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Beth Eagleton is the hidden antagonist in the 2008 crime drama/thriller film The Oxford Murders, which is based on the 2003 book of the same name by Guillermo Martínez. Eagleton is the daughter of a landlady whom she primarily cares for, only for the woman to be the first of an alleged series of murder victims alluding to math and science.
She was portrayed by Julie Cox.
Biography[]
Beth's mother Julie was an overbearing woman and a landlady of an apartment complex, where Oxford student Martin lives while he attends Prof. Arthur Seldom's seminars on logic series. Martin wanted Seldom to supervise his dissertation, finding him his idol, and Julie is an old friend of Seldom as well. Beth still wished for more freedom in pursuing her music career.
After Martin returns from Seldom disgracing his scholarly hopes, with Seldom waiting to see Julia, both men enter to find Julia murdered. Seldom reveals a letter to the police, saying Julia's murder is "the first in a series", implying more crimes to come. Seldom asserts a serial killer wants to defame Seldom's studies. Martin and Seldom go through the potential future murders, and they figure since Julia's murder was missed from her terminal cancer, the next victims also could be dying.
This is confirmed when the patient next to Seldom's friend in the hospital apparently died from a lethal injection. Two interlocking arcs appear as a second symbol to taunt Seldom. At a Guy Fawkes Night concert, an orchestra member dies from respiratory failure. His music stand has a triangle symbol. When all the mathematicians go on a bus trip to a conference to celebrate the supposed solution to Fermat's Last Theorem, Martin realizes a tetractys is the next figure which fits as many passengers on the bus.
However, that's not the bus being targeted. Martin realizes the killer is Frank, a religious zealot at the hospital who's daughter is ill and needs a lung transplant. Frank's a bus driver for developmentally challenged children, thus by his judgment easy donors he finds have little to live or. As a result, he commits a suicide bombing on the fully packed buss with the children.
The police presumed Frank wanted to escape alive and blame serial murders to avoid suspicion. But Martin, losing his girlfriend Lorna in the process, realizes Seldom was always lying. Martin figured out the plan and confronted Seldom: Beth murdered Julia from being oppressive, them called Seldom for help. he covered for her and benefited his studies by disguising it as the work of a serial killer. Since he couldn't clean up the scene, he made up the story about the letter, then left symbols at the sites where people naturally died, even making a false puncture wound in the hospital victim.
Seldom bragged he never caused any deaths. Martin mentioned the bus driver to confront Seldom with his responsibility. Seldom smugly stated out of spite if Martin didn't casually mention Beth's mother being a problem for her, Beth wouldn't have been pushed over the edge. It's presumed both Beth and Seldom were arrested.