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The American courtroom drama, Matlock, originally premiered in 1986. Decades on, it is still among the most popular shows featuring courtroom showdowns and smart legal maneuvers. It centers around Benjamin Leighton Matlock, a folksy, warm, but whip-smart defense lawyer played by Andy Griffith.
With his gray suit and fondness for hot dogs, Ben may seem like yet another affable Southerner. He is a Harvard Law School graduate who made a career with charm, tough investigations, and masterly courtroom strategy. His personality was modeled after an actual Georgia lawyer, Bobby Lee Cook.
Based in Atlanta, the series features him defending individuals charged with major crimes, most often murder. He represents the clients he feels are innocent, even if they can't pay his lofty $100,000 fee.
Matlock was also an exploration of how intelligence and determination can knock out even the strongest enemies. The show remained engaging by pitting him against some of the most cunning, manipulative criminals to ever sit in a courtroom. More often than not, his intelligence rescued him.
But occasionally, these crafty villains would get close to the best of Ben Matlock — sometimes even winning in court before finally getting what they deserved later.
Disclaimer: This article contains the writer's opinion. Readers’ discretion is advised.
Here are the five wiliest villains who almost outsmarted Ben Matlock at his game
Jeffrey Speidel ("The Strangler")
Jeffrey Speidel is one of the creepiest and intelligent villains Ben has ever encountered. The Strangler, as he was called, is not motivated by greed or vengeance. His motives are more sinister — a twisted desire to murder, and thus a wildly unpredictable and downright frightening character.
In the Season 6 episode titled, The Strangler, there is a wave of vicious killings in the city. Young women are found strangled, and panic spreads quickly. Ben accepts the case, and it appears to be an open-and-shut loss. The evidence against his client is as strong as can be: Fingerprints, fibers, and motive. But he has a gut feeling.
As he begins snooping around, he knows that the actual murderer is out there, orchestrating the setup of his client. That murderer is Jeffrey Speidel, and he is frighteningly adept at covering his trail.
Speidel doesn't merely kill. He manipulates the crime sites to leave false clues behind, then goes one further by taunting Matlock, making the case personal. He spills falsehoods to the media and tries hard to make the public question Ben, in hopes of getting him to make a critical error in court.
Speidel comes close to succeeding. He is an expert on forensic science, and his meticulous planning keeps him one step ahead of the rest. Even Matlock's most trusted allies begin to wonder if his client is perhaps guilty.
But Matlock's obstinacy is rewarded. Probing deeper, he sees a pattern to the killings — stuff that only the actual killer would know. It is all about a tight confrontation in court.
With sly manipulation of forensic proof and a daredevil gambit that Speidel never saw coming, Matlock finally uncovers the truth. This case comes close to destroying Matlock, so his victory feels all the more well-deserved.
The eccentric millionaire ("The Dare")
One of Matlock's most stressful cases appears in the Season 9 episode The Dare, in which Ben Matlock goes up against a rich, anonymous millionaire, referred to as 'The Daredevil.' This individual is affluent, a genius, and flat-out cold-blooded. He possesses an obsession that is both weird and frightening: He desires to commit the perfect murder, merely to show he can outwit Ben.
The story begins when the millionaire invites Ben to his opulent mansion in the name of a friendly wager. But it is no innocent wager. He outright informs Ben that he is going to kill someone, and offers a bet that Matlock won't be able to determine who.
Shortly thereafter, Matlock's good buddy, Detective Bob Brooks, is murdered. And to top it all off, the millionaire accuses an innocent man so impeccably that even the police believe they have caught their murderer.
This mastermind millionaire doesn't stop at murder alone. He meticulously plants false clues, fiddles with the time frame, and ensures each clue directs suspicion elsewhere. All the while, he provokes Ben, absolutely confident that his money and intellect will make him invincible.
It is a battle of wits. The millionaire understands exactly how Matlock operates, so it's almost impossible for him to poke holes in the case. The police and the prosecutor are all gullible enough to believe it, so Matlock's reputation — and possibly even his career — is hanging on by a thread.
But his attention to minute details saves the day. He catches a tiny glitch in the timeline, something only he would catch, and exploits it to shred the millionaire's complicated scheme in court.
It is sufficient to break the arrogant killer's nerve and wring out a confession. This case ultimately is a thriller — a master game of chess in which Matlock manages to squeak out a victory after coming perilously close to losing everything.
The TV anchorwoman ("The Evening News")
Season 7's The Evening News sets Ben against one of his most challenging fights to date — against an ambitious TV anchor who knows how to manipulate public opinion to do her bidding. She is a local celebrity of sorts, but more than that, she is calculating, media-savvy, and downright ruthless when it comes to guarding her place at the top.
The story begins with this anchorwoman resentful of a budding star at her network— a younger reporter who is quickly gaining fans. So she decides to take matters into her own hands. She enlists the help of an accomplice who stages his death and frames the rival for murder. The murder doesn't even actually occur, but the evidence certainly makes it appear as though it has.
Due to her power in the newsroom, the anchorwoman dictates precisely what the public will hear. She leaks semi-truths, manipulates headlines, and quietly browbeats the police to remain on her narrative.
By the time Matlock arrives, everyone is already convinced his client is guilty — including the jury. Witnesses are afraid to speak out, and the entire town appears to be eating out of the anchorwoman's palm.
Matlock is almost trapped. The anchorwoman's hold on the media makes it difficult for him to receive a fair hearing in court. But he doesn't quit. Poking around in the timeline, he begins to catch on to things that don't add up — small discrepancies in when things were purportedly going to occur versus when they did occur.
In his signature fashion, he knits it all together in a thrilling courtroom confrontation. Piece by piece, he reveals the anchorwoman's elaborate scheme and breaks the truth: no murder, but a charade intended to eliminate her rivals.
In the end, he clears his client's name and destroys the anchorwoman's meticulously constructed persona. The show is a wacky look at how quickly public opinion can be manipulated and how difficult it is to fight someone who controls the narrative.
The marriage counselor ("The Marriage Counselor")
Season 6's The Marriage Counselor presents us with a villain rotten to his core, even before his death. Dr. Lewis is a professional marriage counselor in name, but in reality, he is anything but moral. He manipulates his clients' wives, divulges confidential information for personal benefits, and plays puppet master in troubled marriages.
The episode kicks off with Dr. Lewis’s murder. Suddenly, there is a long list of suspects: Angry husbands, betrayed wives, and even professional rivals. Matlock steps in to defend one of the accused, but the case is messy from the beginning. The evidence looks awful for his client, and everyone tied to Dr. Lewis seems to have something to hide.
What makes this episode so difficult is that the actual villain, Dr. Lewis himself, was the bad guy far earlier than anyone fired a shot. His schemes caused sorrow and provided a motive for nearly every person in his circle to want him dead. Trying to disentangle who really did it — and why — becomes a psychological puzzle for Ben.
He almost loses his way in the web of deceptions and distorted relationships. Every suspect has a motive, the motives are deep, and the evidence is thin. It is the sort of case where even Ben begins to sweat.
But by unearthing Dr. Lewis's habits, he uncovers an underlying thread that blows the case wide open. In a suspenseful courtroom reveal, he employs cross-examination to strip away all the lies, pardons his client, and points directly at the actual killer.
Lorraine Ortega aka Sissy Lockwood ("Mr. Awesome")
In Mr. Awesome, the whodunit isn't just who did it — it is also who is even lying about being who they say they are. Lorraine Ortega, going undercover as Sissy Lockwood, is one of the most slippery and cunning villains Ben ever faces.
The show begins with Anne Johnson, who is charged with killing her abuser, ex-boyfriend Dwayne Meeks. Dwayne was a troublemaker — violent, controlling, and with enemies everywhere.
Anne had a motive to despise him, and the facts don't help her much. She was also spotted fighting with Dwayne shortly before he died, and the timing places the blame on her.
But Ben is not falling for a simple story. Tunneling in with help from detective Conrad, he discovers that Dwayne was secretly seeing another woman, Lorraine, a bartender with a secret past. She has been living under an assumed name and has her sick history with Dwayne. It turns out she gave him a substantial amount of money, only to have him attempt to blackmail her. Her reaction was to kill him with a stun gun and blame it on Anne.
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What makes Lorraine so deadly is how well she covers her tracks. Her dual life, clever deceptions, and tampering with the crime scene almost land Anne in prison. The case is one of the closest Ben comes to losing, not because the murderer is sly in court, but because she is so effective at hiding in plain sight.
Ultimately, it is Ben's dogged determination to uncover the truth — and a keen eye for one small, unconsidered piece of evidence — that blows the case wide open. He uncovers Lorraine's real identity in court and lays bare her motive, and Anne is acquitted.
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