Thomas "Tom" Asher is a character appearing in the episode The Ballad of Midsomer County of the ITV crime drama Midsomer Murders.
Tom was furious, like many men in Midsomer with their female partners, that folk musician Johnny Carver won the affections and longing of Tom's wife Claire. Tom had the worst reaction, shooting Johnny in his head with a pistol and placing it in his hand, successfully guising it as a suicide for 25 years. The suicide was recorded on Johnny's demo for his final song, and the tapes were buried for all that time. However, once retrieved around the time of a festival that was to be in Johnny's memory, with Johnny's young daughter Melody herself performing, Tom snapped and killed the two men with the tapes, Toby Winning and Brian Grey, to get them back. Local pub owner Frank Wainwright was eager to assist Claire in her chance to see the world and leave Tom behind at his independent hotel, so Tom killed him to to stop him. Each of the three witnesses were murdered in staged fashions relating to the lyrics of Johnny's final ballad. When Tom saw Claire was still depressed for Johnny and for being stuck in the village, he lured her to where Johnny died and trained his shotgun at her, bitterly voicing his resentments. DCI John Barnaby confronted him for a full confession, and in the struggle for the shotgun, it was an inch from killing DC Charlie Nelson once Barnaby got it. Nelson joined unscathed to arrest Tom on the spot.
Victims[]
- Johnny Carver - Shot in the head with a pistol at close range and the scene was arranged to appear as suicide 25 years ago.
- Toby Winning - Drowned when his head was held from behind in a bowl of water containing eels and hard boiled eggs.
- Brian Grey- Lured to the stage with music played from the sound controller and crushed by a large stage speaker that was pushed. He then had roses put in his mouth.
- Frank Wainwright - Lured outside of his pub where he found a potted juniper tree and then was stabbed in the chest with an umbrella pole.
- Claire Asher - Lured to the seen of Johnny's murder, played the recording's of his ballad and shooting, and attempted to shoot her as well with a shotgun during a confrontation; he was disarmed and arrested before he could do so.
- DS Charlie Nelson - Nearly shot with a shotgun through a window during a struggle with DCI John Barnaby, but the shot narrowly missed him.