Dr. Luther Bates is a psychiatrist introduced in Season 7 of Murdoch Mysteries, portrayed by Mike Shara.
Appearances and Mentions[]
"Nightmare on Queen Street"[]
- Dr. Luther Bates is a psychiatrist working at the Toronto East Asylum for the criminally insane. He was a misogynist.
- One of Bates' patients at the asylum was Rebecca Foster. He subjected her to Trepanning which caused Rebecca to become a violent somnambulist.
- Bates was acquainted with James Danby. The two were both members of the Toronto Riverside Cricket Association. When Danby was murdered by Dr. Lyman Barclay, Barclay framed Bates for the murder by placing his cricket bat at the scene. Luckily, Bates was freed from suspicion when Barclay confessed his crimes to William Murdoch ("Epilogue-Barclay").
- After Barclay's arrest, Dr. Julia Ogden suggested that Bates should resign. His methods were harmful to his patients.
- "The Blood Code"
- "Ciphers and Somnology" (mentioned)
- "The Music of Madness"
- "The Vanishing Policeman" (mentioned)
- "Epilogue-Barclay"
- "Epilogue-Bates" (mentioned)
Murdoch of the Living Dead[]
- Reassigned to a prison ward because of Julia, Bates, working under the alias Dr. Sabet, develops a means to lobotomize criminals by picking the part of the brain which directs thought, rendering the subject(s) docile and harmless. Bates gained the support of the warden and his superiors and had signed consent from willing prisoners to perform his work. Working with a prison worker, Gus Smalls and the latter's cousin who worked at city hall, they were able to forge new identification and death certificates for these subjects. However, Bates messed up with thirteen subjects, whose aggression was heightened, not reduced. He kept them hidden in a hidden cellblock behind Smalls' desk.
- Bates' work came to the attention of a cleaner at his office building, Harriett Fuller, who caught him forging paperwork and wanted him to correct her abusive husband Jeremiah. Bates couldn't refuse her, knowing that she could potentially expose him. But she later became dissatisfied with the docile drone he had become and confronted Bates, demanding he reverse what he had done. Knowing that Harriett would've denounced him as a fraud before he could publicly announce his work, he dragged her down to hidden cell block behind Smalls' workstation and threw her against a cell, where a test subject then began to strangle her. Bates then disposed of her body in the river to make it look like she drowned. He then went to his office and cleaned almost all evidence of his presence.
- At the time Bates publicly revealed the extent of his "successful" experiments, Detective William Murdoch, attended his presentation after deducing his alias. When brought to Station House Four for questioning, even with Betty Fuller, Harriett's daughter, confirming that it was Bates her mother argued with, Bates denied all their accusations, especially when his hand did not match the hand print found on Harriett's throat.
- Later on, Bates found Murdoch in his concealed cellblock and accused him of trespassing. The detective then stated that he had the evidence to arrest him for accessory to murder, to which Bates claimed that the evidence was circumstantial. Murdoch, however, refuted that Smalls had confessed, forcing Bates to attempt to do to him what he did to Harriett before unlocking his test subjects' cells so they'd cause havoc in the city. While the constabulary rounded up twelve of the attackers, Bates was pursued through the woods by the last one and killed by him.