Lefante is found wandering on a roadside, but appears to have been given an improperly-performed lobotomy. Another woman, Alice Brandt, is later kidnapped. She wakes up bound to a dentist's chair, with her kidnapper brandishing an ice pick and speaking in German. Mulder returns to Washington, D.C., to digitally analyze the photos and finds no evidence that they were doctored. By closely examining the photos, he finds the face of an old man as well as the shadow of the kidnapper, who appears to be abnormally tall. Scully, finding a construction company referenced at both crime scenes, investigates the possible lead, meeting Gerry Schnauz (Pruitt Taylor Vince), who worked near both scenes of the kidnapping. Schnauz, who is wearing stilts that make him very tall, attempts to flee, but Scully pursues and arrests him. The agents interrogate Schnauz, who was once institutionalized for beating his father with an axe handle in retaliation for the abuse his sister suffered at their father's hands. When questioned on the location of Brandt, Schnauz claims she is safe from the "howlers". Brandt is soon found in the woods, lobotomized. Mulder believes that Schnauz thinks he is rescuing his victims from howlers and that the photos show his nightmares. Schnauz escapes police custody by killing an officer and then robs the pharmacy from the opening, taking the passport photo camera, film, and an assortment of drug-related materials. While investigating the robbery, Scully is rendered unconscious and kidnapped by Schnauz. Mulder heads to the office where Schnauz's father used to work as a dentist, and finds the exam chair missing. Scully awakens bound to the chair with Schnauz claiming he's going to kill the howlers in her head. Schnauz takes a photo of himself, the results of which greatly disturb him, then prepares to lobotomize Scully. Mulder, having found a clue in a photo of Scully from the drugstore's photo booth, finds a construction site near Schnauz's father's grave and realizes the RV parked there belongs to the younger Schnauz. He manages to break in and shoot Schnauz before he can attack Scully. Mulder looks at the photo Schnauz took of himself, in which he is lying dead on the floor. The inspiration for "Unruhe" was a "Time-Life" book about serial killers that episode writer Vince Gilligan had read when he was a child; Gilligan, in particular, was struck by the story of Howard Unruh, who shot and killed 13 people (including three children) during a 12-minute walk through his neighborhood on September 6, 1949, in Camden, New Jersey.