Portrayed by Donnie Wahlberg, he first appeared in a mockumentary entitled Full Disclosure Report: Piecing Together Jigsaw, featured on the uncut version of the original film.

Before the release of Saw III, it was stated that Wahlberg would not return as the character, but this turned out to be a hoax conceived by Lionsgate Entertainment to throw off fans of the series trying to dig up details on the film.

[1] In the films, Eric is depicted as a corrupt police detective, who uses excessive brutality and framed several innocent people.

Eric ultimately fails his test and brutalizes Jigsaw, forcing him to take him to the location of the game, only to end up captured.

A reporter states that Eric's excessive force and bad temper might be one factor that is holding police back from solving the Jigsaw case.

Eric's first major appearance is in Saw II, where he is introduced as the father of Daniel Matthews, and as a detective assigned to desk work who is being investigated by the department's internal affairs office.

Annoyed with Kerry for bringing him to the scene to be goaded into the investigation by the message, Eric announces that he has enough work to do, while having to deal with his wife's divorce lawyers.

With this information, he decides to tag along with Kerry and SWAT Commander Daniel Rigg to an old warehouse that they believe to be Jigsaw's latest lair.

Eric is told that he has a problem to deal with, and uncovers numerous computer monitors that display a camera feed that shows his son, along with seven others, being held captive in a house.

When that does nothing, Jigsaw reveals that the seven strangers in the house with Daniel are in fact seven ex-convicts who had been arrested by Eric after being framed with false evidence.

Eric, under Rigg's advice, begins to aggressively attack Jigsaw, punching and kicking him repeatedly and breaking his finger in order to find out where his son is being held.

Leaving Jigsaw in the van, Eric goes through the back door of the house, and finds the corpses inside in a state of decay, as if having been there for an extended period of time.

Expecting to find Daniel there, Eric is attacked by Amanda Young, dressed in a pig mask, and rendered unconscious.

Eric manages to free himself from his shackle in Saw III, mere minutes after having been locked away, by smashing and breaking his foot to the point that it could slip through.

Limping through the basement hallways, screaming for his son, Eric quickly passes Amanda, who hides herself and begins panicking.

Tired of being used as a pawn, Eric is ready to give up, saying "I don't want to play anymore" and twice attempting suicide by jumping off the block.

Eric realizes that if the door is opened ahead of time, two large ice blocks will swing down from the ceiling and crush his head.

Rigg enters the room with one second to spare, releasing the ice blocks, which crush Eric's head, killing him.

According to the Saw III DVD commentaries, this scene was filmed but removed against the director's will from the movie, so that Eric could be kept alive for Saw IV, since the other main characters of the franchise were killed off.