Robert "Rob" Pride is a character appearing in the episode Dead Letters of the ITV crime drama Midsomer Murders.
Robert was the love of Bella Slade, a young girl who was the last Oak Apple Queen crowned in Midsomer Barton's yearly namesake festival. She got pregnant with their baby, but they had a row that left her running off in grief. She went to Mark Castle, a married man with a drinking problem whose family Robert cared and worked for, for one fling out of devastation and a need for payback. Robert regretted his actions and sent in his last love letter, all of which Bella kept tied in a red ribbon in her closet, Robert professing his sorrow and intentions to help care for her and their child. However, with the complicity of her mother Marion Slade, Bella arranged an abortion with illicit general practitioner Richard Wellow. The abortion went awry and killed Bella, which left Robert irreparably broken.
For eight years, he buried his pain and rage at the people he held responsible for Bella's death. But after eight years of the Oak Apple Queen tradition being discontinued, it was started again, for the desired publicity of the pillars of the village, with Marion's approval. Especially when local teenager predator Alistair Gooding specifically rigged the contest in favor of a girl named Vicki, who was uncannily similar in appearance to Bella, Robert was fed up and finally snapped.
Robert went to Marion's house, swiping a photo of Bella for himself, and tampered with Marion's anti-anxiety prescription, Dirathene, hoping to overdose her that night. However, she instead gone and suffered its hallucinogenic effects, intent on killing herself to reunite with Bella, having quickly placed a coat over her nightdress before stumbling out of the house and down the road. When Robert came across her, he snarled his resentments at her and drowned her in a nearby stream, where some kids found her and eventually alerted, coincidentally, Mark Castle.
Robert played dumb throughout the whole investigation, usually directing attention at the problems of the other villagers. Of course, partly to keep up his ruse, he ingratiated himself even more to Mark's wife and daughter, Helen Castle and Sadie Castle. All the while, he plotted killing Mark, ensuring to lure him away from the pub for a Scotch, which was laced with Marion's Diarthene. As Mark stumbled through the woods Robert walked with Bella, hallucinating enough to pull his own knife out, Robert was right behind him. When Mark passed out from the drugs, Robert took Mark's knife and slashed his throat, leaving the Castle family's dog Telly as the only witness, grieving at his owner's corpse by the time the police arrived.
Robert finally targeted Dr. Wellow. Armed with his own knife, he went to Dr. Wellow's home and office property after yet another fling, witnessed by a wannabe suitor of Wellow's, April Gooding. After Wellow opened the door, Robert stabbed him several times and left him for dead in his home. April was in shock and ran off, almost catatonic into the morning. But she finally broke free of her state when Dr. Wellow was mentioned, telling the police she saw Robert. Connecting him with the motive, Robert was tracked to the parade celebrating Vicki as the queen. He slashed Alistair in the face to get him out of the way when he harassed the contestants. Jumping on the float, Robert cut off Vicki's sash while muttering "you don't come anywhere near to Bella, and you never will". Other attendees of the parade pulled him away before he could harm Vicki, and the police arrested him on the spot. Provoking his emotions with the truth, the police got his confession in interrogation.
Victims[]
- Marion Slade - Drugged with Dirathene which made her hallucinate and run away from her house and when she was found was drowned in a stream.
- Mark Castle - Drugged with Dirathene in Scotch which made him hallucinate and when he collapsed in the woods near an Oak had his throat slashed with his own knife.
- Dr. Richard Wellow - Stabbed multiple times in the chest with a knife.
- Alistair Gooding - Slashed in the left side of the face with a knife, but left alive.
- Vicki - Jumped onto her float, cut off her Oak Apple Queen sash, and attempted to kill with a knife. Other parade attendees pulled him off before he could do more harm, and he was arrested.