Ashes to Ashes story
Funeral director to the stars Eric Prince, murders gossip columnist Verity Chandler when she attends his latest funeral, that of actor and war hero Chuck Houston. Chandler threatens Prince that her next exposé will be about him. (Two decades earlier, he stole a valuable diamond from the body of a deceased silent film star.) Prince bludgeons Chandler with a tool in his storage room, then hides the body in a compartment used for corpses. After the funeral, Prince takes the casket containing Houston's body to the preparation room, where he puts Chandler's body into the casket in its place. It next enters the cremation oven, and afterwards, the ashes are scattered by helicopter over the Hollywood hills. Prince then goes to Chandler's house and fakes evidence of her abduction. So that no one will become suspicious, he cremates Houston's body by piggybacking him onto another corpse scheduled to be cremated. Final clue/twist: Houston suffered a war injury in which a distinctively- shaped piece of shrapnel remained stuck in his body for the rest of his life. It was made of a strong metal that was not affected by the flames of the cremation process. As Columbo said when confronting Prince, "Perhaps you can explain how a piece of Mr. Houston's 50-year-old war record ended up in the urn of a leisurewear importer." Sally Kellerman plays the dead man's widow, Liz Houston, and Catherine McGoohan, the real-life daughter of Patrick McGoohan, plays Rita, Prince's assistant. Directed by: Patrick McGoohan. Story by: Jeffrey Hatcher.
13 total · 2 choice · 6 major · 5 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| breaking the law to cover up another crime | choice | he funeral director Eric Prince bludgeoned a gossip columnist who threatened to expose his crooked operation. |
| murder | choice | The funeral director Eric Prince bludgeoned a gossip columnist who threatened to expose his crooked operation, and cremated the body as part of an elaborate plot to get away with the crime. One gathers that he would have gotten away with it had the pesky Lt. Columbo not been assigned to the case. |
| greed for riches | major | The funeral director to the stars Eric Prince was in the habit of stealing valuables from the bodies under his charge. Most notably, Prince had stolen a valuable diamond from the body of a deceased silent film star some years prior. |
| how to dispose of a corpse and get away with it | major | The funeral director Eric Prince bludgeoned a gossip columnist who threatened to expose his crooked operation, and cremated the body as part of an elaborate plot to get away with the crime. One gathers that he would have gotten away with it had the pesky Lt. Columbo not been assigned to the case. |
| human occupational activity | major | The viewer is shown a window into the Eric Prince's life as a funeral director. He explained the process of cremation to Columbo in some detail. |
| journalism | major | The Hollywood gossip columnist Verity Chandler was murdered by a funeral director for threatening to publish an exposé on his crooked activities. |
| law enforcement | major | The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Did the Hollywood gossip columnist Verity Chandler meet her end at the hands of the very cocaine traffickers that she was apparently writing a column about. Or was she perhaps surreptitiously cremated by a funeral director in an effort to stop her from publishing an exposé on his crooked activities? |
| theft | major | The funeral director to the stars Eric Prince was in the habit of stealing valuables from the bodies under his charge. Most notably, Prince had stolen a valuable diamond from the body of a deceased silent film star some years prior. |
| dancing | minor | The novelty of having a tap dancer perform at the funeral was commented upon. |
| funeral rite | minor | A funeral was held for the actor and war hero chuck Houston. Later, the viewer was treated to another funeral featuring a tap dancing routine. |