The vice president of a real estate company, Brit is placed in a series of four traps along with four other people. The five victims believe that one person will have to die in each room in order for the others to move ahead; Brit fatally stabs Luba through the neck with an electrical screwdriver in the third room. However, in the final room, she realizes that the group could have worked together so that everyone would survive. She and Mallick, the only other person to reach this point, also learn that the members of the group were connected through a building fire that killed eight people, which she had orchestrated. Brit and Mallick are forced to saw their arms in order to obtain enough blood to open the exit door. As she crawls from the room, Dan Erickson finds her and calls for medical assistance. Charles, a journalist, is a victim in the main game of "Saw V" alongside four other people. He is shown to be intelligent and to possess knowledge about the other victims and their mutual involvement in an arson scam. He attacks Mallick in the second room, to obtain a key to a bomb shelter, but is attacked by Luba with a metal bar and left to die as the other three victims move to safety from the explosive devices in the room. Charles realizes too late that the bomb shelters are large enough to fit more than one person, and dies when the bombs detonate. Charles had been writing a report about the arson of the building that burned down, but buried the story. Dan Erickson is an FBI agent in charge of the Jigsaw case, with Peter Strahm and Lindsey Perez working under him. He relieves Peter Strahm of duty following his narrow escape from a Jigsaw trap and becomes increasingly wary of him as Strahm becomes obsessed with Jigsaw. When he is informed by Mark Hoffman that Strahm believes there to be another Jigsaw accomplice, Erickson places a trace on Strahm's mobile phone to find him. He finds the phone (planted by Hoffman) at the scene of a Jigsaw game, and puts out an all-points bulletin for Strahm's arrest. In "Saw VI", Dan Erickson and Lindsey Perez, whose death was faked for her protection, resume the investigation and probe Strahm's apparent link to John Kramer. As they uncover evidence that indicates Strahm was framed, their suspicion of Hoffman grows. Once their audio lab technician removes the distortion from the Seth Baxter tape, revealing Hoffman as John's accomplice, he slashes Erickson's jugular vein and stabs Perez to death.