Tim Bayliss

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Tim Bayliss is a fictional detective on Homicide: Life on the Street. He was played by Kyle Secor.

Tim Bayliss had originally worked for the mayor's security, but his ambition had been to work at Homicide. His first case would be the rape-murder of Adena Watson. This case haunted him throughout the series, but particularly in the first four seasons. In one episode in the fourth season he meets with Adena's mother and they both discover that in many ways she had moved on from the tragedy better than Bayliss had. This realization confused and angered her. In this same episode he indicated he was starting to hate Adena due to the fact he could not move on from her death. However his inability to lead to the capture of Adena's murder, and it being his first case, helped make it an obsession for him. It was later revealed he had been sexually molested as a child which may have had some influence on his feeling toward the case as well. The case also led to his partnering with Frank Pembleton.

The partnership with Pembleton would form a core element to the character and the entire show. Pembleton was by turns supportive and hurtful to Bayliss. He wanted to go tough on his cousin who killed a Turkish exchange student and also said that he lacked an understanding of "his dark side" so would do poor in his job. Yet he also saved Bayliss from being charged in an incident that could have been interpreted as robbery and Pembleton once told Bayliss that he was the only man he trusted. The only other person Pembleton said he trusted was his wife, Mary.

In later seasons Bayliss's character evolved far beyond the initial "choir boy" image some had. He had an affair with Emma Zoole who liked having sex in a coffin and who later broke up with him because he "wouldn't fight with her." The statement had something of a double meaning as it directly involved his unwillingness to argue with her about their problems, but other aspects of the character implied she also was referring to his disdain for rough sex. He also later explored bisexuality.

Unlike several characters in the series religion was not important in his background and when asked his religion he stated "mutt." In this case that meant his family attended several different denominations, most of which could be termed "Mainline Protestant", but they had no attachment to any of them. Toward the end of the series he converted to Buddhism. Other officers questioned how sincere his conversion was. The series finale implied that he had to flee Baltimore after murdering "the Internet killer." In the 2000 TV movie, Homicide: Life Everlasting, he confesses to this killing.