Erikah Mabayo

Erikah Mabayo was an innocent suspect in two murder investigations in Bayou Bleu. She was later incarcerated for the murder of Vanessa Kimmel as well as three other girls in Smoke and Mirrors (Case #10 of Pacific Bay). She then became a suspect in the murder of detective Frank Knight after she escaped from prison in The Final Countdown (Case #59 of Pacific Bay).

Profile
Erikah is a 36-year-old voodoo priestess sporting tanned skin with a tattoo on her face and wears red lipstick. Erikah has braided brown hair preserved by feathers and shells (reaching towards her shoulders) and wears a voodoo priestess suit. Along with that, she wears an emerald and a tooth necklace around her neck and has a blue feather manica on her right shoulder.

In Bayou Blood, Erikah is known to use foot cream, chew tobacco, and have contact with shrimp. Erikah also knows gardening and uses lemongrass often as suggested in The Root of All Evil. In addition, in Smoke and Mirrors, Erikah sustains a leech bite on her left shoulder, knows how to fish, and consumes spicy food. In The Final Countdown, Erikah wears an anti-pollution mask around her neck.

Bayou Blood
After Frank and the player found a mysterious potion at the voodoo shop and shipped it to Yann for analysis. Yann felt the team spoiled him as if he never got a taste of voodoo from his trip to Haiti, and recognized it as an aphrodisiac called "love potion", making the team assume Lee wanted someone to fall in love with him on purpose. Surprisingly Erikah knew the player as if all eyes living in Bayou Bleu were an extension of her own but Frank was not up for any of Erikah's games as he wanted to know about the love potion she crafted for Lee. Mabayo reluctantly admitted she had created the aphrodisiac for Lee since she was fond of Ignatius Dupree's gumbo recipe, and even claimed Lee tried to use the love potion on half of Bayou Bleu's population.

Erikah was approached by the police a second time when the team pieced a voodoo spell back together (found torn at Bill Farnham's voodoo shop) with Yann's analysis deducing as a voodoo curse for the victim. The police was determined to know about her casting a curse on Lee but Erikah felt she had the right to write a death incantation at will whenever someone went to her bad side, something Lee did which caused Erikah to do so.

While Erikah was proven innocent after Shawna Knox was found guilty of first-degree murder, she was the one liable for Frank's problems following the arrest, including but not limited to crafting a Frank-like doll (with a needle inserted in the head) as a warning for erring inside the swamps, which meant she would not be willing to let the police have a peaceful time in Bayou Bleu.

The Root of All Evil
The police went to interrogate Erikah when Frank and the player found a torn paper at the Swamp Forest (the scene where Frank was required to fulfill his civic duty of garbage cleaning with the player watching him as punishment for drinking in court), pieced back together revealing her special sale for military personnel. Frank wanted nothing more than a discussion of the murder discovered in the Swamp Forest, as Erikah claimed her love potion was the cure military personnel needed due to wanton separation from loved ones, and made it clear that she did not believe in homicide to reach her goals.

Erikah found herself interrogated once again when the team found a voodoo doll but she was very upset as she felt the police was picking on her but not without telling that the victim was like the team and disapproved of Erikah's teachings—she was moved to tailor a voodoo doll on the victim, but told the team a second time that nothing was worth murdering.

Erikah was found innocent a second time when Ray Westman was found guilty of grand homicide, but she was not off the radar in the hours following the indictment. Frank found a skull, and after having it analyzed by Roxie, the skull turned out to belong to an endangered species. As such, Frank did not hesitate to fine Erikah for such as part of his civic duty to clean Swamp Forest of any garbage litter.

Smoke and Mirrors
Erikah was in serious trouble when Frank and the player found a photo with her voodoo spell imprinted at the Bayou Graveyard. Frank told Erikah that the protection spell did not work and Erikah was irritated about Frank's comment. Erikah claimed her protection spell was intended to have Vanessa talk to the player right away as if Vanessa begged for help.

Erikah found herself in the red again when Amy and the player found a painting of herself (broken and restored) in a burned brothel in which Amy thought she would be barbecued but surprisingly braved the fire, but suspected something was wrong with the picture—prompting a second discussion with the voodoo priestess. Erikah did not like it when people interrupted her voodoo rituals but Amy made it clear she needed to know as to why the player found and restored a portrait of her in the destroyed brothel. Erikah claimed it was normal for her portrait to be displayed throughout the bayou, infuriating Amy since she was not telling the truth. Erikah admitted to the team she used to be one of the prostitutes but changed her way thanks to her use of voodoo, telling Amy and the player to stay away from the burned brothel.

After careful investigation, Erikah was found to be the serial killer liable for Harvey Fitchner's failure years before Smoke and Mirrors, not to mention the death of three unidentified victims, of which Hannah deduced was the work of a serial killer rather than the work of voodoo as once thought.

When Amy and the player approached Erikah for the arrest, Erikah threatened to kill Amy and the player with her voodoo unless the team walked away from Erikah, to which Amy refused. The voodoo doll did not work on Amy, confirming Erikah's voodoo practice as a fad.

The team lambasted Erikah for owning a brothel and utilizing fake voodoo to leave her alone, but Erikah countered by calling herself a very persuasive person and continued by assuming certain girls who become prostitutes wanted to work for money to leave Bayou Bleu were easy to enslave to cover her tracks, but her tracks were ruined when Alec Howard was found to have impregnated Vanessa—which triggered Vanessa's urge to leave Bayou Bleu for good. Erikah is the type of person who believes no one is allowed to expose her secrets—something Vanessa unknowingly did upon her abdication of the Bayou, so to keep herself secret, Erikah strangled Vanessa and turned the young woman into a lifeless voodoo doll.

Judge Dante accused Erikah not just of the murder of Vanessa and three other women, but also defiling humanity by preying on prostitutes, whom Erikah claimed were easy to manipulate. However, Erikah told the judge that she was a prostitute in the past as she was abused and tortured by men in the past. She felt that males, not females, should be charged for those crimes, causing Judge Dante to counter that justice fails due to people too timid to speak up due to Erikah's false use of voodoo to ensure Bayou Bleu would be too timid to seek the help of justice—enough to warrant a lifetime jail sentence with no parole for Erikah. Thus ended the voodoo fad which started since the player's arrival at Bayou Bleu.

The Final Countdown
Albert Tesla had a dirty game for Amy and the player to play: to guess which one of the five previously convicted killers killed Frank before time expired, Erikah included. Erikah was added to the suspect list the instant Amy and the player spotted her business card at Tesla's control room. She believed that the player sensed the evil coming from The Wastes, but Amy replied saying that they know she is a fraud. Erikah explained that a floating spirit came from the prison's TV screen and told her she would find forgiveness in The Wastes. When asked if it was a blue floating head, Erikah confirmed it; but said that she was not responsible for killing anyone. In the meantime, Amy put Erikah under temporary arrest until she could be returned to prison.

Amy and the player had to speak with Erikah again after they found some strange items in the computer lab. According to Russell, the items were an offering to the voodoo spirit Damballah, so the team went to speak with Erikah. When asked if the offering included Frank Knight, Erikah said the spirit would not condone mindless violence. Spirits told Erikah that boundless powers would be her's if she protect Albert Tesla, whose body was connected to the computer. But when she saw him, she sensed evil leaking out of him, which is why she made the offering to Damballah despite it failing.

Erikah was found to be innocent after it was revealed that Bobby Prince killed Frank. While her lifetime jail sentence stood, she had to help out Amy and the player using her soothsayer-like personality to ensure that neither Amy nor the player would be stuck in virtual reality forever. With Hannah's digital expertise, Amy and the player succeeded, and Erikah succeeded in helping the team return to the physical world safely. Before she went back to prison for the murder of Vanessa, Erikah wanted to leave out some positive closure for the police, in which Frank would no longer need Gold Stag Whiskey as long as he had his family with him at the skies, thanks to her soothsayer-like personality. The deed done, Erikah returned to prison on a positive note.

Trivia

 * Erikah is one of the serial killers to appear in the game.
 * Erikah is one of the suspects who appeared in four cases.
 * Erikah is one of the characters of Pacific Bay who made physical appearances in two districts.
 * According to the business card the player found in The Final Countdown, her phone number is 916-555-0126.

Case Appearances

 * Bayou Blood (Case #6 of Pacific Bay)
 * The Root of All Evil (Case #8 of Pacific Bay)
 * Death by Moonshine (Case #9 of Pacific Bay; mentioned)
 * Smoke and Mirrors (Case #10 of Pacific Bay)
 * The Final Countdown (Case #59 of Pacific Bay)