Of the three targeted victims the killer successfully kills, two have some pronounced Jerkass qualities and the third was a career criminal who is indirectly responsible for at least two deaths.
Eddie Crawford, who is put through the most peril and anxiety out of the three surviving targets, is another longtime crook who manipulated the desperate Joe Thackery into losing his money in a rigged boxing match and then got him involved with a bank robbery that ended up getting Joe hanged (although he does claim to feel bad about that).
Chekhov's Gunman: When Murdoch looks at the prematurely published obituary of the first victim, McAllister, four other obituaries on the same page are clearly shown for a few seconds. Three of them (Lenny Stoker, Agnes Swift, and Sister Anna Maria) belong to other still-living people who the police try to protect from the murderous obituary writer.
Fake Cutie: Agnes seems like a sweet and innocent little girl but, while not entirely unsympathetic, is putting on a show while killing people she blames for the death of her father.
Nun Too Holy: Downplayed with Sister Anna Maria, who is devout and law-abiding but turns out to be Hated by All and is viewed as a terrible nun by her peers due to being a complainer and tattletale who constantly gets people fired over little mistakes and once had a dog put down for lightly biting a man who was willing to let bygones be bygones.
One Dialogue, Two Conversations: Murdoch and Watts spend almost a minute talking about the bizarreness of a case where the murderer anonymously submitted the victim's obituary to the paper the morning before killing him before realizing that they are talking about two different murder victims and that their killer has claimed more than one victim and may claim more.
One of Our Own: Detective Watts is one of the people threatened with murder, to the alarm of his friends.
Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Seven people are being targeted by a murderer due to having played a part in a man named Joe Thackery ending up unemployed and penniless, turning to crime out of desperation, and then being captured and hanged for murder. One of those seven people is Thackery's daughter, who is only faking being in danger as a Wounded Gazelle Gambit and is the real culprit.
