Jessica Fletcher

Jessica in the Murder, She Wrote episode "The Cemetery Vote"

Jessica Beatrice Fletcher is a fictional character portrayed on the American television series Murder, She Wrote by veteran British Oscar-nominated actress Angela Lansbury.

This program was one of the most successful of the 1980s and 1990s on the CBS television network. Mrs. Fletcher was a retired teacher turned author of detective fiction under the name J. B. Fletcher, but was constantly finding that her work and personal lives overlapped. In every episode she was introduced into a situation where someone was killed shortly after her arrival. She was generally forced to solve every mystery herself in the style of one of the characters from her book, as the police proved to be incapable of doing so without her help. In fact, on at least one occasion a man of the law was actually unmasked as the killer, when cult TV actor John Astin appeared as the villainous Sheriff Harry Pierce.

Episodes usually follow a formula. The episode opens as Jessica Fletcher arrives, (either in her fictitious town of residence [Cabot Cove, Maine], or visiting elsewhere [typically in New York City or Boston]) and meets several characters. These characters are usually Mrs. Fletcher's friends, family, or business associates (in connection with her role as a sucessful author). Several of these characters are shown to have motive with respect to the potential demise of one their number (typically an unlikeable individual). Often at least one of them is heard to make a threat against this individual, and therefore will become the principal suspect. About half way through the episode, the likely victim is found dead. After a brief investigation, the authorities arrest the most obvious suspect, but Jessica believes that the arrested suspect (who is a likeable person, often a friend, or relative of Jessica) is innocent, and sets out to prove it.

An unrelated conversation often will suggest to Jessica the solution to the mystery, at which point she will rush off to confirm her suspicion (without telling the viewers what she has in mind). The next scene will present Jessica at the place where the crime was committed. Jessica will there 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 murderer, explaining how and why this person did it. The killer first denies guilt, but Jessica describes a few clues which she observed but which the episode viewers may or not have had an opportunity to see. Sometimes Mrs. Fletcher will make up evidence which wasn't actually found, but the discovery of which will seem plausable to the killer. At this point, the murderer admits guilt and confesses. Normally the murder will then pull out a weapon and prepare to kill Jessica too, at which point the police appear from hiding and arrest the true killer.

The episode concludes with a final scene in which the innocent former suspects say good bye to Jessica, and thank her for the happy ending.

Home and family life

Mrs. Fletcher lived in the fictional town of Cabot Cove, Maine, which wags proclaim to have probably the highest murder rate of any small town in the civilized world (and as a not unnatural corollary in many parodies and satire she is arrested by law enforcement agencies as her very presence causes the commitment of murder ^{[citation needed]}), but her travels as an author very frequently took her to places around much of the English-speaking world, which gave her writers a little more ability to stretch the character and her situations than rural New England alone would have provided. One of them took her to Hawaii, where she shared a case with private detective Thomas Magnum, star of Magnum PI.

Mrs. Fletcher was widowed from her beloved husband Frank, with no children but with an endless collection of nephews, nieces, cousins, in-laws and other relatives or friends who always needed her help. Especially prone to get into trouble was her giddy 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.

Career and life as a best-selling author

Angela Lansbury as Jessica

Mrs. Fletcher began her career writing on an old Underwood typewriter, but as her career progressed, she eventually purchased an Intel 80386 class computer running Windows 3.1 (suitably antiquated now, but the latest back then). Among her friends she can count both multi-millionaires who own Beech Starships to down-on-their-luck homeless people, moving effortlessly between the social strata. Jessica always strived to solve mysteries within five minutes of the end of each program, unless the producers felt they could prolong the nail-biting 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.

Jessica's relationship with law enforcement officials varied from place to place. Both the sheriffs of Cabot Cove were used to, or resigned themselves to, having her meddle in their cases. However, most detectives and police officers didn't want her anywhere near their crime scenes, until her accurate deductions convinced them to listen to what she had to say. Others were fans of her books and glad to let her snoop. With time, she made friends in many police departments across the USA, as well as a British police officer attached to Scotland Yard.

Novels by J. B. Fletcher

Novels J. B. Fletcher wrote that were mentioned during the series:

Trivia

• The series of novels by Donald Bain based upon Murder, She Wrote are credited to Jessica Fletcher.
• Her birthday is November 21.
• In one episode of the show it was revealed that she is allergic to radishes.
• Jessica appears to prefer tea to coffee, as seen in the episode "Majoring in Murder".
• A Norwegian rock 'n' roll band, The Jessica Fletchers, is named after the character.
• She does not drive, though she often rides a bike in Cabot Cove.
• She once served in the United States House of Representatives [1]
• She doesn't favor the use of poison as a plot device in her mystery stories. ("A Killing in Cork", episode no. 204)

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