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Peter Lynch is the main villain of the giallo film The Case of the Scorpion's Tail. Lynch is an insurance investigator and the secret extramarital lover of Lisa Baumer, with a murderous scheme to get rich quick at Lisa and her husband Kurt's expenses.
He was portrayed by George Hilton, who also portrayed George Corro in The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh.
Biography[]
Lynch is an English insurance investigator fed up with delivering finances to clients without his own cut. He planned for an elaborate, murderous get-rich-quick scheme involving a wealthy couple, Lisa and Kurt Baumer, to ensure he would be the only one with the acquirement of large payout in the end. Lynch started by hiring a steward named George Barnet to be Lisa's secret mister of married socialite Lisa Baumer. As Kurt traveled, Lynch made Barnet expend of Kurt during one of his business flights, blowing up a plane he was in to kill him and over a hundred other people onboard. When Lisa was blackmailed by her ex, Phillipe, into his own payout, Lynch stabbed him to death at the next meeting place they were to be and stole his money so not a pound was lost. He then came in as the investigator of Lisa's insurance claims when Lisa flew to Greece, to guise his culpability and further distract from his plan.
Lynch narrowly rescued Lisa from Kurt's own mistress, Lara Florakis, and her muscle man Abad Sharif, when they also attempted blackmail, but with a more violent approach. He progressed to brutally slashing Lisa to death in her hotel room once she had the cash, making off with the payout for himself. He pretended to be involved in the investigation himself, regularly liaising with French reporter Cléo Dupont and even falling in love with her. As Florakis and Sharif weren't giving up on the money, down to Sharif nearly axing Lynch to death outside Florakis' apartment, Lynch aggressively interrogated and accosted Florakis to sell a false personal anger. he later on broke into Florakis' apartment through a window and slashed her throat. Sharif arrived after and fought with Lynch, both making their way to the rooftop. Lynch stabbed Sharif once, kicked him to the edge, and cut his hands to make him take a fatal drop to the road.
To further continue his ruse and draw Cléo closer to him, Lynch hired Barnet to break into Cléo's studio apartment and wound her, so Lynch would "rescue" her when Barnet fled. Lynch then also planted a scorpion cuff link, similar to one Kurt wore when he died, to leave an even more convoluted ruse. As Barnet was a liability, Lynch broke into his hotel room where Barnet met his girlfriend, fought him hands-on, and stabbed his eye with a broken bottle. Incapacitated by blindness and pain, Barnet died from a stab to the heart. Lynch then took Cléo to an island for a getaway, where he also hid the money, stashed away in one of the underwater caves. When Cléo swam in and found the money, Lynch forced her back to the boat and confessed to killing the numerous other people standing in the way of the money or close to realizing and reporting his guilt. Even when he was found out, he pleaded with Cléo to join him in an escape, but she stormed right to the radio and tried to flag for help, Since she didn't turn it on, no signal went out.
In a climactic fight and standoff, Lynch was close to stabbing Cléo, but she jammed a harpoon into his shoulder and jumped into the water. lynch chased after her, and after a time of successfully hiding on one of the nearby islands, Lynch found her, slammed her head into the rocks, and was ready to slaughter her too. In the nick of time, he was repeatedly shot in the back by coast guards and other responding police, crawling away as long as he could until he bled to death. At the hospital, Cléo was told Barnet's girlfriend had an attendant pin of the same design as the scorpion cuff link, which revealed it was a fraud and Lynch planted it deliberately, the only suspect with the chance to. They rushed by boat as soon as they knew Lynch was fleeing to stop him in time. Athens police inspector Stavros sends Cléo off, with Interpol agent John Stanley accompanying her to the airport out of chivalry.
Victims[]
- Kurt Baumer - blown up in a plane with a bomb
- Anna's unnamed friend - blown up in a plane with a bomb
- Approximately 98 unnamed airplane passengers - blown up in a plane with a bomb
- Phillipe - stabbed in the chest with a stiletto knife
- Lisa Baumer - slashed in the throat and stomach with a stiletto knife
- Lara Florakis - slashed throat with a stiletto knife
- Abad Sharif - stabbed in the stomach with a stiletto knife,fell from a rooftop
- George Barnet - slashed in the eye with a broken bottle, stabbed in the chest with a stiletto knife
- Cléo Dupont - smashed her head into rocks and attempted to stab; was rescued
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- The central plot of Lynch's crimes appear to be heavily inspired by the real life bombing of Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 108, but with countless further and additional embellishments. A mastermind of the plot behind the bombing of a commercial flight, using a timed dynamite explosive, was having an affair and wanted his wife dead. When other attempts failed, he enlisted his two accomplices to gather the bomb making materials so they'd be snuck on the plane. Coincidentally, they also intended the wreckage to crash into the sea, but unlike Lynch's, the plan was a failure, and the plane crashed into a small rural area. All guilty parties were hanged after their convictions for their crimes.