That’s right. It was Emer all along.
I’m not going to explain why and how here, thats what the rest of the chapter is for!
Instead, let’s talk about potential alternatives. Originally, I didn’t even have an identity for the Murderman. Imagine that! I was a few pages in before I woke up in the middle of the night with Emer’s entire story formed in my head. Alternatively, Misty was an excellent candidate. She wasn’t around as much, especially when the Murderman was involved. She got in the way of Ken’s “progress”(specifically when he was researching other killers). And she stuck around town when everyone was being killed just to wait for Ken.
Another potential killer was, of course, Jeff Gordon. The cat with a thousand faces behind that one dead one. It could be said that Ken’s 4 days of insomnia in chapter 1, where he wrapped Jeff up to the ceiling, was why there was no murders during that time.
The craziest idea I had was that it was Ken FROM THE FUTURE. Which will be entirely plausible when I start the next long running story. It’s pretty self explanatory, I mean, how else could the Murderman know so much about Ken?
There was of course the copout “Paranoia Agent” idea. Where the Murderman was a collective ideal, brought to life by the madness of the population, but used Ken as a catalyst. Watch Paranoia Agent. That explains everything. In short, the Murderman wasn’t even real and it was all Kens fault.
Some people had other theories. They were wrong.