Kieran Carruthers is the minor antagonist of The Mentalist TV-show. He is a musician, who is obsessed by his fellow musician, Ariel Martin. He was played by P.J. Byrne.
Biography[]
The episode begins with the discovery of the body of a choir musician named Eleanor Ortega. Teresa Lisbon's team is called in to investigate. Agents Wayne Rigsby and Grace Van Pelt interrogate the victim's mother. Meanwhile, the team's consultant Patrick Jane conducts an investigation at the victim's workplace. One of her colleagues, Constance, dreamed of taking the victim's place. Eleanor was the first violinist (cellist, to be precise) in that orchestra, and Constance was the second (however, she became the first after Eleanor's death). Soon, during a search of Constance, the gun that was used to shoot Eleanor was found. During interrogation, Constance denies her guilt. She claims that she was in love (in a romantic sense) with Eleanor, therefore she had no motive for the murder. Meanwhile, Patrick continues his investigation at Eleanor's workplace. He assumes that since Constance did not kill Eleanor, someone framed her. The motive was the third violinist, Ariel Martin, who had long been tempted to leave the choir. Patrick suspects that she had a motive to kill Eleanor and frame Constance (and thus become the first violinist in the choir). However, Ariel categorically denies her involvement in the incident, and Patrick believes her. He comes up with a plan to check who the real killer was. During one of the choir's rehearsals, Patrick brings flowers, a petal of which was found at the scene of Eleanor's murder. One of the musicians, Kieran Carruthers, sees the flowers and suddenly sings out of tune (even though he is a professional musician). Patrick explains Kieran's reaction by saying that he was at the crime scene and saw the flowers that were given to Eleanor (she was holding a bouquet of flowers when she was killed). Kieran remembered these flowers and therefore sang out of tune. Patrick believes (and Kieran himself immediately confirms this) that Kieran was in love with Ariel Martin and wanted to please her. He believed that Eleanor and Constance did not deserve to be the first violin, but Ariel did, so if Eleanor and Constance disappeared, Ariel (who wanted to leave) would become the first violin and fall in love with Kieran. So Kieran killed Eleanor (taking the bouquet of flowers in the process, so that he could give them to Ariel, who, in his opinion, deserved it more than Eleanor) and planted the evidence on Constance. Kieran is immediately arrested.