Debra and Batista find proof that Neil Perry is the Ice Truck Killer when they find a body beneath Neil’s trailer home. A manhunt ensues to find and capture Neil before he kills again. As more and more evidence rises to the surface, Dexter is left adrift. Neil Perry, the supposed Ice Truck Killer, doesn’t live up to his expectations. Meanwhile, Dexter has to deal with his past when a teenager he caught and released murders again. As a result, Dexter sets out to correct this mistake in one of the only ways he knows how. Rita’s family life is torn asunder as her paroled ex-husband, Paul, reasserts himself as the father of her children. Paul even confronts Dexter, letting him know that he doesn’t like Dexter being around his wife and kids. Rita wishes that Paul would go away forever, something that is definitely possible when your boyfriend happens to be Dexter.
Dexter arrives at a crime scene to find one of his victims he has disposed of has mysteriously returned to the scene of the kill. Dexter figures that it’s the Ice Truck Killer, letting him know that he knows what Dexter is up to. The noose is tightened further, when LaGuerta finds a young Cuban boy hiding at the crime scene — there’s no way he missed seeing Dexter capture the victim. Dexter has to figure out a plan to stay out of the crosshairs of his own Homicide Division while investigating his own crime. Meanwhile, Rita has to deal with her abusive ex-husband, Paul, when he’s released from jail and wants to come to their daughter’s birthday party.
Debra’s discovery of an Ice Truck Killer victim being found alive gives LaGuerta and her Homicide detectives their first chance to identify the notorious serial killer. Debra and Doakes, assigned to the case, sit with the mutilated victim, in the hopes that he will be able to identify the killer. While Dexter works on the case, Rita tells Dexter about a friend of hers whose fiance has disappeared while immigrating from Cuba by way of a coyote (a human trafficker). When the fiance turns up dead, Dexter decides to hunt down the murderous coyote. But things don’t go as planned when Dexter realizes that there is more to the vicious trafficker than his careful stalking prepared him for.
SEASON 1: EPISODE FOUR - “Let’s Give the Boy a Hand”
Dexter’s past comes to life when body parts begin appearing throughout Miami, gifts from the Ice Truck Killer. The horrific tableaus created in places of Dexter’s childhood memories start to make Dexter question his own past and his reasons for controlling his dark urges. Meanwhile, LaGuerta’s hunt for Tony Tucci has to go in a different direction when new information comes to light about Tucci and his connection to the Ice Truck Killer. Doakes, the lead investigator of the Ice Truck Killer case, becomes afraid for his life when a crime boss puts his thugs on the trail of Doakes, ‘innocently’ following him wherever he goes.
Dexter is called in to help Debra with the investigation into the Ice Truck Killer’s latest murder, while Dexter hunts his latest victim, a teenager named Jeremy who is a recently released murderer who looks like he’s about to kill again. Despite Debra and Dexter’s protestations, Lt. LaGuerta starts a manhunt for Tony Tucci, the nightwatchman videotaped at the ice rink where body parts were found. But while the manhunt for Tucci begins, a skeptical Debra keeps looking for the “real” Ice Truck Killer. Meanwhile, Doakes decides to go after the crime boss at his church, confronting him and his daughter about his part in the murder of a cop and his wife. Rita, Dexter’s girlfriend, has her own troubles when someone from her incarcerated husband’s past comes to visit, demanding repayment of drugs lost by her husband.
