Ray Fleming was a psychiatrist who murdered his wife Carol Fleming in 1968. He appeared in the first ever episode of Columbo, the 1968 pilot Prescription: Murder, portrayed by American actor Gene Barry, making him the first villain of the Columbo series.
Marriage[]
Ray and Carol Fleming had a tumultuous marriage, ear marked with previous occasions of Ray Flemmings cheating on his wife. Carol had previously provided Ray with the ultimatum of a divorce (and destroying his reputation and psychiatry practice with the ensuing scandal) unless he became a "husband in fact, not just appearance" and thus stop seeing other women on the side.
Ray ultimately concocts a premeditated murder plot to kill his wife with the help of a patient he manipulated and was having an affair with, Joan Hudson. He concocts a plan to fake a theft, in which the thief would be his wife's killer, which would happen 'after' he left on a vacation. Joan would be seen in public in disguise as his wife, who was already dead, to provide him his alibi that she had been alive when he left.
Partnership with Joan[]
Whilst treating the younger actress, he manipulated her into a romantic affair in order to have an accomplice and alibi for the murder of his wife. She proves to hold up strong to emotional manipulation tactics thrown at her by Columbo but ultimately her attchment and involvment in the plan is leaked through small details. Her dedication to Ray and his plot holds until Columbo concocts a plan to fake her suicide, tricking Ray into admitting he would have also killed Joan had she become too much of a risk or otherwise inconvenient, to which Joan turns on him and provides a confession.
Trivia[]
- Ray and Carol had been married for 10 years at the time of Carol's murder.