A publisher hires a Vietnam vet to kill his star author and thus give himself an alibi before the writer can defect to another publisher.

A police commissioner provides an alibi to a friend who has just killed his wife. Later the commissioner kills his own wife and gets the friend to repay the favour.

A health club owner kills his partner who is about to uncover a fraud and makes it look like an accident

Brilliant photographer Paul Galesko plans to murder his domineering wife, Frances, and pin the crime on an ex-convict named Alvin Deschler. His plan is to make it look as if Alvin kidnapped his wife and killed her before picking up the ransom money.

A doctor kills the husband of the woman he is having an affair with but is seen leaving the house by a witness who is happens to be blind.

Columbo unwittingly becomes part of a deranged woman's diabolical plot to destroy the two men she believes responsible for her husband's death in prison. After murdering one, she moves in on the other, Columbo, to kill the person closest to him, his wife.

Ego-maniac Fielding Chase, is a radio talk show host who in order to prevent his daughter from moving to New York, murders a member of his staff.

Graham McVeigh, a thoroughbred ranch owner, kills his brother, and frames a local mob bookie. Then, under the guise of making good on his brother's debt, he kills the bookie as well, claiming self-defense. Mob boss Vincenzo Fortelli starts to exert pressure on McVeigh. To solve the crime Columbo must work with the gangster.