What do you want me to say..?.."if the shoe fits"..?

Your point, Michael, brings on much self-searching.

Look, my point primarily was that all the creepy references by Steve pale by comparison to the ultimate creepy act of murder. The murder of course is expected in the "Columbo formula".

I just don't think that the antecedent events would define the character. Why should anyone be surprised that the murderer would have creepy traits that make him/her such an a-hole as defined by Steve?

The fact that he was/becomes the murderer explains his proclivity to the acts leading up to it.

Yeah, I'd never considered a reason I enjoyed Columbo was that the villains most often are folks who're able to maintain a public persona of normality. I mean they are conductors, art afficiandoes, actors, politicians, etc. they manage to appear to be "normal" to nearly everyone else. Quite a feat.