 " Paper Hearts " was written specifically with Tom Noonan in mind for the role of Roche , and was amongst the first television work the actor had done . Writer Vince Gilligan came up with the concept for the episode when thinking about the series ' longest running storyline , the abduction of Samantha Mulder . Gilligan came up with a story questioning whether Samantha had not been abducted by aliens , but was rather murdered by a child killer instead . He decided to help convince Fox Mulder of this through a series of prophetic dreams . The laser lights in Mulder 's dreams were influenced by Gilligan 's experience with laser holograms while he was a film student . The laser was supposed to be the color blue , but was changed to red in production to reduce costs . Wanting to include some kind of fetish for the killer , Gilligan settled on having Roche cut heart shaped fragments from his victim 's clothing , thinking that having him mutilate his victims ' bodies would be going too far . 
