Cast:
Cully Barnaby...................Laura Howard
Joyce Barnaby..................Jane Wymark
Tom Barnaby....................John Nettles
Gavin Troy........................Daniel Casey
Location(s):
Badger's Drift
Summary:
Shortly after the arrival of Simon Fletcher to Badger's Drift, property developer Richard Bayly is found decapitated in his house. The sword used to commit this brutal murder strangely enough belonged to the local vicar. Even after Katherine Lacey, it appears there is a dangerous madman afoot in Badger's Drift - a hypothesis soon proved right when David Whitely is burned alive in his caravan and Simon Fletcher is shot with a bow and arrow. Barnaby discovers the murders are related to a hanging that occured thirty years previously in the adjacent woods...
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The murderers of Felix Bryce, the boy hanged in the woods thirty years ago, are Simon Fletcher, Ian Eastman, Richard Bayly and David Whitely. They were teasing the boy by putting a rope around his neck while he was standing on a chair, but Felix struggled so much he accidentally killed himself. Richard Bayly, who had recently found out he was dying of cancer, decided to confess to someone about his past. He did so to the vicar, Stephen Wentworth, not knowing Wentworth was the father of the boy they'd murdered. The murderer of Richard Bayly, Simon Fletcher and David Whitely is Stephen Wentworth. After Bayly confessed to him, Wentworth got his sword, returned to Bayly's house and decapitated him on his doorstep. He then went back home, hid the sword and returned to bed. Some minutes later, he fiddled with the clock and woke his wife to check the clock for the time (Angela Wentworth hadn't noticed her husband had been gone), and so acquired a solid alibi. To take further revenge, Wentworth shot Simon Fletcher dead. Later, he locked David Whitely in his caravan and set it alight. After he was unmasked by Barnaby as the murderer, he committed suicide by jumping off the church's tower. |