Jeremy Thacker is a character appearing in the episode The Animal Within of the ITV crime drama Midsomer Murders.
Jeremy is the son of Lucinda Thacker, a late missionary he wrote a biography for posthumously and hoped to achieve the status of sainthood for. Lucinda was coerced into a sexually active social circle in the 60s when she was a teenager by aristocrat Rex Masters, another participant being his friend and groundskeeper Miles King. Masters and King exploited and degraded Lucinda, with Masters taking photographs, Lucinda waking up with immense pain and regret. Jeremy asked his mother if Masters raped her, as the village suspected, and she never corrected his accurate intuition because she was ashamed of that part of her life and the trauma was too much to bear. Jeremy wrote the accounts into chapter three of the book, with no mention of Masters by name to avoid libel, successfully publishing despite Masters' attempts to sabotage Jeremy. Jeremy confronted Masters over the bridge at Crofter's Weir, Masters bragging about the crimes and revealing the photos were locked in Masters' study. Jeremy, blackmailed with the dissemination of the photos, Masters' entire collection of them, knew his mother couldn't achieve sainthood if the scandal were found out, as well as was irreparably traumatized by Masters' devaluing regard of her even after she forgave him before she died. He bashed Masters with a flashlight and threw him into Crofter's Weir to drown, prepared to get the photos back. He attempted to break into the study and retrieve the photos, but Alan Alexander, the husband of Masters' niece Faith who was extorting Masters, saw him and fled. The motive was originally assumed to be his fiancé, Janet Bailey, inheriting Masters' estate in a recently revised will and testament. He decided to use the convenience of her dread of suspicion by making a false "alibi" of being home with her.
Jeremy had no issues confirming the rapes being placed in his mother's biography, saying had no regrets or sympathy after Masters was murdered while arguing how he supported his mother indeed being a victim in the face of the rest of the village's fluctuating perspectives. He was briefly suspected less after a burglary and failed attempt to get into the study in the middle of the night, by King himself to contest the will with evidence of the fake alibi, because of Jeremy's alibi in London. When Jeremy realized this, he killed King, then Eileen Carnack when she walked in as an incidental witness, with King's own kitchen cutlery. The photos were found, and Lucinda was matched to images of her that matched pictures of her in her biography, along with King being identified by a birthmark on his elbow. Jeremy saw Ben Jones use the key to lock the study, likely planning to sneak inside later. Tom Barnaby arrived at the estate to pretend to "arrest" Janet in the interest of admitting her fake alibi. Jeremy was merely mad at her for putting him in a vulnerable position, which Barnaby clarified by accusing him outright and presenting the photographs. Jeremy tried to get them, pushing Janet aside, out of horror and rage, but he was restrained while Barnaby held them visible. Jeremy was revolted and refused to believe any consent, but Janet, who herself was manipulated by Masters and thought little of his proclivities, was furious Jeremy killed a man he regarded as "vermin" for addressing his mother's exploitation as a "light orgy". After Janet and Faith turned on him and stormed out, he confessed the rest, tremoring before confident, and was arrested. Janet and Faith started divorces while they went off for a holiday.
Victims[]
- Rex Masters - Bashed over head with a torch and then pushed into Crofter's Weir where he drowned.
- Miles King - Stabbed in the chest with a kitchen knife.
- Eileen Carnack - Stabbed in the back with a kitchen knife while running away after seeing King's body.