Arkham Asylum: Patient Files

The Mad Hatter

FULL NAME
Jervis Tetch

OCCUPATION
Serial killer
Haberdasher/milliner (formerly)
Neuroscientist (formerly)

BASE OF OPERATIONS
Gotham City

AFFILIATIONS
Hugo Strange

Obsessed from a young age with Lewis Carroll's book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Jervis Tetch, an expert hypnotist, embraced a delusion that he was the incarnation of a character in the story, The Mad Hatter.

By using his skills for mesmerism, the Mad Hatter committed many crimes that were often themed around the book that inspired him and his love of hats and headgear, and went so far as to implant his hats with mind-control chips to amplify his hypnotic abilities. The Mad Hatter was also obsessed with the concept of "Alice", and brainwashed countless young women in his attempts to find Alice, and murdered them when he was finished with them.

Above all other head wear, however, the Mad Hatter coveted Batman's distinctive cowl, and would stop at nothing to acquire it.

Jervis Tetch was originally a scientist who proposed that there was no such thing as free will, and that the mind could be controlled by the use of chemicals. Unfortunately, Tetch began to believe that he was the real-life incarnation of the Mad Hatter from the story, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Tetch obtained a hat shop in the Bowery district of Old Gotham, and continued to develop his mind control technology while he worked there, and became fixated on the concept of Alice, the protagonist of the story. Tetch began to believe that she was somewhere in the real world, and that he had to find the real Alice. Tetch began to kidnap young women whom he suspected of being Alice, and murdered them when he found out that was not the case. Tetch had already committed several crimes before the Christmas Eve Incident, including the murder of a girl named Stephanie Williams, however, the GCPD did not make an arrest, due to the Hatter being smart enough to cover his tracks.

Tetch soon found another girl whom he believed to be Alice, and kidnapped her, with the intent of using the mind control technology to return her to Wonderland. By that stage, Tetch had improved his mind control technology to the point where he could use it to render weaker minds completely malleable to his suggestions, which enabled him to use the technology on several criminals and formed a small gang to assist with his schemes. However, Tetch felt that the vigilante known as Batman, who had emerged in Gotham in the last two years, could provide an additional edge to his gang, and so, he hatched a plan to capture the Dark Knight and use him as his latest pawn.