Psychiatrist Ray Fleming is having a passionate affair with actress Joan Hudson, and uses her to help him murder his wife Carol, and to make it appear the work of a vandal. Fleming and Hudson pull off the murder and deception, but when Fleming returns from a vacation (which served as the prerequisite for the deception), he encounters a rumpled LAPD Lieutenant, Columbo, whose seeming bouts of attention-deficit disorder and meandering questioning mask a devilishly skilled investigator who soon recognizes the murder of Carol Fleming to be the work of her husband, but who must work diligently to find the proof needed. This is the first Columbo movie.

Airdate: February 20, 1968 on NBC