Betty Manning

**Beatrice Barton "Betty" Manning** (Barbara Mandrell) is the tragic secondary villainess of "Murder, Country Style," episode 4.18 of *Diagnosis Murder* (airdate February 20, 1997). She is a TV and record producer whose introductory appearance saw her wiping fingerprints off a lamp that was used to fatally strike famous country singer Mickey McShane on the right side of his head; he was drunk at the time of his death. After that, she supervised the production aspects of the All-Star Country Music Awards as it was being aired.

During the episode's progression, Betty was revealed to have a daughter named Laura, who was Mickey's fiancée and his songwriter. A strand of Betty's hair being found at the scene of the crime led to her becoming a suspect; regarding Mickey, it was uncovered that he cheated on Laura with several other women, including an unnamed female groupie who was interviewed by Steve Sloan and Jesse Travis. The groupie disclosed her knowledge of her illicit sexual partner's relationship with Laura, prompting Steve and Mark Sloan to confront her about it, only for her mother to confess to killing him.

When Steve interviewed her, Betty stated that she was motivated by the fact was that she had been one of his lovers for a few months. She also claimed that upon finding out about Mickey's multiple dalliances, he kissed and touched her while they were in her dressing room, with her rage against him driving her to murder him. After that, the deceptive conspirator described wiping her fingerprints off the lamp, switching her and his luggage around, and also swapping their name tags on the doors of their trailers in an attempt to hide her nefarious deed. However, the truth came out after Mark gave his son's interviewee a duffel bag containing said lamp, taking note of how she was unable to carry it.

During Mark's final talk with Laura and Betty, he unveiled a shocking truth about the latter: she had been undergoing chemotherapy ever since she was diagnosed with cancer by her physician, who said that she had lees than six months left to live. As for the former, she was unmasked as Mickey's killer, having declared the end of their engagement right before he died because of his womanizing ways. Mark then had Jan Curran—an instructor at the California School for the Hearing Impaired and a lip reader—uncover what mother and daughter said to each other on the stage of the All-Star Country Music Awards, completing Laura's reveal as a villainess. Furthermore, as it turned out, Betty's story about her relationship with Mickey and its violent end was mostly made up, with the part of it that was true being what she did to cover not her own tracks, but her daughter's.

In spite of that, Betty defended her actions by saying that he "was dirt" and deserved death for betraying Laura. Begging for Mark to let her take the fall for her daughter's crime, his refusal of her plea prompted her to tearfully ask him if he would do the same thing for his son, briefly wondering if "any parent" would follow her example. She then added that Laura was "[her] baby" and that what she wanted to do was "all [she had] left to give her." After Mark turned her second attempt down, Betty fully broke down into tears, with her daughter comforting her by giving her a hug before they were both presumably arrested offscreen.