Butterfly in Shades of Grey story
Domineering radio host Fielding Chase faces a crisis when his ward, 25-year- old Victoria Chase, decides to spread her wings and leave for New York. Chase is a national celebrity thanks to his call-in radio show and while Victoria works as his producer, his affection for her runs deep. An ex-employee, the homosexual Gerry Winters, has been encouraging Victoria and has even found a literary agent for her book. Chase decides to kill Winters. He first instructs Winters to call him at a certain time. Exactly at that appointed hour, Chase drives to Winters's house and sneaks inside. Winters makes the phone call, unaware that Chase is actually behind him in the same room. Once the phone goes to Chase's answering machine, Chase picks up an extension in another room of Winters' house and begins speaking with him. At that point, Chase enters the next room and shoots Winters, then makes it look like Winters was shot by a gay lover. Final clue/twist: A cell phone is a key to Columbo's solution of the crime. Chase claimed that after hearing the murder on his phone at his mountain home, he started to drive to Winters's house, then quickly realized he should call 911 and used his cell phone. But, Columbo realizes, there is no cell coverage on the part of the mountain road near Chase's house, where his car would have been. Directed by: Dennis Dugan. Story by: Peter S. Fischer.
23 total · 2 choice · 7 major · 14 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| how to murder someone and get away with it | choice | Fielding Chase shot dead his ex-employee, Gerry Winters, in a premeditated act and went to elaborate lengths to frame the victim's gay lover for the murder. One gathers that he would have gotten away with his crime had it not been the pesky Lt. Columbo. |
| parental love | choice | Fielding Chase sabotaged his adult daughter's literary career out of love for her. He at one point said to Columbo: "I love that child, as if she were my own flesh and blood". |
| child leaving the nest | major | Victoria was making efforts to get out from under her foster father Fielding's wings. |
| controlling family member | major | Central to the plot was Fielding Chase sabotaging his daughter's career as a writer out of a desire to keep her under his wing. |
| father and daughter | major | Central to the plot was Fielding Chase sabotaging his daughter's career as a writer out of a desire to keep her under his wing. |
| framing someone for a crime | major | The villain of the story Fielding Chase went to elaborate lengths to pin Gerry Winter's murder on Winter's gay lover, the actor Ted Malloy. Fielding took pains to leave a handkerchief with traces of actor's pancake makeup at the scene of the crime, and also left traces of the same makeup on the murder weapon. |
| jealousy | major | Fielding Chase selfishly wanted to keep his now grown up daughter attached to himself. |
| law enforcement | major | The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Was the known homosexual Gerry Winters shot dead by a gay lover, or was the lover perhaps the target of a frame up? |
| the entertainment industry | major | The villain of the story Chase Fielding was a radio show host. Significant portions of the story are set in his studio, and much was made of him exposing the scandalous behavior of prominent politician live on air. |
| amazement at a new technology | minor | Columbo was astonished to learn that you could pick up literally hundreds of TV stations with a satellite dish. |