"And I also have no idea what the title means. Perhaps the daughter is a caterpillar waiting to leave the cocoon and blossom to a butterfly, but her controlling father is stifling her, taking the color out of her life or something."

^^^^^ This is one of the best explanations of the title I've heard!

"Butterfly" is a great episode mainly because of the characterization of the murderer... a paranoid, bitter, controlling man. There's a very telling moment toward the end, when Columbo is leading Chase into a final, incriminating setup.

Chase: "I'll confront your witness! And I'll destroy him. And then I'll start on you, and maybe the rest of the Los Angeles Police Department! Let's go."

There's a quick cut to Columbo's face during that rant, and he genuinely looks sad. By that point Chase is alone, defeated, and can't even see the trap he's walking into.

I think in all of Columbo's history, Fielding Chase may have been the killer who got most annoyed by him (there's Mrs. Peck, but she was not a killer). You can see Chase's blood pressure rise as Columbo fiddles with the honey stick for his tea. "Twist it", Chase says, further distracting Columbo from his point.

I love the scene in Chase's office with the putrid cigar smoke and Columbo keeps interrupting himself as Chase gets more annoyed each time. Columbo tries to open a high rise office window until Chase bursts out: "Forget the windows, they don't open. DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE SMOKE! Get back to your point."

Then as Columbo is giving him the bad news, the cigar that he put in the wastebasket starts a fire. Columbo pours coffee to put out the fire as he also puts out Chase's nonsense theory that a political enemy killed Jerry.

It's a great scene from a great episode, although I'll never unsee that hideous mustache, or a very out-of-shape Shatner trying to work an exercise machine, lol.

Does anyone have a video tape of the original broadcast version?
I would love to own that instead of the cropped " widescreen" version on the DVD.

Thanks!
Bruce