No good episode of Columbo would be complete without a good antagonist for the detective to play off of.
Several characters on this list do not physically commit murder. However, under the law of California (https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/defense/penal-code/31/) they are legally guilty of murder. Suaria is a fictional country, but there is no reason to believe it is different in this respect.
Pilots[]
| Episode | Villain | Portrayed by | Victim |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prescription: Murder | Dr. Ray Fleming and Joan Hudson | Gene Barry and Katherine Justice | Carol Flemming |
| Ransom for a Dead Man | Leslie Williams | Lee Grant | Paul Williams |
Season 1[]
| Episode | Villain | Portrayed by | Victim(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Murder by the Book | Ken Franklin | Jack Cassidy | Jim Ferris, Lily La Sanka |
| Death Lends a Hand | Carl Brimmer | Robert Culp | Lenore Kennicut |
| Dead Weight | Major General Martin Hollister | Eddie Albert | Colonel Roger Dutton |
| Suitable for Framing | Dale Kingston and Tracy O'Connor | Ross Martin and Rossana Huffmann | Rudy Matthews, Tracy O'Connor (Dale Kingston) Rudy Matthews (Tracy O'Connor) |
| Lady in Waiting | Beth Chadwick | Susan Clark | Bryce Chadwick |
| Short Fuse | Roger Stanford | Roddy McDowall | David "D.L." Buckner, Quincy |
| Blueprint for Murder | Elliot Markham | Patrick O'Neal | Beau Williamson |
Season 2[]
| Episode | Villain(s) | Portrayed by | Victim |
|---|---|---|---|
| Étude in Black | Alex Benedict | John Cassavetes | Jennifer Welles |
| The Greenhouse Jungle | Jarvis Goodland | Ray Milland | Tony Goodland |
| The Most Crucial Game | Paul Hanlon | Robert Culp | Eric Wagner |
| Dagger of the Mind | Nicholas Frame and Lillian Stanhope | Richard Baseheart and Honor Blackman | Sir Roger Haversham, and Tanner (Lillian Stanhope), Tanner (Nicholas Frame) |
| Requiem for a Falling Star | Nora Chandler | Anne Baxter | Jean Davis (and Al Cumberland, historically) |
| A Stitch in Crime | Dr. Barry Mayfield | Leonard Nimoy | Sharon Marshall, Harry Alexander |
| The Most Dangerous Match | Emmett Clayton | Laurence Harvey | Tomlin Dudek |
| Double Shock | Dexter and Norman Paris | Martin Landau | Clifford Paris, Lisa Chambers (Both) |
The following characters appear as villains who did not actually commit murder;
- Mel Ferrer plays Jerry Parks, a gossip columnist and blackmailer who threatens Nora Chandler with scandal in Requiem for a Falling Star.
- Tim O'Connor plays Michael Hathaway, an unscrupulous lawyer who tries to blackmail the Paris brothers into keeping him employed in Double Shock.
Season 3[]
| Episode | Villain(s) | Portrayed by | Victim(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lovely But Lethal | Viveca Scott | Vera Miles | Karl Lessing, Shirley Blaine |
| Any Old Port in a Storm | Adrian Carsini | Donald Pleasence | Rick Carsini |
| Candidate for Crime | Nelson Hayward | Jackie Cooper | Harry Stone |
| Double Exposure | Dr. Bart Keppel | Robert Culp | Vic Norris, Roger White |
| Publish or Perish | Eddie Kane (hired by Riley Greenleaf) | John Davis Chandler | Alan Mallory |
| Riley Greenleaf | Jack Cassidy | Eddie Kane and Alan Mallory | |
| Mind Over Mayhem | Dr. Marshall Cahill | José Ferrer | Dr. Howard Nicholson |
| Swan Song | Tommy Brown | Johnny Cash | Edna Basket Brown, Maryann |
| A Friend in Deed | Commissioner Mark Halperin | Richard Kiley | Margaret Halperin |
| Hugh Caldwell | Michael McGuire | Janice Caldwell |
The following characters appear as villains who did not actually commit murder;
Season 4[]
| Episode | Villain(s) | Portrayed by | Victim(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| An Exercise in Fatality | Milo Janus | Robert Conrad | Gene Stafford |
| Negative Reaction | Paul Galesko | Dick Van Dyke | Frances Galesko, Alvin Deschler |
| By Dawn's Early Light | Colonel Lyle C. Rumford | Patrick McGoohan | William Haynes |
| Troubled Waters | Hayden Danzinger | Robert Vaughn | Rosanna Wells |
| Playback | Harold Van Wick | Oskar Werner | Margaret Midas |
| A Deadly State of Mind | Dr. Mark Collier | George Hamilton | Carl and Nadia Donner |
The following characters appear as villains who did not actually commit murder;
- Lesley Ann Warren plays Nadia Donner, Dr. Collier's lover who assists him in covering up the murder of her husband in A Deadly State of Mind.
- Pat Harrington, Jr plays Buddy Castle, Milo Janus's partner in the financial crimes who was not involved in the murder.
Season 5[]
| Episode | Villain(s) | Portrayed by | Victim(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Forgotten Lady | Grace Wheeler | Janet Leigh | Dr. Henry Willis |
| A Case of Immunity | Hassan Sallah and Rachman Jabib | Héctor Elizondo | Youseff Alafa, Rachman Habib (Hassan Salah) Youseff Alafa (Rachman Habib) |
| Identity Crisis | Nelson Brenner | Patrick McGoohan | Geronimo |
| A Matter of Honor | Luis Montoya | Ricardo Montalban | Hector Rangel |
| Now You See Him | The Great Santini | Jack Cassidy | Jesse Jerome |
| Last Salute to the Commodore | Swanny Swanson | Fred Draper | Commodore Otis Swanson, Charles Clay |
The following characters appear as villains who did not actually commit murder;
- Robert Vaughn plays Charles Clay, an opportunist who tries to cover up the Commodore's murder in Last Salute to the Commodore in order to benefit from his death.
Season 6[]
| Episode | Villain(s) | Portrayed by | Victim(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fade In to Murder | Ward Fowler | William Shatner | Claire Daly |
| Old Fashioned Murder | Ruth Lytton | Joyce Van Patten | Milton Shaeffer, Edward Lytton (and, most likely, Peter Brandt, historically) |
| The Bye-Bye Sky High I.Q. Murder Case | Oliver Brandt | Theodore Bikel | Bertie Hastings |
Season 7[]
| Episode | Villain(s) | Portrayed by | Victim(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Try and Catch Me | Abigail Mitchell | Ruth Gordon | Edmund Galvin |
| Murder Under Glass | Paul Gerard | Louis Jourdan | Vittorio Rossi |
| Make Me a Perfect Murder | Kay Freestone | Trish Van Devere | Mark McAndrews |
| How to Dial a Murder | Dr. Eric Mason | Nicol Williamson | Dr. Charlie Hunter |
| The Conspirators | Joe Devlin | Clive Revill | Vincent Pauley |
The following characters appear as villains who did not actually commit murder;
- Jeanette Nolan, Bernard Behrens and Michael Horton play Kate O'Connell, George O'Connell and Kerry Malone respectively, Joe Devlin's co-conspirators who use funds from the Friends of Northern Ireland charity to fund the terrorist activies of the Irish Republican Army.
Additionally;
- Charles Frank plays Edmund Galvin, Abigail Mitchell's victim in Try and Catch Me. Her motive for murder is that she believes he murdered her beloved niece Phyllis some years ago and covered it up as a "boating accident." However, the episode itself never actually confirms whether or not Edmund is guilty of this supposed crime.
Season 8[]
| Episode | Villain(s) | Portrayed by | Victim(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Columbo Goes to the Guillotine | Elliott Blake | Anthony Andrews | Max Dyson |
| Murder, Smoke and Shadows | Alex Brady | Fisher Stevens | Leonard Fisher |
| Sex and the Married Detective | Dr. Joan Allenby | Lindsay Crouse | David Kincaid |
| Grand Deceptions | Colonel Frank Brailie | Robert Foxworth | Sergeant Major Lester Keegan |
The following characters appear as villains who did not actually commit murder;
Season 9[]
| Episode | Villain(s) | Portrayed by | Victim(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Murder: A Self Portrait | Max Barsini | Patrick Bauchau | Louise Barsini (and Harry Chudnow, historically) |
| Columbo Cries Wolf | Sean Brantley | Ian Buchanan | Dian Hunter |
| Agenda for Murder | Oscar Finch | Patrick McGoohan | Frank Staplin |
| Rest in Peace, Mrs. Columbo | Vivian Dimitri | Helen Shaver | Charleton "Charlie" Chambers |
| Uneasy Lies the Crown | Dr. Wesley Corman | James Read | Adam Evans |
| Murder in Malibu | Wayne Jennings | Andrew Stevens | Theresa Goren |
The following characters appear as villains who did not actually commit murder;
Season 10[]
| Episode | Villain(s) | Portrayed by | Victim(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Columbo Goes to College | Justin Rowe and Cooper Redman | Stephen Caffrey and Gary Hershberger | Professor D.E. Rusk (Both) |
| Caution: Murder Can Be Hazardous to Your Health | Wade Anders | George Hamilton | Budd Clarke |
| Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star | Hugh Creighton | Dabney Coleman | Marcy Edwards |
| Death Hits the Jackpot | Leon Lamarr | Rip Torn | Freddy Brower |
| No Time to Die | Rudy "Doc" Strassa | Daniel McDonald | Melissa Alexandra Hayes (kidnapped) |
| A Bird in the Hand... | Harold McCain | Greg Evigan | Fernando the Gardener (accidentally) |
| Dolores McCain | Tyne Daly | Big Fred and Harold McCain | |
| It's All in the Game | Lauren Staton and Lisa Martin | Faye Dunaway and Claudia Christian | Nick Franco |
| Butterfly in Shades of Grey | Fielding Chase | William Shatner | Gerry Winters |
| Undercover | Irving Krutch | Ed Begley Jr. | Mo Weinberg and Geraldine Ferguson |
| Strange Bedfellows | Graham McVeigh | George Wendt | Teddy McVeigh and Bruno Romano |
| A Trace of Murder | Cathleen Calvert and Patrick Kingsley | Shera Danese and David Rasche | Howard Seltzer |
| Ashes to Ashes | Eric Prince | Patrick McGoohan | Verity Chandler |
| Murder with Too Many Notes | Findlay Crawford | Sir Billy Connolly | Gabriel McEnery |
| Columbo Likes the Nightlife | Justin Price and Vanessa Farrow | Matthew Rhys and Jennifer Sky | Tony Galper and Linwood Cobin (Vanessa Farrow) Linwood Robin (Justin Price) |
In other media
A variety of Columbo books were published. A series of 6 novels by the author William Harrington was published in the 90's. 4 of the books featured connections to real life crimes such as the JFK assasination. The Harrington books introduced several new recurring friends for Columbo. A Coroner, Harold Culp, and a detective, Martha Zimmerman were among those introduced. Columbo also had a borderline-adulterous relationship with a reporter named Adrienne, that included several kisses.
| Killer | Victims | Motive | Fate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Giuseppe Sclafani (main villain), Phil Sclafani, Tim Edmonds, and Lake Bell | Paul Drury | To cover up the attempted killing of John F. Kennedy | All arrested, convicted, imprisoned for (presumably) life. |
| Armand Khoury | |||
| Jimmy Hoffa, Mickey Newcastle, and Johnny Corleone | Regina Sanova | Sanova had displeased Hoffa. | Hoffa murdered in separate incident. Corleone and Newcastle arrested and imprisoned for (presumably) life. |
| Killer | Victim | Motive | Fate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carlo Luchesse and Los Angeles Mafia Dons. | Jimmy Hoffa. | Hoffa knew too much about their mafia bussiness | Lucchesse killed in separate incident. Los Angeles Dons arrested and imprisoned for (presumably) life. |
| Johnny Corleone | Carlo Luchese and henchmen. | Unclear | Corleone arrested and imprisoned for (presumably) life |
| Franklin Torrance and Linda Kitteridge. | Arnold Borchadt. | Borchadt discovered their affair and threatened to expose it. | Both arrested and imprisoned for (presumably) life. |
Convictions
The issue of which Columbo villains are actually convicted is a matter of frequent speculation. Cases against some antagonists, such as Swanny Swanson probably would not hold up in the real world. Despite this, we know that Columbo villains (except Grace Wheeler and Lisa Kroeger, who Columbo let go)are all convicted because in Ashes to Ashes, Columbo says that he has never lost a case. The question of what crimes Columbo villains are convicted of is also important. In some cases, Columbo villains commit multiple murders, but the final clue often only involves one. However, in many cases both murders are proven such as Dagger of The Mind (where proving one murder necessarily proves the other). It is worth noting that Levinson and Link never intended Columbo to be a realistic portal of police business and prosecution. Moreover, sometimes justice is not served with the final clue alone. For example, is Barry Mayfield serving a few years for attempted murder, even though he committed 2 murders really justice? Columbo is meant to be a (relatively) tame show. For all of this, we can conclude, that unless villains are let off (see the 2 above) or killed by their partners, it is most likely, if not a certainty, that they are always convicted of all murders.