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Harry Josephs is the main antagonist in Colin Dexter's 1979 Inspector Morse novel, Service of All the Dead.
He was originally presented as the story's first victim, being a church warden at St. Oswald's church who was found dead immediately after a church service, but turned out he was a hedonistic psychopath who faked his death and started a killing spree to gain money so that he could start a new life.
He was portrayed by Maurice O'Connell in Inspector Morse TV series.
Biography
The Murder
At the start of the story, Harry Josephs was (seemly) found dead during the Feast of the Conversion of St. Augustine at St. Oswalds, when Morse was on furlough and by chance happens to visit St. Frideswide. There, he came to know about the murder of Harry Josephs and the subsequent suicide of Rev. Lionel Lawson (named Lionel Pawlen in the TV series). He discovered that Harry Josephs was first poisoned with morphine before being stabbed in the back. This curious fact sparks his attention and he begins to take an active interest in the case.
When Inspector Bell, who was previously in charge of the case goes down with the flu, Morse and Lewis took official charge of the investigation. True to his usual self, Morse came up with several theories, each of which was shown to be wrong with gathering evidence. Subsequently, Morse located the dead bodies of Paul Morris and Peter Morris by instincts.
Later, Brenda Josephs (Harry Josephs' wife, a nurse at the Radcliffe infirmary who was in an affair with Paul Morris) was also murdered, drowned in a manner similar to Sir John Everett Millais's famous painting, Ophelia. As such, Morse finally figured out that Ms. Ruth Rawlinson would be the next victim and the church (again) would be the scene of the crime.
Morse then placed Lewis in an opposite building to watch the church, and he hid in the church just in time to confront the murderer, who was revealed to be Harry Josephs himself, atop the church tower. During his struggle with Morse, Josephs fell from the church tower to his death.
At court proceeding, Morse revealed how the murderer Harry Josephs committed the crimes. He deduced that the first victim was Philip Lawson (named Simon Pawlen in the TV Series), Rev. Lionel Lawson's jobless brother who was blackmailing his brother for money. Ruth's role was mainly to misidentify the body as that of Harry Josephs. He subsequently explained how Harry murdered the Morris father and son and then his wife Brenda. As for the question of Lionel Lawson, Morse suggests it was suicide.
Motives & Process
Trivia
- Josephs holds the record of the largest onscreen victim counts in the entire Inspector Morse series, and it was implied that he already killed people even before the series had started.
 Villains
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Inspector Morse Accomplices Non-Culprits Lewis Endeavour Culprits Non-Culprits | ||