Leo Clarke is a character appearing in the episode Death in Chorus of the ITV crime drama Midsomer Murders.
Clarke met Giles Armitage and Connor Simpson at gambling rings, where they all raked in massive collective debt they needed to pay. As Simpson did time for art forgery, they planned to sell some of Giles' paintings to collect on the money they needed for the payoffs. Giles was to deliver the paintings to Clarke, who would find a buyer while Simpson kept the originals to spend weeks on the forgeries. Simpson stabbed his conspirators in their backs by keeping one of the paintings, a valuable portrait of Bach, so he'd used the money to get away with his married lover Ellen Barker. Simpson laughed at how they couldn't turn him in without ratting themselves out, so when threatening him with a pig's heart nailed to the wall didn't work, Clarke snapped in his final confrontation and bludgeoned Simpson about his head with a fire iron.
Giles' former estate manager, Sam Judd, was spying on the men to get back at Giles for firing him to save money when he and his wife Carolyn Armitage had sinking finances from their estate and Giles' gambling problems. Sam was prepared to share his role of film to Carolyn, who was to meet in the estate's barn house to see the evidence. Clarke blew Sam away with a shotgun, while Giles snatched his wife and dragged her off to the manor. Sam was moved to the graveyard, but the role of film they wanted from him wasn't retrieved. They all knew they couldn't hold Carolyn hostage in the manor, even after endlessly drugging her with Rohypnol. She escaped once and pointed at Clarke, where he was rehearsing for the Midsomer Worthy Choir's competition formerly with Simpson. Clarke rushed to her with Giles to get her back to the manor.
After Giles was arrested for nearly making Carolyn drown in the property's lake, the detail on Simpson's house was removed. Clarke broke back in for the painting, but Tom Barnaby caught him. Despite Clarke's threats to burn the portrait for his escape, Ben Jones blew the lighter out. They both got his confession and arrested him.
Victims[]
- Connor Simpson - Struck several times on the head with a fireplace poker.
- Sam Judd - Shot in the chest with a 12-gauge shotgun, then taken to a cemetery and placed on top of a gravestone. His eyes were then taken by crows.