Paul Millander
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| CSI: Crime Scene Investigation character | |
| Paul Millander or Judge Douglas Mason | |
|---|---|
| Gender | Trans Male |
| Hair color | Black |
| City | Las Vegas |
| Job | Judge |
| Current status | Deceased |
| Known relatives | Unnamed wife, Craig (son, adopted) |
| Portrayed by | Matt O' Toole |
| First appearance | Pilot |
| Last appearance | Identity Crisis |
Paul Millander is a minor character in the television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. He is portrayed by actor Matt O' Toole and appeared in the episodes "Pilot", "Anonymous" and "Identity Crisis". So far in the series, Millander, Tammy Felton, "The Blue Paint Killer" and "The Miniature Killer" are the only criminals to appear in more than one episode and Millander and "The Miniature Killer" remains the only to have foiled the CSI team on 3 separate occasions.
[edit] Appearances in CSI and Personal History
In the pilot episode, Millander's finger prints turn up on the tape-recorder used for Royce Harmon's suicide note. Gil Grissom meets and questions him, and learns that Millander has a company that makes Halloween costumes called Halloweird. He made a mold of his own hand for a particular costume that has a bloody arm with it, and explains that that may be how his print got into the crime scene. Someone may have bought the hand and used it as a red herring. Grissom accepts this explanation for the time being.
In the episode Anonymous another suicide is staged and again Millander's prints show up. Grissom still thinks that it is a red herring but toward the end of the episode a homeless man who is used by the killer to deliver a cryptic message to the CSI team describes Millander as the man who approached him. Grissom then realizes that he has been tricked and that it was Millander all along. Grissom travels to Millander's workplace and finds it empty apart from a stool and an envelope addressed to Grissom. There is nothing written inside the envelope, telling Grissom that he has nothing. The episode ends with Paul Millander going into the CSI headquarters and asking for Grissom. Millander is told that Grissom is not there and as he turns to leave he looks at the surveillance camera and waves.
Millander is not seen again until Season 2 where yet another suicide is staged in exactly the same way as the previous two. The team realise that Millander targets middle-aged father figures who share a birthday with the anniversary of his father's death. His father was murdered in a staged suicide when he was a child but the authorities ruled it as a suicide because he was unable to give evidence effectively in court, even though he had witnessed the murder. Moreover, the CSI team find out that Millander was born a girl - Pauline Millander - which added to his ineffectiveness as a witness of his father's murder. He underwent sexual reassignment in his youth and as a result his relationship with his mother was a complicated one.
The CSI team also find out that he was leading a double life, one as Paul Millander and the other as the Honorable Judge Douglas Mason. As Douglas Mason he has a respectable job, a wife and an adopted son. When Grissom goes to visit him, he claims to not know any Paul Millander and suggests the doppelgänger theory as an explanation as to why they look exactly the same. Grissom takes a sample of Mason's fingerprints after he touches the bars in the prison but later discovers that they are the fingerprints on file for Judge Douglas Mason. Mason invites Grissom to his house for dinner to meet his wife and his adopted son, and perhaps to confuse him even more.
By the end of "Identity Crisis", Grissom finally has enough evidence to arrest Judge Mason/Paul Millander but Millander escapes custody yet again and returns to his home where his mother lives. He kills her and finally ends his own life in the same way he staged the other suicides and in the way his father's suicide was staged, leaving behind a tape with a suicide message on it. Grissom finds him dead in his bath during the very last scene of this episode.
[edit] Criticism of the Paul Millander Character
Some members of the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) community have criticised CSI for their handling of LGBT characters, especially transsexual people. Here, Millander, a transsexual, is portrayed as a very cunning and intelligent serial killer whose violent pathology is, in part, fed by his gender identity.
[edit] Sources
| CSI: Crime Scene Investigation | |
|---|---|
| Episodes | Characters | |
| Characters | Gil Grissom | Catherine Willows | Nick Stokes | Warrick Brown Sara Sidle | Jim Brass | Greg Sanders | Al Robbins Sofia Curtis | Conrad Ecklie |
| Former Characters | Holly Gribbs | Paul Millander | Lady Heather | Michael Keppler |
| Creator(s) | Anthony E. Zuiker |
| Computer Games | CSI: Crime Scene Investigation | CSI: Dark Motives CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder | CSI: Hard Evidence |
| Related Series | CSI: NY | CSI: Miami |
