Alice Diamond (Daphne Ashbrook) is the hidden secondary villainess (who twice unsuccessfully attempts to murder her stepmother) of "Ballad for a Blue Lady," episode 7.09 of Murder, She Wrote (airdate December 2, 1990).
About[]
Alice Diamond is the daughter and business partner of country star Bobby Diamond, along with being the stepdaughter of blues singer Patti Sue Diamond. In the episode, Alice wanted to talk to her father after having a fight with her boyfriend, Preston Wardell, at an after-party that took place after one of her stepmother's concerts, only to find him dead of an apparent suicide in his farmhouse, with a note on the table next to a bottle of his favorite bourbon and also a bottle of strychnine. Unbeknownst to Alice, Bobby was actually murdered, but still believing that he took his own life, Alice realized that with her father dead, her stepmother would inherit the business—something Alice felt that she herself deserved.
Heel Turn[]
Alice attempting to kill her stepmother Patti Sue
With that in mind, Alice turned heel and poured some of the strychnine into the bottle of bourbon, which made the staged suicide look like a murder that was committed by Patti Sue. The covetous woman also broke the window of the door to Bobby's farmhouse from just outside using an unknown blunt instrument in an attempt to make the Nashville Police Department believe that somebody else had broken in. As she drove home, the evil Alice concocted a plan to kill Patti Sue, planning to make it appear that she committed suicide out of guilt.
The greedy villainess started an argument with her stepmother and then poured the remaining strychnine into her coffee, along with wiping her fingerprints off the bottle of poison before placing Patti Sue's fingerprints on said bottle after she lost consciousness. However, Patti Sue survived the first attempt on her life due to a big bowl of ice cream which she had eaten earlier, which lined her stomach. Later on, the nefarious businesswoman snuck into Patti Sue's hospital room and injected a poison into her IV drip as part of her second attempt to murder the latter, which was later revealed to have failed once again. Her presence was noticed by two security guards, and they subsequently chased and also handcuffed Alice during her failed attempt to escape, marking her villainous reveal.
After her arrest, the villainess confessed to poisoning her stepmother and vented over how she felt that she deserved to run the business, along with expressing grief over her father's death and also bemoaning her failure to kill Patti Sue. When she was accused of killing her father by Lieutenant Jackson, Alice denied being his murderer, showing the "suicide note" to him, Preston, and Jessica Fletcher in order to prove her innocence, which not only worked, but also proved vital to revealing the very surprising identity of Bobby's true killer.
Trivia[]
- This was the first of Daphne Ashbrook's three villainous appearances in the series. She later appeared as Alexis Hill in Season Eleven's "Dear Deadly" and also Kathy Stafford in "Nailed," the twelfth and final season opener.
- Daphne Ashbrook also played Paula Wechsler on Without a Trace, Mrs. Carter on Crossing Jordan, and Donna Peyton on NCIS.
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