Hellbound

A man is murdered by being skinned alive after recounting a dream foreshadowing the event. Doggett and Reyes investigate.

Tropes:

• The Atoner: The souls of the four original killers, when born again, try to atone for their past sins by doing good but the vengeful victim won't let them.
• Bittersweet Ending: The killer is stopped, and Dr. Holland is saved...except the whole thing will happen again in a few decades, and will likely continue until the end of time.
• Flaying Alive: The killer's preferred method of murdering shown in full glory.
• Police Are Useless: The crimes go unsolved for centuries and keep repeating. That's because the cop is the killer in each case.
• Red Herring: Ed is not the killer, despite his abrasive attitude.
• Reincarnation: Four men murdered a man by skinning him alive over a land dispute in 1868. The victim and the killers were born again. The victim then murdered the killers by skinning them alive, then killed himself to repeat the cycle. Ultimately, the killer is born as a cop resulting in the crimes always going unsolved.
  • The killers' identities that they are reincarnated into, as it's implied they are almost always reincarnated into people who become convicts later in life (Dr. Holland being an exception).
• Reincarnation Rivalry: Reyes investigating a Serial Killer who flays alive four people. Researching into the case she discovers these events have been recurring in every generation for over 100 years. Tracing the case back to the earliest event where a man was skinned alive in 1868 over a land dispute by four men, leads Reyes to the truth — consumed with hatred, each generation the victim reincarnates and hunts down the reincarnations of their original murderers, brutally killing them in the same way they were killed. Despite all the original killers long repenting, the killer refuses to stop killing them again and again for eternity. As a final twist of the knife, it's also revealed that Reyes is the reincarnation of the Sheriff who failed to stop the original murder, and whose reincarnations have tried to stop each subsequent one, with the killer boasting to her before he dies about how she's never able to stop him.
• Revenge: The killer's motivation. He reincarnates as a law enforcement officer because he sees himself as an agent of justice and it provides him the easiest avenue to punish the killers.
• Revenge by Proxy: However, the killer was murdered in a past form by different people. People who were born again with those souls did not kill him and are being unjustly targeted.
• You Can't Fight Fate: The murders will keep happening. Despite their best efforts, Doggett and Reyes ultimately changed nothing; the original victim is reincarnated yet again, and the cycle will repeat.