Edie Reynolds Fallon (Julie Adams: 1926-2019) is the hidden main villainess from Mannix episode 7.04, "Little Girl Lost" (airdate October 7, 1973), as well as the sequel, "Hard-Boiled Murder," episode 4.17 of Diagnosis Murder (airdate February 13, 1997).
Mannix[]
Edie Reynolds was introduced in Mannix as the wife of reporter Lou Reynolds and mother of their young daughter, Tina Reynolds. However, amid some marriage troubles with Lou, Edie had a mid-life crisis and abandoned her husband and daughter to attempt an acting career, which failed. When she returned, she tried to go back to Lou, only for him to file for divorce.
As revealed in the Diagnosis Murder sequel, Edie was also having an affair with Lou's boss George Fallon, who hired Mannix on a case that same episode. As part of the divorce proceedings, Lou planned to file for sole custody of Tina by declaring his wife an unfit mother, which dismayed Edie immensely. Edie turned heel and planned to murder her husband, and she did so after tracking Lou and Tina to a nearby zoo where they were spending the day together. Using a hunting rifle, the evil Edie killed Lou with a single shot, with Tina witnessing the murder and blaming herself as she was angry with her father at the time.
Diagnosis Murder[]
Edie Reynolds Fallon, as shown in Diagnosis Murder (1997)
For over 20 years, Lou's murder was fingered as a mob killing. Edie married Fallon following the events of Mannix. The Diagnosis Murder sequel featured Mannix back on the Lou Reynolds case due to incriminating tapes connected to the case being taken, and after learning about Mannix, Edie reverted to her heel persona and fired a shot at him as he was leaving the Hall of Records. Edie's motive was to conceal her villainous role in Lou's death, and she fired the same rifle she used to kill her husband. When Mannix first encounters Edie in the sequel, he learns that she is married to Fallon, and had been for 20 years after their affair began.
Edie was finally revealed as a villainess in the end of the episode, as Mannix confronted Edie at home with the evidence that she killed Lou. It was Edie using the rifle in the murder and the attempt on Mannix that gave her away, and regarding her motive, Tina (now a reporter herself) was her sole reason. Edie confessed to killing Lou, stating that he was going to have her declared as an unfit mother and she would lose Tina. After the admission, Steve Sloan arrested Edie for killing her husband and attempting to kill Mannix.
Trivia[]
- Julie Adams also played villainess Carla Cabral on Amos Burke: Secret Agent, as well as the evil Janet Masters on The Big Valley, and later appeared on CSI: NY as tragic villainess Betty Willens on CSI: NY.
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