Michael Minchin

The Reverend Michael Minchin is a non-canonical character created for the 2009 ITV adaptation of Murder is Easy. At the beginning of the episode, he is the vicar of St. George's Church at Wychwood under Ashe. He has a beekeeping hobby and the opening scene shows him putting on a gas mask and spraying a poisonous substance on his beehives to get rid of mites. Something goes wrong and he is soon found dead, setting the scene for the rest of the events in the episode. the Reverend Henry Wake takes over as vicar. The actor who portrayed the Reverend Minchin is not credited. His first name is not mentioned in the dialogue but can be read on the newspaper article covering his death.

It was thought that the Reverend Minchin had been careless and had forgotten to put on his gas mask. It was found hung up on a tree. Henry Wake said that the elderly Minchin had grown increasingly absent-minded. Just the evening before he died, he had filled his pipe from the tea caddy instead of his tobacco tin.

Investigations by Luke Fitzwilliam however, revealed a more sinister cause. Someone had tempered with his gas mask. Holes had been punched through it, allowing the poisonous fumes to penetrate. At the end of the episode, at the denouement, Honoria Waynflete confessed to killing him. As Henry Wake had earlier said of the reverend, he had the pastoral gift, a true comforter of troubled souls. Some twenty years before the events in the episode, the reverend had come across Honoria looking very distressed. She confided in him about her unwanted pregnancy. Although he promised never to reveal it, some twenty years later, she felt she had to make sure her secret was preserved.