Murdoch Mysteries - Season 4

When a strange case crosses his desk; body parts – a foot, a hand and a headless torso - have surfaced along the Don River. Ogden’s replacement, Dr. Francis Philpott, insists the body parts are from one murder victim. But Murdoch has his doubts and contacts Ogden. Initially reluctant, Julia can’t help but be intrigued by the case. Murdoch secretly ships her the evidence and Ogden’s examination reveals they are dealing with three different victims but likely one killer.

Murdoch and the gang are called to the scene of a grisly murder in the Don Valley, after a young man is found savagely beaten to death. The victim is Tom Meeks, a cadet at Fort York, who was on a rigorous training course that teaches guerrilla tactics. When another body is found with a ripped face to try and avoid identification, Murdoch investigates the military unit further and finds out some very disturbing underhand medical practices that the soldiers are unaware of.

Despite an unsolved break-in at the station house, Murdoch announces he’s taking a vacation. His holiday turns out to be a trip in response to a telegram from Dr. Ogden requesting his help in Buffalo to solve what she thinks is a murder at The Children’s Hospital. Murdoch agrees to go - thoughts of rekindling their relationship in the back of his mind. The case involves a 14 year-old terminally ill boy, Ben Wilkie, who has died under what Ogden feels are mysterious circumstances.

When the master of a wealthy household, is found face down in his morning porridge, it would seem that Murdoch has entered into a conventional drawing room mystery. The characters are all there: The murdered Percival, his aggrieved wife and two very different sons. But whereas most drawing room mysteries revolve around the affairs of the upper class, Murdoch learns that the heart of this mystery lies in the servant’s hall below the stairs, where there’s a mix of unsettled emotions and grudges to bear.

Julia is getting married to Rafe in a week - the letter she wrote to Murdoch confessing her love for him is lying beneath his desk blotter and he has no idea it exists. On top of his heartbreak, he has made no progress on a case involving a young French woman who had arrived in Toronto to visit her sister, and then vanished without a trace. The case is further complicated when Murdoch arrests a dashing young Frenchman breaking into a suspect’s apartment, only to learn that he is a detective who has been hired by the disappeared woman’s father.

Murdoch makes a surprising discovery at a dolls house fair; in one of the houses the artist has placed a hand firing a gun. This is no ordinary model - it’s a crime scene. Murdoch finds the creator of the streetscape, an autistic 19-year-old, Lydia, who communicates best through model building. No one has reported a murder yet, but using the model’s intricate clues left by Lydia, Murdoch discovers that someone indeed has been killed – but what happened and why? Someone is far from happy by his investigations and things begin to get even more sinister in the neighbourhood.

The murdered body of an elderly drifter is found near the docks with a whiskey flask clenched in his hands. It looks at first like another drunk has met an unkind fate. But, when Ogden determines the victim had the liver of a teetotaler, Murdoch inspects the whiskey flask and finds a secret compartment containing what appears to be part of a coded message. The case takes an even stranger turn when a man identifying himself as the dead man’s son comes to the morgue to claim his body. Investigations lead to political conspiracies being uncovered and a far bigger case is on their hands than first expected.

A young switchboard operator, overhears a murder over the telephone lines and reports it to Station House #4. When Murdoch traces the address, no one is home and there’s no body. But Murdoch is suspicious of the particularly clean room and instructs Crabtree to fetch his murder bag. This is a crime scene.

When Murdoch is called to the scene of a murder Joe Prestia, a handsome thirty-something, he discovers that he once had a relationship with the victim’s beautiful fiancée, Anna Fulford. Dr. Ogden discovers evidence suggesting Joe was the victim of a skilled assassin. Anna has no idea who would have wanted to kill Joe. Matters take a frightening turn when the assassin makes an attempt on Anna’s life. Why would anyone want Anna dead too? Murdoch’s investigation reveals that the murdered man had a much darker past than anyone knew.

As the sisters of the Immaculate Conception prepare to put the coffin of elderly Sister Ignatius into her final resting place in the convent’s cemetery, a young novitiate peers into the dug grave and sees something poking out of the dirt – a human hand. Murdoch is called to the scene and his constables lift the bloodied body of the convent’s gardener out of the grave. But a dead body is not the only surprise the convent holds.

When a young teenage girl collapses and dies in her nightgown at the fountain at The Gordon Academy for Young Women, Ogden and Murdoch are called in to investigate. Why had she snuck out? She had lost a lot of blood, but only a trickle was there when they found her? And who is the mysterious lone figure that seems to haunt the school at night? The schoolgirl witnesses tell tales of trances and beautiful pale-skinned young men, and soon people begin to believe that vampirism is behind the murder...

The Toronto Bank is thrown into chaos when a masked man bursts through the door and fires two shots into the ceiling. The robber gets the tellers to fill his bag. When he finishes he kisses a teller on the lips and escapes into the street. The Kissing Bandit has struck a third bank and so Murdoch is put on the case. During each robbery the bandit kisses one teller before fleeing, and takes such little money that it hardly seems worth the risk, and then the stolen cash is distributed to local charities. Who is this modern day Robin Hood?

When a woman is found murdered at a costume party held in honour of the late Lewis Carroll, all clues point to a man dressed as the Mad Hatter. It seems obvious that this is the killer? This is not welcomed news as this part was played by Murdoch himself. Murdoch becomes the Alice In Wonderland prime murder suspect and it’s up to his team to prove their favourite detective is not the killer – or can we be sure of that?