Uneasy Lies the Crown story
Dentist Wesley Corman decides to get rid of his unfaithful wife, Lydia, and use her money to support his gambling habit. When Adam Evans, a Hollywood heartthrob having an affair with Lydia, comes under his care, Corman puts a time-release poison made from digitalis under a crown. It takes effect when the couple are together that evening and Corman is playing cards, thereby framing Lydia for the murder. Paul Burke co-stars as Horace Sherwin, Lydia's father, also a dentist. Final clue/twist: Columbo traps Corman by taking advantage of the fact that Corman was never good at chemistry. He orders Evans' body exhumed and demonstrates to Corman that if there was indeed digitalis, it would have caused a chemical reaction with the porcelain in the crown, making a blue stain on Evans' tooth underneath the crown. Before they begin to examine Evans' mouth, Corman confesses. Of course, Columbo faked the demonstration: there would be no such reaction. This same storyline was first used in the McMillan (formerly McMillan & Wife) episode "Affair of the Heart" that had aired in 1977. Bochco shared writing credit for the earlier version with Leonard Stern. Directed by: Alan J. Levi. Story by: Steven Bochco.
20 total · 3 choice · 8 major · 9 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| framing someone for a crime | choice | Wesley poison murdered Adam and tried to pin it on his wife, Lydia. |
| greed for riches | choice | Wesley murdered Adam and tried to pin the deed on Lydia while feigning to protect her, all in a convoluted bid to remain in Lydia's wealthy family. He had an extravagant lifestyle with many debts that her father was bankrolling. |
| how to murder someone and get away with it | choice | Wesley Corman hatched the following foolproof-seeming plan to kill his wife Lydia's lover Adam and pin the blame on Lydia: When Adam came to Wesley for dental work, Wesley implanted poison in Adam's tooth, carefully timed to be released later that same day when Adam and Lydia were just about to embark on some coital merrymaking. One gathers that he would have gotten away with his crime had it not been for the meddlesome Lt. Columbo. |
| coping with the death of a lover | major | Lydia was very upset when her lover, Adam, suddenly died in her arms. She was not entirely sure whether she herself had something to do with it. |
| extramarital affair | major | Fed up with her no-good husband, Lydia had embarked on a steamy love affair with the movie star Adam Evans. |
| father and daughter | major | Horace was protecting his physically and mentally fragile daughter, Lydia, from her husband and the police. |
| father-in-law and son-in-law | major | Wesley tried to curry favor with his father-in-law, Horace, in a bid to remain part of his wealthy family. |
| husband and wife | major | Wesley tried to frame his wife, Lydia, for murder. |
| law enforcement | major | The bumbling but sharp-witted homicide detective Lt. Columbo was tasked with the following murder mystery: Had a two-timing wife erratically poisoned her lover for no apparent reason, or was her aggravated husband perhaps implicated? |
| medical occupation | major | Wesley Corman and Horace Sherwin were both big shot dentists to celebrities. Wesley used dentistry to commit murder. |