I don't know if anyone has ever done that, but i gathered some data about the 69 Columbo episodes and i would like to share it with all of you. There is probably some errors, feel free to correct me. Here it is:

Number of people murdered: 85 - in most episodes (50; 72%), there is only one murder. In 16 episodes (24)%, there are two. In one episode (bird in the hand) there are three murders, and in two (the most maligned 87th precint ones) there is no murder.

Killer`s gender: 58 men (81%) and 14 women (19%) - some episodes, like a friend in deed, have two different murderers.

Victim's gender: 63 men (76%) and 22 women (24%)

premeditated murders - 77 (90%) vs 8 unpremeditated murders (10%) (i considered premeditated every murder that was the result of a plan, even if it wasnt part of the original plan, like Mrs. Le sanka on murder by the book or the projectionist on double exposure. Unpremeditated ones were the result of corporal fight, like the one in death lends a hand, or the first one in deadly state of mind)

Weapon of choice:

gun - 35 (41%)
Blunt object (block of ice, ashtray, tools, etc) - 14 (17%)
Asphixia (manual or otherwise) - 10 (12%)
Explosions/Explosive devices (bombs, cannons, booby traps, cars) - 6 (7%)
Bare Hands (a punch or a push resulting in a fatal head injury) - 4 (5%)
Poison - 4 (5%)
Electric shock - 2 (2%)
running onver (with a car) - 2 (2%)
Others (guillotines, bulls, suicide induced by hypnotism) - 8 (9%)

Motive:

To keep a secret (mostly blackmailers) - 25 (29%)
Money - 11 (13%)
Vengeance - 10 (12%)
"Career move" - 10 (12%)
To incriminate the second victim with the first murder - 8 (9%)
Accident - 5 (6%)
Pride (this one is kinda vague) - 5 (6%)
Love - 3 (4%)
Political reasons - 2 (3%)
Others (butterfly shades of grey) - 1 (1%)

(there are some murders unnacounted for on this last one, thats why the percentages are a bit shoddy)

Well, thats it. What do you guys make of it?

There was only 1 episode with no murder (No Time To Die).

You are right. I guess i hate "undercover" so much i forgot all about it. Thanks!

A FRIEND IN DEED might be the only one where the first killing might or might not be an accident, and you never find out.

This is going a little far afield, but there's also at least one where the MOTIVE might or might not be based on a big mistake, and that's TRY AND CATCH ME (I know a lot of you are sure that Edmund murdered Phyllis, but some of us keep wondering).

Is the same thing true of THE CONSPIRATORS? I don't know it well enough to know whether it ever tells you for certain that Devlin was being cheated by Pauley.

I've always wondered that about The Conspirators myself. From what I can figure, Devlin has never met Mr. Pauly, since he didn't recognize him at the bookstore, and therefore didn't know how Pauly actually runs his gun deals. Maybe he sets them up, takes the money, stores the guns someplace and has his hired help make the delivery while he has left town to avoid being implicated if the deal gets busted by the police. Devlin is making assumptions that since Pauly bought a new suit and a plane ticket that he was skipping out with the money instead of conducting his business like he always does.

nicely done! :-)

Good work Pedro. Nice to have a breakdown like this. Very informative.

I agree that this is very well done. Thank you for taking the time to do this. It was very informative.

I'm sure someone can correct me on these right away if I'm wrong.

In the original series at least, there are three murders of siblings, ANY OLD PORT IN A STORM, OLD-FASHIONED MURDER and LADY IN WAITING. I kind of doubt that the show was trying to "say" anything by this, but there were none committed against sisters, only brothers, but two where the MURDERER was a sister.


Also, there were three killings of uncles by nephews, DOUBLE SHOCK, SHORT FUSE and SUITABLE FOR FRAMING, and one killing of a nephew by an uncle, THE GREENHOUSE JUNGLE.

There's another killing of an uncle by a nephew in the early episodes, but I won't post it here because it's one of the rare spoilers in Columbo ;-)

A couple of additions from the later episodes:

A brother killed a brother in "Strange Bedfellows"
An uncle killed a nephew in "Death hits the jackpot"

Like a lot of you, I've never managed to really get "into" the later version. But JACKPOT is one of the exceptions for me, so I'm sorry I didn't think of it.

It took me a while to realize which episode of the FIRST version you meant, but now I see what you mean.

I don't know about the later version, but when it comes to the first series, there seems to be only one murder of a mother-in-law. Which is interesting, considering all the traditional jokes about that particular kind of murder!

Is there another uncle murdered? Or T'ISN'T there?