Jessica Fletcher


Jessica Beatrice Fletcher is a character and the protagonist portrayed by award-winning actress Angela Lansbury on the American television series Murder, She Wrote. Fletcher is a best-selling author of mystery novels, an English teacher, amateur detective, and congresswoman. In 2004, Fletcher was listed in Bravo's "100 Greatest TV Characters". AOL named her one of the "100 Most Memorable Female TV Characters". The same website listed her among "TV's Smartest Detectives". She was ranked at number six on Sleuth Channel's poll of "America's Top Sleuths". Guinness World Records called her the "most prolific amateur sleuth".

Background

Jessica's ancestors hailed from Kilcleer, County Cork, Ireland. She has four brothers and sisters. Two of her brothers are Marshall, a doctor, and Martin. Jessica's maiden name was MacGill, inspired by Angela Lansbury's mother's real maiden name. Before she met Frank she went to Harrison College in Green Falls, New Hampshire, to become a journalist. In the episode "Alma Murder", she mentions being a member of Delta Alpha Chi sorority.
Fletcher lives at 698 Candlewood Lane in the town of Cabot Cove, Maine 03041. While teaching criminology at Manhattan University, she stays in Manhattan at the Penfield House Apartments, 941 West 61st St. Cabot Cove is a town of 3,560 inhabitants near the ocean. Based on the number of murders that occur in a given season of the series, the town seems to have probably one of the highest murder ratios of any town or city. This has even been remarked on in the series by the town sheriff, Mort Metzger. He noted in season 5, episode 21 that this was his fifth murder in one year. Given the murder rate in this town, it has about the same murder rate of a town 20 times its size.
Her travels as an author frequently take her to places around much of the English-speaking world, which gives her writers a little more ability to stretch the character and her situations than rural New England alone would have provided. One of them takes her to Hawaii, where she shares a case with private detective Thomas Magnum, star of Magnum, P.I..
Fletcher was widowed from her beloved husband, Frank, who died a couple of years before the start of the series. They had no children – Fletcher said that she and Frank "weren't blessed that way" – but had a seemingly endless collection of nephews, nieces, cousins, in-laws and other relatives or friends who always need her help. Especially prone to get into trouble is her nephew Grady Fletcher, who was raised for a period of time by Jessica and Frank. Grady always seemed to meet the wrong girl, until he finally married Donna several seasons into the show; their son Frankie is named for Jessica's late husband.
It is established early in the series that Jessica cannot drive. This was written into the program to facilitate the character's questioning of suspects and fellow investigators while having them drive her somewhere.

Relatives

Siblings
Nieces
Nephews
Cousins
Other relatives
Fletcher began her career writing on an old Royal typewriter, but as her career progresses, she eventually purchases a computer running Windows 3.1. Among her friends she can count multi-millionaires who own Beech Starships as well as down-on-their-luck homeless people, moving effortlessly between the social strata. The format of the show usually has Jessica solving the mysteries within five minutes of the end of each program, unless the producers felt they could prolong the suspense across two episodes. Perhaps her most notable experience was encountering a Mr. Potts, who preferred to be called Mr. Bond—he did at least have an Aston Martin DB6, in which Jessica herself ended up racing to the rescue.
Fletcher's relationship with law-enforcement officials varies from place to place. Both the sheriffs of Cabot Cove are used to, or have resigned themselves to, having her meddle in their cases. However, most detectives and police officers do not want her anywhere near their crime scenes, until her accurate deductions convince them to listen to what she has to say. Others are fans of her books and give her free rein. With time, she makes friends in many police departments across the United States, as well as a British police officer attached to Scotland Yard.

Solving crimes

Fletcher is a retired teacher-turned-author of detective fiction under the name J.B. Fletcher, but constantly finds that her work and personal life overlap. In every episode, she is introduced into a situation where someone is killed shortly after her arrival. She is generally forced to solve every mystery herself in the style of one of the characters from her book, as the police prove to be incapable of doing so without her help. In fact, on at least one occasion, a law enforcement officer is actually unmasked as the killer, when John Astin appears as the villainous Sheriff Harry Pierce.
Episodes usually follow a formula. The episode opens as Fletcher arrives, either in her fictitious town of residence, or visiting elsewhere and meets several characters. These characters are usually Mrs. Fletcher's friends, family, relations, or business associates. Several of these characters are shown to have motive with respect to the potential demise of one of their associates. Often at least one of them is heard to make a threat against this individual, and therefore will become the principal suspect. About a third of the way through the episode, if not earlier, the likely victim is found dead. After a brief investigation, the authorities arrest the most obvious suspect, but Jessica believes that the arrested suspect is innocent, and sets out to prove it.
An unrelated conversation will often suggest to Jessica the solution to the mystery, at which point she will rush off to confirm her suspicion. The next scene will present Jessica at the place where the crime was committed, where Jessica will find one of the characters, usually alone. She enters into a conversation with this character and in a few minutes accuses him or her of being the killer, explaining how and why this person did it. The murderer first denies guilt, but Jessica describes a few clues which she observed and which the episode viewers may or may not have had an opportunity to see. Sometimes Fletcher will make up evidence which was not actually found, but the discovery of which will seem plausible to the killer. At this point, the murderer admits guilt and confesses, whereupon Jessica shakes her head sadly. Sometimes the killer will draw a weapon and attempt to kill Jessica but will be thwarted by timely police appearance from a hiding place to arrest the true killer. Once Jessica almost met a deadly fate at the hands of her own nephew, Grady, who served her a salad containing radishes without realising she is so strongly allergic to them that one mouthful could mean instant death.
The episode concludes with a final scene in which the innocent former suspects say goodbye to Jessica and thank her for the happy ending. Almost every episode then ends with a freeze frame shot of Jessica laughing or smiling. Of course, the above is only a formula and there were some unusual shows, such as the one episode where the supposedly framed suspect actually was the murderer. Then, there is another episode in which, while Grady and his heavily-pregnant wife were house-sitting for Jessica, someone was murdered in the basement. Fortunately Jessica, who had been blissfully unaware of the murder for half the episode, solved the crime over the phone.

Novels

Novels by Fletcher that are mentioned during the series:
Jessica Fletcher is credited along with authors Donald Bain and Jon Land as co-author of a series of "Murder She Wrote" novels inspired by the TV series. The first novel "Gin and Daggers" was originally published in 1989.