to great lengths and thereby sometimes acted rather reckless, as seen when he entered the Gideon Plant without waiting for the reinforcements to arrive. He was also very intelligent, as he was the only person who had been able to find out about Hoffman's identity even without any help of his colleagues.

While most of the time he acted in a harsh and sometimes intimidating way, he tended not to show his emotions. However, he was still capable of showing empathy as seen when he called Perez' mother or mourned Perez' death. Due to his general personality, he often covered up his grief with outburst of rage and anger.

Trivia[]

  • In the original Saw IV-VI trilogy that Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan pitched back at the end of 2006, Strahm was supposed to survive and take out Hoffman in the finale of Saw VI.
  • In the original draft of Saw IV, Strahm was locked at the end of the movie in the room with the jigsaw pieces that were cut from all of Jigsaw's victims. The script implied that he was supposed to collect some sort of puzzle using those pieces.
  • Strahm's final trap was originally supposed to fill the room with water, ending the scene by drowning Strahm. That idea was rejected when crew realized how difficult filming would be.
  • It was said that in the original script for Saw IV, in which the film took place at the same time frame as Saw instead of Saw III, that Peter Strahm would have found and entered The Bathroom Trap shortly after Adam Stanheight was left inside to die, and that Adam would attempt to shoot Strahm in fear, prompting Strahm to shoot and kill Adam in self-defense.
  • As Strahm's hand is not seen or mentioned it is likely that it was destroyed in the burning lab. This is likely since Hoffman no longer needed to keep Strahm's hand.
  • In the original script of Saw VI, Strahm was supposed to find the decomposed corpses of some of the victims from Saw II while searching the Nerve Gas House.
  • Strahm's car is a 1999 Ford Crown Victoria.

Appearances and References[]

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