Marissa Clarke is a character appearing in the episode Dance with the Dead of the ITV crime drama Midsomer Murders.
Marissa was a lone wolf ironically caring for animals in need at her personal kennel. She was always looking for love and companionship, and a young seductress named Laura Sharp too advantage of that, as she's always manipulate and allure people for money, board, relationships, or even promiscuity for fun. Whether as a lifelong partner or a dear lover, Marissa eventually wanted to keep Laura for herself. She become more embittered and scorned when Laura continued to obviously use her, and when Laura met Simon Bright, her steady boyfriend, at the kennel, Marissa was distraught and finally snapped. Unable to shake her obsession, Marissa bludgeoned Simon and Laura at the Cooper's Cross airfield, where they arranged a date. She decided to suffocate them in the car with exhaust through a hope to stage a "suicide pact". When Laura woke up and crawled out of the car coughing, Marissa pummeled her with the metal scrap rod she utilized and dragged her dead body into the car, later burying her on the grounds of the kennel property.
She later stabbed Tony Kirby, who had a fling with Laura, after stopping him at the airfield with a ruse of automobile trouble. When she buried the knife, Rosemary Wood, who wished for her pilot brother Ralph, who went missing in action during wartime, to return, saw her in the field and mistook Marissa for her dear departed brother. As Marissa kept Laura's voicemails to hear her voice when she wanted, she rearranged pieces of the tapes to lure Carol Prentice, a mother of a little girl and Laura's seduced landlady, to the airfield. Carol was nearly choked to death with a dog chain, but Simon's father Paul Bright saw the attack and honked his horn to scare Marissa off. As she left the chain behind, the police instantly concluded she was the killer and arrested her. She gave a full confession and directed them to Laura's remains in her land.
Victims[]
- Simon Bright - Struck on the head with cane or pipe and placed in his car that was then filled with exhaust gas.
- Laura Sharp - Struck on the head with cane or pipe and placed in the car with Simon, but regained consciousness and stumbled out of the car only to be struck on the head several more times. Her body was then buried next to the kennels where she worked.
- Tony Kirby - Stabbed in the back several times with a kitchen knife while taking a torch from his car's trunk.
- Carol Prentice - Lured to the airfield with doctored tapes of Laura's voice over the phone; strangled and attempted to kill with a dog's chain; was scared off by Paul Bright and left the chain behind.