Try and Catch Me story
Esteemed mystery author Abigail Mitchell is convinced that her sole relative, her nephew-in-law Edmund Galvin, murdered his wife, Mitchell's niece Phyllis, in a boating "accident" four months earlier and got away with it. Not only that, but Galvin inherited the rights to a play of Mitchell's, which Mitchell had long ago signed over to Phyllis as a present. Mitchell decides to take revenge and murder her nephew-by-marriage. She tricks Galvin into a false sense of security by making him her heir. Then she lures him into her large walk-in safe and slams the door shut, locking him in. Galvin, locked in an airless and sound-proofed safe for the whole weekend, suffocates while Mitchell flies off to New York. Final clue/twist: Columbo eventually solves the case by piecing together clues left by Galvin as he suffocated in the safe. The most incriminating is the title page of Mitchell's latest manuscript "The Night I was Murdered", which Galvin altered to read "I was murdered by Abigail Mitchell". At the end of the episode, Mitchell asks Columbo if he can overlook what she did. Gordon's character is one of the most sympathetic killers caught by Columbo and he seems genuinely sorry to have to arrest her. However, he had earlier cautioned her not to count on his being soft-hearted. She pays him a compliment to his cleverness by remarking that, had he been the detective who had investigated her niece's "disappearance," none of this need ever have happened. Mariette Hartley plays Mitchell's trusted assistant, Veronica Bryce, who becomes embroiled in the crime. G. D. Spradlin plays Mitchell’s attorney, who in one scene seems to have guessed what she had done. Directed by: James Frawley. Story by: Paul Tuckahoe, Gene Thompson.
17 total · 3 choice · 7 major · 7 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| how to murder someone and get away with it | choice | Mystery writer Abigail Mitchell hatched the following elaborate plot to get back at her nephew-in-law, Edmund, for murdering her niece: She locked Edmund in her airtight vault and made it look like he had had a misadventure while trying to rob her. |
| parricide | choice | Abigail murdered her nephew-in-law, Edmund. One gathers that she would have gotten away with her crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo. |
| the desire for vengeance | choice | Abigail was convinced that her nephew-in-law, Edmund Galvin, murdered his wife, Phyllis, in a boating "accident". She therefore murdered him in return. |
| blackmail | major | Veronica tried to blackmail Abigail into giving her a better life. |
| coping with the death of a family member | major | Abigail Mitchell had lost her only blood relative, her niece Phyllis, to what she was convinced was foul play. She kept a photo of Phyllis on her desk in memory of her. |
| creative writing | major | Abigail Mitchell was a famous writer of mystery crime novels, and therefore thought herself a match for Lt. Columbo. |
| in-law relationship | major | The plot turns on Abigail murdering her nephew-in-law, Edmund. |
| law enforcement | major | The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with solving the following murder mystery: Had Edmund really died through locking himself in the airtight vault while burglarizing his aunt-in-law, or had someone helped him along? |
| pride goes before a fall | major | Abigail Mitchell was overly confident that she'd be able to pull the wool over Columbo's eyes being that she was an esteemed murder mystery writer. She was sorely mistaken. |
| spouse murder | major | Abigail believed Edmund had murdered her niece, his wife, Phyllis. That's why she decided to murder him in return. |