Theef - Plot

Plot

Dr. Irving Thalbro is staying the night with his daughter and her family in California, including her husband Dr. Robert Wieder (James Morrison). In the middle of the night, Irving finds a pile of dirt shaped like a man in his bed. Irving is then found by Robert hanging from the ceiling with the word "theef" painted in Irving's blood on the wall. The next morning Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) notices the graveyard dirt in his bed and believes it may be caused by a hoodoo hex. Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), however, believes that the doctor committed suicide by slitting his own throat, writing on the wall, and hanging himself. He was also found to have a prion disease called kuru, which has not been found in the United States before. Mulder believes that kuru was given to him by a hex that caused him to go mad. The Wieders then find a family photo missing from their bedroom, and a "hoodoo man", later revealed to be named Orell Peattie (Billy Drago) is seen placing the faces cut from the picture into various voodoo dolls. Ms. Wieder collapses after another pile of graveyard dirt is found in her bed. Her skin then sprouts lesions as the "hoodoo man" stands by the pool talking to the doll.

Peattie visits Dr. Wieder at work, but refuses to tell him why he is committing these hexes against his family. Wieder does some research of his own and finds a bracelet in a Jane Doe file that he believes may be connected. Mulder consults an expert in the occult, who notes that, in order to commit hexes, the man must draw energy from a charm and place blood, hair and a picture of the victim inside the dolls in order to follow through with the hexes. Meanwhile, Mrs. Wieder is burned to death during an Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and the "hoodoo man" is found taking her voodoo doll out of the microwave. The word "theef" is also found branded in Mrs. Wieder's chest. Dr. Wieder tells the agents that the man came to see him, and that he found a Jane Doe case that may be connected to the murders. After investigating, it is revealed that the Jane Doe was Lynnette Peattie who died last October during a bus crash. The doctor gave her an overdose of morphine, euthanizing her due to her pain. Mulder assumes the man is her father and that he feels the doctor stole his family away from him. Mulder decides to exhume the body of Lynette Peattie and move it to Virginia, taking away her father's power, but when they exhume the casket there is no body inside.

Meanwhile, Peattie's landlord sneaks into his apartment for pain medication and finds the body of Lynnette in his bed. Immediately, she contracts a flesh-eating disease. After hearing about the incident on the news, Mulder goes to Peattie's apartment and finds Lynnette's body with the head missing, but Peattie missing. Peattie finds the Wieder family, whom Scully is protecting, and makes a voodoo doll with Scully's hair and photo inside. He places nails in the doll's eyes and Scully promptly goes blind. Peattie breaks into the house, takes Scully's gun and stabs a voodoo doll of Dr. Wieder, causing the doctor to collapse in pain. Mulder shows up, finds Scullly's voodoo doll and removes the nails from it, causing her to regain her vision and shoot Peattie. He is placed in a coma and Lynnette's body is shipped back to her home in West Virginia.