A neighbor who saw the blaze made a call from a nearby tavern, but again no operator responded. Exasperated, the neighbor drove into town and tracked down Fire Chief F. George and Jeannie assumed that five of their children were dead, but a brief search of the grounds on Christmas Day turned up no trace of remains.
Chief Morris suggested that the blaze had been hot enough to completely cremate the bodies. A state police inspector combed the rubble and attributed the fire to faulty wiring. George covered the basement with five feet of dirt, intending to preserve the site as a memorial. But the Sodders had begun to wonder if their children were still alive.
The missing Sodder children. Maurice, Martha, Louis, Jennie, Betty. An older brother who had accompanied him to Ellis Island immediately returned to Italy, leaving George on his own. He found work on the Pennsylvania railroads, carrying water and supplies to the laborers, and after a few years moved to Smithers, West Virginia. Smart and ambitious, he first worked as a driver and then launched his own trucking company, hauling dirt for construction and later freight and coal. They married and had 10 children between and , and settled in Fayetteville, West Virginia, an Appalachian town with a small but active Italian immigrant community.
He never explained what had happened back in Italy to make him want to leave. The Sodders planted flowers across the space where their house had stood and began to stitch together a series of odd moments leading up to the fire. There was a stranger who appeared at the home a few months earlier, back in the fall, asking about hauling work. Around the same time, another man tried to sell the family life insurance and became irate when George declined. You are going to be paid for the dirty remarks you have been making about Mussolini.
The older Sodder sons also recalled something peculiar: Just before Christmas, they noticed a man parked along U. Highway 21, intently watching the younger kids as they came home from school. Jennie rushed to answer it. An unfamiliar female voice asked for an unfamiliar name. There was raucous laughter and glasses clinking in the background. Tiptoeing back to bed, she noticed that all of the downstairs lights were still on and the curtains open. The front door was unlocked. She saw Marion asleep on the sofa in the living room and assumed that the other kids were upstairs in bed.
She turned out the lights, closed the curtains, locked the door and returned to her room. She had just begun to doze when she heard one sharp, loud bang on the roof, and then a rolling noise.
An hour later she was roused once again, this time by heavy smoke curling into her room. Jennie Sodder holding John, her first child. Courtesy of Jennie Henthorn.
She conducted a private experiment, burning animal bones—chicken bones, beef joints, pork chop bones—to see if the fire consumed them. Each time she was left with a heap of charred bones. She knew that remnants of various household appliances had been found in the burned-out basement, still identifiable. An employee at a crematorium informed her that bones remain after bodies are burned for two hours at 2, degrees.
Their house was destroyed in 45 minutes. The collection of odd moments grew. A telephone repair man told the Sodders that their lines appeared to have been cut, not burned. One day, while the family was visiting the site, Sylvia found a hard rubber object in the yard. Jennie recalled hearing the hard thud on the roof, the rolling sound. Then came the reports of sightings. A woman claimed to have seen the missing children peering from a passing car while the fire was in progress. A woman operating a tourist stop between Fayetteville and Charleston, some 50 miles west, said she saw the children the morning after the fire.
However, the entire party did register at the hotel and stayed in a large room with several beds. They registered about midnight. I tried to talk to the children in a friendly manner, but the men appeared hostile and refused to allow me to talk to these children…. One of the men looked at me in a hostile manner; he turned around and began talking rapidly in Italian. Immediately, the whole party stopped talking to me. I sensed that I was being frozen out and so I said nothing more.
They left early the next morning. In , George and Jennie sent a letter about the case to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and received a reply from J. Next the Sodders turned to a private investigator named C. He also heard a curious story from a Fayetteville minister about F. Morris, the fire chief. He hid it inside a dynamite box and buried it at the scene. Tinsley persuaded Morris to show them the spot. Soon afterward, the Sodders heard rumors that the fire chief had told others that the contents of the box had not been found in the fire at all, that he had buried the beef liver in the rubble in the hope that finding any remains would placate the family enough to stop the investigation.
Over the next few years the tips and leads continued to come. George saw a newspaper photo of schoolchildren in New York City and was convinced that one of them was his daughter Betty. He drove to Manhattan in search of the child, but her parents refused to speak to him.
In August , the Sodders decided to mount a new search at the fire scene and brought in a Washington, D. The excavation was thorough, uncovering several small objects: Hunter sent the bones to the Smithsonian Institution, which issued the following report:. The human bones consist of four lumbar vertebrae belonging to one individual.
When the post mortem confirms her death was no accident, the pair discover that nothing is what it seems to be within the sleepy village as they try to find out what exactly she saw. Their investigation soon turns up a web of sex, blackmail and lies, and the possibility that the murder could be connected to a shooting accident two years ago, which claimed another woman's life. When a tunnel collapses on a canal project near to Midsomer Worthy, several skeletons turn up. Barnaby investigates a possible murder when one skeleton is discovered to have teeth bearing modern dental work.
Meanwhile, Troy, recently having earned a promotion to Inspector, tackles his last case in the county by visiting the village to investigate a more recent murder - that of a youth, one of several who had caused problems for the villagers, who had been shot with a gun he and his friends had been using the night before to shoot wild animals.
Slowly but surely, both begin uncovering a web of lies, affairs and domestic arguments, alongside a mysterious recluse with a hidden past. DS Dan Scott, Barnaby's cocky new sergeant, is thrust into his first case when the two detectives look into the murder of a woman who had been stabbed to death after a Spanish themed evening in Midsomer Mallow, before being left in a field she hated, with a red rose in her mouth. Not long after their investigation begins, a retired doctor, whom she had worked for, is murdered in his home during the village's open day with an apple left beside his body.
It quickly becomes clear the two victims knew a secret about one of the villagers, something that they are prepared to silence by any means necessary. Arthur Leggott, a retired music teacher, is bludgeoned to death in his home in Badger's Drift, when he confronts an intruder who apparently came for a musical manuscript by the late composer, Joan Alder. It soon becomes clear the manuscript is the key to solving the murders, when a valuable one that had been sold cheaply at auction, shows signs it had been written by another hand, as more murders slowly follow the first.
On 2 May , all six episodes of series 20 were made available in the U.
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved 9 April Retrieved 20 April Pet who appeared in Midsomer Murders, Cranford and host of TV adverts hangs up his collar for a well-earned retirement". Retrieved 5 May Retrieved from " https: Lists of British crime television series episodes Midsomer Murders.
Views Read Edit View history. This page was last edited on 22 November , at By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. After debating on who their next guest speaker should be, the Midsomer Worthy Writers' Circle decide to invite famous writer, Max Jennings, to their next meeting, despite opposition to the choice by Gerald Hadleigh, the group's secretary. When Hadleigh is found dead the day after Jennings visit, brutally bludgeoned and stripped naked, Barnaby and Troy discover that the victim had many mysteries to him, prompting them to delve into his private life and his past.
Matters soon become complicated when Jennings disappears and is later found dead, and a witness recalls seeing a mysterious woman in Hadleigh's house the night before his murder. Whilst investigating the murder of Agnes Gray, a quiet animal-loving woman who was bludgeoned to death and found floating in a river near to the village of Ferne Basset, Barnaby gets more than he bargained for when he attends his wife's performance in the Causton Amateur Dramatics' production of Amadeus.
When Agnes' cousin, Esslyn Carmichael, inadvertently cuts his own throat during the final act, it's quickly discovered that the tape on the prop blade he had used was removed without anyone knowing. The detective is left wondering who had wanted to turn Esslyn's final act into a true coup de theatre, as he and Troy try to determine what the motive was behind the two murders.
Local villagers in Morton Fendle are up in arms, demanding answers from Alan Hollingsworth, the owner of a local craft centre they had invested in, after news comes out that it has recently fallen into financial turmoil. As tensions begin rising in the village, Barnaby soon suspects that something has happened to Alan's wife, Simone, when his behaviour suddenly changes. His suspicions are soon confirmed when it transpires that Simone was kidnapped, after one of Alan's neighbours is murdered, shortly after witnessing something they shouldn't have.
Bill Carter, one of the founders of a local New Age commune called the Lodge of the Golden Windhorse, dies suddenly after falling down some stairs and breaking his neck. Although there was uncertainty as to whether it was the result of an accident or murder, Barnaby and Troy find themselves having to determine which it was, when Ian Craigie, the commune's leader, is stabbed to death with a carving knife a few days later, while attending a spiritual seance with the rest of the commune and the parents of one of its members. It's not long before they discover hidden truths about the commune's founding and some of its members.
Plans by Barnaby to renew his wedding vows at the church of St Michael's in Badger's Drift, are quickly put on hold when the body of Richard Bayly, a local developer, is found decapitated in his own home. The detective is left mystified as to why anyone would kill a man who had only been given weeks to live, after being recently diagnosed with a brain tumour. As he and Troy attempt to find out, they soon encounter a hotbed of corruption and property feuding occurring within the village as the body count rises and the mystery deepens.
Nine years ago, three women were strangled with a neck-tie and left naked in woodland outside Midsomer Worthy, so when a Brazilian woman who recently arrived in the village is murdered in the exact same fashion and found within the same woods, Barnaby is forced to cut short some father-daughter bonding time with Cully to determine if it is the work of the same killer. As he and Troy investigate the area, including a local tobacco company the victim was associated with, they soon encounter several matters, including a retired detective obsessed with the previous murders, problematic evidence, family troubles, and secret affairs, before another death follows.
First appearance of Dr Dan Peterson. As the cricket team for Fletcher's Cross prepare for their annual match against Midsomer Worthy, tragedy strikes for their captain and local landowner, Robert Cavendish, when the search for his wife Tara, who went missing whilst walking their dog, turns up her body near to a disused quarry he had owned. For Barnaby and Troy, suspicions are drawn in on Robert's son, who openly resented his father's wife, and who owned the cricket bat that killed her. Yet their investigation also turns up a wealth of secrets, lies, affairs, blackmail, and a mysterious death that occurred shortly before a break-in, before matters are complicated when another murder occurs during the cricket match.
Hector Bridges, a local magistrate, is infuriated when one of his geese is stolen, just as two bands of travellers arrive in Martyr Warren. Although Barnaby and Troy are called in to deal with the theft and later dissuade him from forcefully evicting the travellers from the village, they soon have a murder on their hands, when a short while later Bridges is killed with his own shotgun. It quickly transpires that many in the village had hated the magistrate, who lied, bullied, and committed many an injustice, leaving the detectives determined to find who among them had pulled the trigger after Bridges pushed them past their breaking point.
Shortly before his retirement, Superintendent Pringle believes he has solved the murder of a tramp who was killed during a fox hunt outside the village of Upper Marshwood. However, Barnaby, who had been in France on holiday during the investigation, is not convinced that the local poacher Pringle arrested, who pleads he is innocent, is the true culprit.
Barnaby soon turns out to be right when the poacher's father is found murdered in the woods with his own shotgun. As Barnaby and Troy reopen the murder case, they soon find themselves dealing with the village's upper classes, who are none too willing to give much away. When Alice Bly arrives at the Lawnside nursing home in Aspern Tallow to rest up from hospital treatment, she is unconvinced by the home's director and its physician that one of the residents had died naturally, on the night shortly after her arrival, especially as the deceased owned a valuable Cartier watch that has since gone missing.
Despite having a week off from police work, her nephew Barnaby, concerned for her well being, decides to investigate the matter, and it is not long before he and Troy uncover theft, lies and secret flings, as more deaths follow. Even though Midsomer Mallow is a contender to be the 'Perfect English Village' in a competition of the same name, underneath the surface of the village not everything is perfect as local thief Peter Drinkwater is up to no good.
After robbing a retired actor's mansion of valuable goods, Mr Drinkwater is stabbed with a pitchfork at the local farm he is using as a base. Despite the villagers' best efforts to keep the murder quiet so as to not ruin their chances in the competition, several further deaths occur eventually bringing Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby back several decades to uncover the killer.
Last appearance of Dr Dan Peterson. Cully's latest boyfriend, Nico, decides to shadow Troy in preparation for a TV role he recently got, but gets more hands-on experience than he expected when investigations into a slashed painting at a museum in Aspern Tallow, a 17th century portrait of Royalist Jonathan Lowrie, are overshadowed by the murder of his descendant, Marcus Lowrie.
It isn't long before Barnaby and Troy, with Nico's assistance, find themselves dealing with mysterious, ghostly events, escaped criminals, and a museum trustee who has more to them than meets the eye. Villagers of Midsomer Deverell are appalled when the Inkpen family plan to turn their public memorial garden into a small tea shop.
Yet when Elspeth Inkpen announces that it is none of the village's business what her family is planning, Barnaby and Troy wonder if someone is determined to stop this happening, when her daughter is soon found murdered in the garden. As the detectives investigate, they slowly uncover greed, snobbery, illegitimacy, mourning and violence, before Elspeth is soon found dead in what appears to have been suicide. Following the funeral of local hotelier Karl Wainwright, his hotel's manager and a well liked Punch and Judy performer, Gregory Chambers, disappears unusually in yet another picturesque Midsomer village.
Most people dismiss his disappearance completely but when he doesn't turn up, a search is conducted and a severed hand, confirmed to be Gregory's, turns up in the woods. Further deaths and a mushroom poisoning occur surrounding the beneficiaries of Karl Wainwright's will. All is not as it seems. A man's naked body found under mysterious circumstances, within a crop circle on Sir Harry Chatwyn's wheat field, leads police to investigating how he wound up in the field after being electrocuted.
While the nearby village of Midsomer Parva is abuzz with UFO mania, Barnaby is unconvinced by a local ufologist that the man's death was the result of alien activity, as he uncovers rivalries, theft and hatred during his investigations, soon after a well known burglar is found dead in another crop circle with identical injuries.
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Returning home one night, in a drunken state, the local doctor of Newton Magna calls in the police after he had accidentally hit a man, yet when Barnaby and Troy arrive, the injured man is nowhere to be found. As they investigate the mystery, Barnaby encounters an old adversary who is working to help renovate the village and whose daughter is getting married to a local boy. Matters soon become complicated, when the body of the best man's father is found in a well that was being renovated, whom the detectives soon discover had disappeared on the day he was planning to run away with a local farmer's wife.
Goodmans Land is a sleepy Midsomer village, and remains so one Autumn morning apart from the womanising postman Dave Cutler is horrifically killed in the middle of the village whilst doing his early shift. Barnaby comes in to investigate, he learns that many of the village's women were 'having it on' with Mr Cutler.
Turning a disused dance hall into the Criminal Investigation Department, numerous unexplained deaths soon occur in Goodmans Land. Can Barnaby riddle out the reason for the strange s dance music heard playing at each murder scene? Troy, can Barnaby find the murderer once again? On the same day that a local district nurse is charged for drink driving following an evening event in Midsomer Malham, a local veterinarian discovers that someone has stolen barbiturates from his surgery.
Barnaby and Troy become greatly concerned for the safety of Melissa Townsend, a thoroughly disliked young woman who had recently received death threats that blamed her for the death of a local poacher, but are unable to prevent someone from murdering her, after her body is found with a syringe in the stomach beside her father's swimming pool. While a wealth of hatred lies within the village, it slowly transpires that someone wanted to hide a secret when the pair uncover blackmail and greed at the heart of their investigations.
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Wealthy stock broker Selwyn Proctor is furious when someone torches his car, but Barnaby and Troy have other things on their mind, when the elderly head of a local reading club, Marjorie Empson, is battered to death with her walking stick, whilst getting ready for bed following the club's latest meeting. It soon transpires the women of Midsomer Market's reading club were secretly investing in the stock market and had been doing well, but that two of the members were outvoted from selling their shares. When one of the members is initially suspected of the murder, but later murdered a short while after she is cleared of suspicions, Barnaby discovers the second victim was having secret affairs, leading him to believe the killer is privy to secrets within the village.
Two farmers of Midsomer Worthy are at loggerheads over the proposed development of Setwale Wood. James Harrington of Abbey Farm wants his land felled, whereas his ex-friend Simon Bartlett of Grange Farm will do anything to stop this going ahead with the help of friend and barrister Bernadette Sullivan. However, all of this is pushed out of their minds when Simon's wife Susan is found dead in the Wood by some local children.
Even though her parents don't believe her, Julie Fielding is adamant she saw the woman's body. When Mr Fielding sees the body, too, the next day, it is in the pond in Setwale Wood and it is confirmed that Mrs Bartlett committed suicide. After the trees start to be cut down, another body turns up, leaving Barnaby and Troy to believe that both victims were that of murder.
With the help of little Julie and her brother, D.
Death of JonBenét Ramsey
Barnaby learns of the Wood's history and a web of lies and secrets beneath the surface of this picturesque village. The bell ringers at Midsomer Wellow church have high hopes of winning the annual striking competition, but this doesn't look likely after one of their number is found shot through the heart in the bell tower during a practise. It is difficult for Mr Barnaby to uncover prospective murderers of this mostly well-liked man, but with a few more deaths, an attempted burglary and some word-processed lines from a local folk poem taking Barnaby and Troy on a journey to the far past, it looks like the killer could be right under their noses.
Daniel Talbot, a student of the prestigious Devington School, drops dead shortly after returning for help upon being viciously attacked during the school's annual St. His father, Anthony Talbot, insists that someone from the nearby village of Midsomer Parva was responsible, but things are not as straightforward for Barnaby and Troy, when they slowly discover that Daniel had wanted to run away during the race. Their investigation quickly turns up hidden conspiracies concerning both the school and its secretive, elite group known as the Pudding Club, whose members throw up a wall of silence, just before more bodies turn up.
The double murder of eccentric widow, Isobel Hewitt, and adulterous doctor, Duncan Goff, lead Barnaby and Troy into finding out more about their personal and private lives in the village of Malham Bridge. While Troy suspects an antique dealer that Isobel befriended is the culprit, Barnaby is not convinced, believing anyone the victims knew when they were alive could have been the murderer, from the doctor's wife to the local owner of a restaurant.
Even Isobel's close family and members of a local fly fishing group are suspects as they investigate all possible angles. When Martin Wroath is found dead in his home in Midsomer Worthy, Barnaby is unconvinced that he committed suicide with his own shotgun in an unnecessarily complex fashion. When a second murder occurs on an assault course at a local cottage hospital, in which Wroath was a patient, the detective suspects a link between the two murders, and soon finds a wealth of hatred, jealously and lies, before discovering that rope in the village is mysteriously disappearing.
Joyce is taking part in an open-air art class, being held on the village green of Midsomer Florey, when she discovers the body of an elderly fellow student, Ruth Fairfax, concealed beneath some undergrowth shortly after a session. Just as Barnaby begins to learn that Ruth was not all she seemed to be, officers of the NIS pull him off the case. While Troy is allowed to assist them, Barnaby is left handling a local operation into a spate of thefts, yet he decides to continue his investigations in secret.
In doing so, he soon turns up armed robbery, unaccounted stolen money, former criminals, and secret liaisons, before discovering that the NIS investigation is not being as thorough as it should be. At his family home in Upper Warden, arrogant actor Larry Smith is killed, when a summer house he walks in to as part of a promotion for the sequel to his hit film, The House of Satan , is suddenly destroyed in an explosion. His family quickly fling accusations for his murder directly at the residents of rival village, Lower Warden, leading Barnaby and Troy to determine if this is the case, especially when Larry's director, another member of the family, is electrocuted while using an exercise bike.
It's not long before secrets, affairs and blackmail begin to surface from within the two villages. While Troy assists an attractive wildlife liaison officer with an investigation into the illegal sale of protected bird eggs, Barnaby travels to Midsomer Magna to investigate the sudden death of a man, who apparently drowned himself.
While there was evidence he was desperately seeking to avoid bankruptcy, and had visited a local millionaire to get back his money from a scheme he had invested in, a post mortem reveals that he had been murdered. The two detectives soon find their investigations crossing over, when a man found to have an illegal collection of bird eggs, is also murdered, prompting concerns that the millionaire's scheme is being used to defraud many, and that someone is willing to kill to keep the scheme going. Last regular appearance of DS Gavin Troy.
First appearance of DS Dan Scott. Several decades ago, Roger Heldman died in what appeared to be an accident at a dig near to Midsomer Barrow, shortly after it had turned up two important Celtic pieces. When one of them, a spear, is used to kill his son Gareth, a womaniser like his father, Barnaby and Scott delve into a world of falsehoods, rituals, lies and hidden interrelationships, to uncover the truth.
Initial suspicions lie to both the local river keeper, Harry Green, and the victim's half-brother, David Hartley-Reade, until new evidence suggests Roger was murdered. Then David is murdered during the climax of a summer solstice celebration, while performing a ceremony to save his failing marriage.
While Midsomer St Michael prepares for the 12th year of its Literary Festival, which often becomes a hotbed for feuding writers, editors and publishers, Barnaby and Scott are called to the village to investigate who had expertly broken the neck of a former prize-winning author. They soon find that the world of fictional writing is far darker than it appears, when the victim's editor is shortly found dead during the festival's opening ceremony, leading the detectives to uncover lies, fraud and hidden truths, as the pair search for a connection behind the deaths.
As a conflict between residents of Midsomer Worthy and commercial developers brews over the fate of a local pub, the Maid In Splendour, a popular barman who works there, Jamie Cruickshank, is found dead at an abandoned cottage in woods near to the village. As Barnaby and Scott investigate, they wonder who wanted him dead when the pub's new manager, Stephen Bannerman, seemed a more likely target after they find that he was thoroughly disliked and was threatening to tear the Splendour down.
When Bannerman is soon murdered, the detectives wonder if Jamie's murder was unintentional. When the village of Midsomer Parva set alight the straw effigy of a woman as part of the revival of an old pagan festival, no one could foresee it ending in tragedy when the local curate screams out in agony from within the effigy.
His death quickly turns the community against Liz Francis, the local teacher who organized it, yet as Barnaby and Scott investigate his murder, they soon discover that the curate had been in conflict with Alan Clifford, a pornographer who had moved into the area recently. When more people suddenly die from bouts of spontaneous human combustion, the detectives soon suspect someone is using the illusion of witchcraft to cover up the real motive behind the murders.
Nine years after Ferdinand Villiers committed suicide at his family's home of Draycott Hall, the extended Villiers family gather together to celebrate Christmas. When a note in a Christmas cracker proclaims that two members of the family will be dead by midnight on Boxing Day, everyone assumes it to be nothing more than a joke until Aunt Lydia, the eldest member of the family, nearly dies from smoke suffocation before falling down the stairs during the night.
Just before she dies from her injuries, Barnaby learns from her that someone had pushed her and soon discovers her near-death earlier in the evening was no accident. Both he and Scott soon find themselves trying to determine the motive for Lydia's death, and quickly uncover many secrets and lies tied to Ferdinand's suicide, before another member of the family is killed in what appears to be a shooting accident.
When local undertaker, Patrick Pennyman, is found by his wife bludgeoned to death in his own chapel of rest with a heavy object, Barnaby and Scott find themselves wondering who within Fletcher's Cross left him with a shocked look upon his face before he was killed. As they investigate, the pair quickly find themselves drawn towards a local spiritualist church that had been heavily controversial in the village, after a friend of Joyce, investigating both the church and the undertaker on suspicion that they were stealing from the dead and using information acquired from them, is murdered shortly after the latest spiritualist meeting.
A day at the annual Midsomer Regatta is cut short for Barnaby, when the body of Guy Sweetman, a member of a local boating club, emerges from the river at Morton Shallows. Both he and Scott quickly learn that Guy was a ladies' man with many enemies, and had been in secret meetings with a few other members.
It's not long before the two detectives uncover lies, jealously, a planned robbery and blackmail, before the latest woman Guy loved and was planning to marry, is attacked and nearly killed. When a female classics scholar, a member of a group of orchid lovers, is found poisoned in her own home by a local handyman, Barnaby find himself returning to Midsomer Malham the day after he and his wife had helped out in the village's annual garden show.
It quickly transpires that the victim not only had a secret lover, but had also smuggled a rare, priceless, one-of-a-kind orchid - the Yellow Roth - out of Borneo. It soon becomes clear the orchid was the motive for her murder, when one of the other members who bought the Roth is soon found dead, with their own collection destroyed.
A successful day at the races for the racehorse, Bantling Boy, is overshadowed the following day when Bruce Hartley, one of the horse's owners and an alcoholic horse trainer, is found murdered within the horse's stables, having been struck on the back of the head. Barnaby and Scott quickly learn that the night before his murder, Hartley had been in dispute with the other owners of the horse at Bantling Hall, and had refused to allow them to accept an offer to buy the horse.
Although they assume the motive was over the sale of the horse, they soon find a darker motive when one of the other owners is murdered in the exact same fashion, but with a pennant of cloth left in their mouth. Barnaby and Scott are drawn into the strange world surrounding the ability of "Second Sight", when they find themselves in the village of Midsomer Mere to investigate the sudden death of John Ransom, shortly after he had been kicked out of the local pub for fighting with his brother-in-law over the upcoming baptism of his niece. John is quickly discovered to have been a lab rabbit for his brother Max, who suspected he had the ability, much like those of local family, the Kirbys.
As Barnaby tries to determine if the ability is real, he soon encounters tensions between the two families, an unlucky bookmaker, a priest attempting to save the local church, a man who he swears he saw before, and more murders. While it appears to be suicide at first, Barnaby is quickly convinced by the evidence he sees that Nick Turner, a solicitor who lived in Midsomer Magna, did not walk off the roof of his home, but was dropped to his death. When it transpires that his neighbour, Jack Wilmot, has disappeared shortly after his death, both Barnaby and Scott begin a search for answers, and soon turn up rumours that Nick had lost money he had stolen from his clients' accounts.
It's not long before their investigations turn sinister, when Nick's rival, Otto Benham, is brutally murdered after having wine bottles catapulted at him, all within view of his wife. The victim was well known to the family and had been on a tour of the factory the day before his body was found, around the same time that the Plummers had been discussing the state of the floundering business during a general meeting, to which Ralph Plummer had angered his siblings by refusing to sell it. It's not long before legal documents, resentment of the family, and odd sightings, add to the mystery of the investigations.
Last appearance of DS Dan Scott. Caroline and Peter Cave are house-hunting in Midsomer Newton. While checking out, they mention they haven't been able to find what they're looking for: Anne Merrick tells them that Winyard, the perfect abandoned cottage in the woods, might be for sale. At the real estate agency, they are told the house is not yet available for viewing. Later that evening they find the house on their own. However, Caroline has read up on the cottage's haunted reputation and only reluctantly explores it with Peter. The next morning they are found strangled in their own car.
Barnaby starts the investigation with the help of PC Ben Jones as Scott has called in sick and they come across the world of estate agents, identical twins, ghosts, piano wire, and more before another body turns up. Villagers of Midsomer Barton are all set to celebrate Oak Apple Week, especially as the carnival queen event is set to return after an eight year absence. Yet the body of the mother of a deceased, one-time carnival queen, found in a stream, looks set to spoil things, as Barnaby and Jones find themselves digging up the past.
From familiar faces, to drunken boasts and hidden obessions, it slowly becomes clear that the mother's daughter might be the key to solving the murder, when more deaths follow. Wealthy, eccentric and obese aristocrat Freddy Butler drops dead, shortly after gathering all three of his wives at Haddington Hall to make an announcement. Although George Bullard is adamant his death is from natural causes, the case is far from simple when Freddy's solicitor is deliberately killed in a house fire shortly afterwards and Freddy's will goes missing. Barnaby and Jones find themselves investigating the extended Butler family, uncovering hidden secrets, illegitimate children and elusive treasure in the process.
Martin Barrett, a local council clerk living in Midsomer Worthy, is murdered during the night by shotgun, prompting Barnaby and Jones to find a motive for his murder. When they discover that Barrett was an expert blackmailer, his victims become prime suspects for his death - from a local pub landlord, a cleaner, a prominent member of the police board, to a former marine geologist. As they investigate, finding themselves drawn to the seaside, they slowly uncover deception, theft, attempted blackmail and hatred.
In the village of Broughton, a ninety-year-old battle of the sexes has often occurred, with men trying to oppose an event that the women have managed to successfully hold without interruption, until it culminates with casualties on both sides - Mildred Danvers, an elderly woman who had returned on the day of a funeral and poisoned in her hotel room, and Rev. Anthony Gant, shot during a major event being held in the village green, in view of many. It soon becomes clear someone may have wished to kill both to cover up a dark truth, and soon Barnaby has to figure out who amongst the village wanted both dead, complicated further when Gant's curate is murdered next.
Villagers in Elverton-cum-Latterly are up in arms and divided, over the building of a supermarket. Things soon come to a head when independent environmental supervisor, Frank Hopkirk, is found stabbed to death at a Jubb's Timber Yard, the site of the new supermarket, by a pair of children.
When Barnaby and Jones investigate to determine who wanted Hopkirk dead, they find out that he secretly came to the village under various aliases for sexual rendezvous with various women in fantasy role-playing scenarios, and that he had been making further investigations on the future development site and having doubts over claims it was contaminated.
Either someone didn't like his investigations, or someone didn't like his sexual appetite, but either way, Barnaby finds himself investigating lies and more to uncover the truth. Barnaby and DC Ben Jones Jason Hughes find themselves attempting to unravel the deaths of a choir tenor, and later a bird watcher, before more murders occur. The case is complicated by a rivalry between the Midsomer Worthy and Aston Wherry choirs, due to compete in an upcoming competition, and suspicions that an art scam is to be conducted, and soon Barnaby and Jones become concerned about a local woman, who they fear may become a victim herself.
Particularly when it becomes clear the bird watcher had been photographing suspicious activity of late. A few months ago, Annie Woodrow was arrested, accused of murdering her friend, Frances Trevelyan, on the motive of wanting Frances' husband. Her time in court has come, but DCI Barnaby is certain she still is holding things back in regards to the murder, and decides to monitor the trial.
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Yet a chance remark by Frances' youngest daughter, and a meeting with an old friend and psychiatrist, makes him begin to doubt the evidence for her conviction. Soon he and DC Jones, awaiting news of his promotion to DS, find themselves reinvestigating the case, and it soon becomes clear that they may have missed details that could implicate another in the murder. A disused airfield near Morton Fendle is the location for a romantic evening between young Simon Bright and his girlfriend Laura Sharp - absolutely nothing could ruin their date.
The next morning, when Frances Kirby is out for her morning jog, she notices the vintage car they were in up at the airfield, containing Simon Bright's dead body, with Laura nowhere to be seen. Jones can't work out whether it was a suicide pact or murder. Furthermore, they've got to find Miss Sharp and their investigation leads them to linking Simon and Laura with the villagers of Morton Fendle, who met at Elaine Trim's dancing classes.
Eventually, the Barnaby family plus Jones make it to a 40s style dance night at the village hall before more villagers start turning up dead. Things become even more complex when Rex's body is found in a nearby river, bearing wounds that suggest he was murdered. Barnaby and Jones are soon on the case, trying to establish who would have wanted the elderly man dead.