Motive - Season 1 (2013)

The killer: Sarah Muller, a grocery store clerk who is going through a messy divorce and custody battle. The victim: Shawn Mitchell, a high powered lawyer, who was killed by a single stab wound to the abdomen in a late night break-in into his house. On the surface, the crime looks like a robbery gone bad, although the only thing that was stolen among a houseful of expensive items was a purse with a few dollars and a cell phone. As the Homicide detectives focus their investigation on people like Shawn's wife, Deana Mitchell, and Shawn's clients, especially the ...

The killer: Chloe Mighten, a clothing store clerk. The victim: Jack Bergin, a raw food advocate, who was trying to build a business empire off of his food advocacy. He is treated like a rock star by many of his followers not only because of his beliefs but also because of his charisma and good looks. He was killed while sitting in the hot tub inside his home, the perpetrator, who broke in through a basement window, using a stun gun which electrocuted him. Nothing obvious was missing from the house, but the Homicide detectives know that whoever the killer was looking ...

The killer: Torontonian Barry Ketchum, who recently celebrated his one year sobriety at his AA meeting. The victim: Eric Chase, a mortgage broker, who was killed one evening outside his office by strangulation. Homicide lucks out when Betty discovers the killer's DNA under Eric's fingernails. Homicide looks at Eric's family life - including his new marriage to Ronnie Chase, and being awarded sole custody of his son Chad Chase over his ex-wife, Claudia Powell, an activist who lost custody largely because of her chronic unemployment - and his professional life, where ...

The killer: Dr. Monika Harper, a pediatric surgeon, who emigrated to Canada from the Czech Republic in 1995. The victim: Hank Cousineau, a news shop owner who was once in the military, with one of his assignments being on the UN peacekeeping mission in the Balkans. Hank was killed in the back of his store by his throat being slashed, from which he bled to death. By the extremely straight and singular wound and Hank's dead body position, Betty and Homicide determine that his killer looked Hank straight in the eyes while he was sitting in a chair while his throat was ...

The killer: Charles Stanwyck, a building contractor. The victim: Taylor Hollis, a post-graduate student who dealt drugs on the side. Taylor, whose dead body was found in a remote area which was not the kill site, had blunt force trauma to the head, but was killed by asphyxiation from what looks to be a plastic bag held over his head. Once they ID him and find out more about him, Homicide believes his death may have something to do with his relationship to one of his former students, Sunita Rand. Sunny is engaged in what will be an arranged marriage by her traditional ...

The killer: Marion Reader, an aging woman with a bad back, whose twenty-eight year old mama's boy of a son, Owen Reader, came back to live with her to take care of her. With her telephone sales job and his online selling of military memorabilia, they are now unable to make the monthly mortgage payments on her long time house. As a side hobby, she does kitschy folk art: paintings of her cat, Mathias, inserted onto existing painted canvases. As a means to earn more money to make those mortgage payments, she attempts to sell her folk art at a local café. The victim: ...

The killer: Felix Hausman, a young man who has had trouble finding his place in life. Having just been fired from his latest job, Felix has tried to make a living through high stakes gambling. But he was hoping that his life would turn around by some information provided to him from his father's old partner, who is currently in prison. Felix grew up in St. Roch Orphanage, since his father left him when he was a child. The victim: Father Noel Barnett, the tough but caring parish priest at St. Roch, he who was basically Felix's father figure growing up. Father Barnett ...

The victim: former Olympic boxing gold medalist Mark "Machine" Mason, the co-owner of and chief trainer at Machine's, a fledgling boxing gym which doesn't look like it will survive unless changes are made in the business plan. The killer: Joey Mason, the recently wheelchair-bound other co-owner of Machine's, its chief "ideas" man, and Mark's brother. Mark was found in the gym stabbed to death in the back, but not before his knee was savagely beaten. The dead body was reported by Joey. The Homicide detectives initially look at anyone who had a key to the gym as a ...

The killer: Sonia Brauer, a newly married travel agent recently moved to Vancouver. The victim: Brendan Kendall, executive assistant to Jimmy Ramsay, the head of Cybrex Plastics. Brendan's dead body is found in his hotel room of the hotel where Cybrex is holding their corporate strategizing meeting. Betty surmises that Brendan was poisoned by cyanide, which leads to Angie believing the killer is a woman. Initially, Homicide believes Brendan's murder has something to do with the Cybrex meeting, especially as Ramsay had a communications lock-down in and out of the ...

The victim: seventeen year old Nathan Conroy. The killer: twenty-something Cam Radcliffe, who lives with his Uncle Dave and works at Dave's wrecking yard. Nathan's dead body is discovered buried in an urban park, he who died of an abdominal stab wound. However, the lack of blood at the site indicates that he was not murdered at the park itself. When Homicide IDs the victim as Nathan, they learn that he was convicted for possession of a deadly weapon four months earlier and that he was court ordered to enter into therapy with a Dr. Kate Robbins. Angie is familiar with ...