hmmm...Dr Mayfield because he killed Grandpa Walton...lol
Harold Van Wycke was quite sleazy as well

The question was what victim, not what killer! In other words, which victim really got what was coming to them.

With Edna, it's one of the LITTLE things that always gets to me (and probably a lot of you), and that's the way she acts when Tommy tries to do the employee that little favor with the rental car. She probably imagined the employee using it to get somewhere with the girlfriend Tommy mentioned so that would have offended her, but either way, but also it just strikes you as petty.

I don't know about DESERVING it, but one victim who definitely ASKS FOR IT is Karl Lessing. Instead of just saying NO to Viveca when she tried to bargain, he had to draw things out the way he did.

yep..my mistake....victim...Paul Galesko's wife Francis

Ric Carsini in "Any old port in a storm".

That was my other "deserving" victim! Funny as I am watching that episode now. However, I like Paul Galesko much less than Tommy Brown, whom I was sympathetic to.

Some people might say that Vincent Pauley deserved it, being an arms dealer. But of course the uncomfortable fact that he was killed for cheating Joe Devlin when he WASN'T cheating him.

Well I would not have killed any of he victims,I would never stoop to doing something so evil.
I do believe Claire Daley from Fade into Murder had something bad coming her way she almost enjoyed controlling Ward Fowler's life. I do feel that
is why I beleive William Shatner's Ward Fowler character was perhaps the most likeable murderer in the original Columbo series.

I think we are being tongue in cheek here. None of us I would assume would murder anyone

I thought that Mr. Pauley WAS going to cheat Devlin. Plus, once Pauley was caught in a lie, it seemed like he was loading a weapon to use on Devlin. Otherwise Pauley could have just said that he booked the flight to Lisbon before he knew Devlin wanted him to stick around.

Also the nephew of Abigail Mitchell was a murderer himself, allegedly. And in It's All In The Game, Faye Dunaway's gigolo boyfriend was an abusive extortionist.

Gene Stafford, while he was a good man, was foolish to confront Milo so flagrantly.

Eddie Kane was a sick maniac, although his murder was just a subplot.

In Agenda For Murder, we know little about the victim except that he was an extremely corrupt, professional criminal, albeit a very pleasant, joke -telling and happily married criminal.

And finally, in Troubled Waters, our blackmailer's character was as bad as her singing.

Agenda for Murder may have been my favorite "later" episode. Loved the character Oscar Finch

I think because Frances Galesko comes off as really deserving it (and hey, that frees him up for Isis herself, Joanna Cameron!) they had to make sure that Paul also kills a total innocent in Deschler who doesn't deserve it. Similarly, Lessing clearly deserved it, but then Viveca compounds it with her second killng.

Maybe Roger White, the second victim in "Double Exposure". His arrogant blackmail attempt was disappointing to an otherwise likable character.

I was turned off by that as well because he went from a friendly guy to an extortionist.

And finally, in Troubled Waters, our blackmailer's character was as bad as her singing. [/quote]


Bad singing or not, and blackmail or not, it's easy to see what Hayden and Lloyd both saw in her on other levels.

I always forget how it was phrased, but quite some time ago someone here said that Frances Galesko struck them as a wife who could've been a lot of "fun" (if you know what I mean) if Paul had gone about things a certain way. This is getting into a sort of "taming of the shrew" area (so it could sound sexist), but maybe if he'd confronted her early on with "some new-found masculinity" - even though she meant that phrase sarcastically - things could have gone differently. Or maybe not.

(Of course, that reference to him wanting to go off with "Isis herself" ALSO makes a lot of sense.)

I mentioned this on another thread recently, and it's getting into a sensitive area, but there's Jesse Jerome in NOW YOU SEE HIM. I don't know the episode well and I don't remember just how he phrases it, but Santini says that he's a "victim" of those camps in his own way, and it isn't automatically a ridiculous thing to say, but of course Jerome dismisses it. Also, Jerome has the nerve to get on a kind of moral high horse with Santini, instead of blackmailing him and leaving it at that! So those two things make him a victim who pretty much goads the killer into doing it (even apart from the blackmail itself).

I have to re-watch that episode. The interaction sounds familiar.

I've watched Now You See Him...many many times...and always delight in Nehemiah Persoff's (Jesse Jerome) performance...the guy has a very long acting resume. The way he delivers his lines making use of the name Stefan Mueller is highly effective.
Being divulged as a Nazi war criminal, I always thought, was the MOST valid of motives in all the episodes.