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Every killer in Columbo
Columbo is the series where the murderer is known from the first minutes — you see them before you see the lieutenant. Here are all 69 of them: who played the part, and what the character was called.
This page is spoilers by definition, so nothing is hidden. If you have not watched yet, start with where to start.
- Killers in total
- 69
- With a portrait
- 68
- Played it twice or more
- 5
- Have their own page
- 15
Full actor pages are in the cast section.
Played the killer more than once
Counting murderer roles only. Robert Culp appears a fourth time in Columbo Goes to College, but there the killer is someone else.
Patrick McGoohan 4 murderer roles 4×03 · 5×03 · 9×03 · 10×12 
Jack Cassidy 3 murderer roles 1×01 · 3×05 · 5×05 
Robert Culp 3 murderer roles 1×02 · 2×03 · 3×04 
George Hamilton 2 murderer roles 4×06 · 10×02 
William Shatner 2 murderer roles 6×01 · 10×08| # | Episode | Year | Actor | Character |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Prescription: Murder пилот 1 | 1968 |  Gene Barry | Ray Flemming |
| 02 | Ransom for a Dead Man пилот 2 | 1971 |  Lee Grant | Leslie Williams |
| 03 | Murder by the Book 1×01 | 1971 | Jack Cassidy | Ken Franklin |
| 04 | Death Lends a Hand 1×02 | 1971 | Robert Culp | Investigator Brimmer |
| 05 | Dead Weight 1×03 | 1971 |  Eddie Albert | Martin Hollister |
| 06 | Suitable for Framing 1×04 | 1971 |  Ross Martin | Dale Kingston and Rosanna Huffman as Tracy O'Connor |
| 07 | Lady in Waiting 1×05 | 1971 |  Susan Clark | Beth Chadwick |
| 08 | Short Fuse 1×06 | 1972 |  Roddy McDowall | Roger Stanford |
| 09 | Blueprint for Murder 1×07 | 1972 |  Patrick O'Neal | Elliot Markham |
| 10 | Etude in Black 2×01 | 1972 |  John Cassavetes | Alex Benedict |
| 11 | The Greenhouse Jungle 2×02 | 1972 |  Ray Milland | Jarvis Goodland |
| 12 | The Most Crucial Game 2×03 | 1972 | Robert Culp | Paul Hanlon |
| 13 | Dagger of the Mind 2×04 | 1972 |  Richard Basehart | Nicholas Frame and Honor Blackman as Lillian Stanhope |
| 14 | Requiem for a Falling Star 2×05 | 1973 |  Anne Baxter | Nora Chandler |
| 15 | A Stitch in Crime 2×06 | 1973 |  Leonard Nimoy | Barry Mayfield |
| 16 | The Most Dangerous Match 2×07 | 1973 |  Laurence Harvey | Emmett Clayton |
| 17 | Double Shock 2×08 | 1973 |  Martin Landau in a dual role | Dexter Paris and Norman Paris |
| 18 | Lovely But Lethal 3×01 | 1973 |  Vera Miles | Viveca Scott |
| 19 | Any Old Port in a Storm 3×02 | 1973 |  Donald Pleasence | Adrian Carsini |
| 20 | Candidate for Crime 3×03 | 1973 |  Jackie Cooper | Nelson Hayward |
| 21 | Double Exposure 3×04 | 1973 | Robert Culp | Bart Keppel |
| 22 | Publish or Perish 3×05 | 1974 | Jack Cassidy | Riley Greenleaf and John Chandler as Eddie Kane |
| 23 | Mind Over Mayhem 3×06 | 1974 |  José Ferrer | Marshall Cahill |
| 24 | Swan Song 3×07 | 1974 |  Johnny Cash | Tommy Brown |
| 25 | A Friend in Deed 3×08 | 1974 |  Richard Kiley | Mark Halperin and Michael McGuire as Hugh Caldwell |
| 26 | An Exercise in Fatality 4×01 | 1974 |  Robert Conrad | Milo Janus |
| 27 | Negative Reaction 4×02 | 1974 |  Dick Van Dyke | Paul Galesko |
| 28 | By Dawn’s Early Light 4×03 | 1974 | Patrick McGoohan | Lyle Rumford |
| 29 | Troubled Waters 4×04 | 1975 |  Robert Vaughn | Hayden Danzinger |
| 30 | Playback 4×05 | 1975 |  Oskar Werner | Harold van Wick |
| 31 | A Deadly State of Mind 4×06 | 1975 | George Hamilton | Mark Collier |
| 32 | Forgotten Lady 5×01 | 1975 |  Janet Leigh | Grace Wheeler |
| 33 | A Case of Immunity 5×02 | 1975 |  Héctor Elizondo | Hassan Salah and Sal Mineo as Rachman Habib |
| 34 | Identity Crisis 5×03 | 1975 | Patrick McGoohan | Nelson Brenner |
| 35 | A Matter of Honor 5×04 | 1976 |  Ricardo Montalbán | Luis Montoya |
| 36 | Now You See Him 5×05 | 1976 | Jack Cassidy | Stefan Mueller |
| 37 | Last Salute to the Commodore 5×06 | 1976 |  Fred Draper | Swanny Swanson |
| 38 | Fade in to Murder 6×01 | 1976 | William Shatner | Ward Fowler |
| 39 | Old Fashioned Murder 6×02 | 1976 |  Joyce Van Patten | Ruth Lytton |
| 40 | The Bye-Bye Sky-High I.Q. Murder Case 6×03 | 1977 |  Theodore Bikel | Oliver Brandt |
| 41 | Try and Catch Me 7×01 | 1977 |  Ruth Gordon | Abigail Mitchell |
| 42 | Murder Under Glass 7×02 | 1978 |  Louis Jourdan | Paul Gerard |
| 43 | Make Me a Perfect Murder 7×03 | 1978 |  Trish Van Devere | Kay Freestone |
| 44 | How to Dial a Murder 7×04 | 1978 |  Nicol Williamson | Eric Mason |
| 45 | The Conspirators 7×05 | 1978 |  Clive Revill | Joe Devlin |
| 46 | Columbo Goes to the Guillotine 8×01 | 1989 |  Anthony Andrews | Elliott Blake |
| 47 | Murder, Smoke and Shadows 8×02 | 1989 |  Fisher Stevens | Alex Brady |
| 48 | Sex and the Married Detective 8×03 | 1989 |  Lindsay Crouse | Joan Allenby |
| 49 | Grand Deceptions 8×04 | 1989 |  Robert Foxworth | Frank Brailie |
| 50 | Murder, A Self Portrait 9×01 | 1989 |  Patrick Bauchau | Max Barsini |
| 51 | Columbo Cries Wolf 9×02 | 1990 |  Ian Buchanan | Sean Brantley |
| 52 | Agenda for Murder 9×03 | 1990 | Patrick McGoohan | Oscar Finch |
| 53 | Rest in Peace, Mrs. Columbo 9×04 | 1990 |  Helen Shaver | Vivian Dimitri |
| 54 | Uneasy Lies the Crown 9×05 | 1990 |  James Read | Wesley Corman |
| 55 | Murder in Malibu 9×06 | 1990 |  Andrew Stevens | Wayne Jennings |
| 56 | Columbo Goes to College 10×01 | 1990 |  Stephen Caffrey | Justin Rowe and Gary Hershberger as Cooper Redman |
| 57 | Caution: Murder Can Be Hazardous to Your Health 10×02 | 1991 | George Hamilton | Wade Anders |
| 58 | Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star 10×03 | 1991 |  Dabney Coleman | Hugh Creighton |
| 59 | Death Hits the Jackpot 10×04 | 1991 |  Rip Torn | Leon Lamarr and Jamie Rose as Nancy Brower |
| 60 | No Time to Die 10×05 | 1992 | (No murderer. Daniel McDonald plays the kidnapper Rudy Strassa.) | в серии нет классического убийцы (похищение) |
| 61 | A Bird in the Hand… 10×06 | 1992 |  Tyne Daly | Dolores McCain and Greg Evigan as Harold McCain |
| 62 | It's All in the Game 10×07 | 1993 |  Faye Dunaway | Lauren Staton and Claudia Christian as Lisa Martin |
| 63 | Butterfly in Shades of Grey 10×08 | 1994 | William Shatner | Fielding Chase |
| 64 | Undercover 10×09 | 1994 |  Ed Begley Jr. | Irving Krutch (Jon Beshara and an uncredited actor also portray two characters who kill each other) |
| 65 | Strange Bedfellows 10×10 | 1995 |  George Wendt | Graham McVeigh |
| 66 | A Trace of Murder 10×11 | 1997 |  David Rasche | Patrick Kinsley and Shera Danese as Cathleen Calvert |
| 67 | Ashes to Ashes 10×12 | 1998 | Patrick McGoohan | Eric Prince |
| 68 | Murder With Too Many Notes 10×13 | 2001 |  Billy Connolly | Findlay Crawford |
| 69 | Columbo Likes the Nightlife 10×14 | 2003 |  Matthew Rhys | Justin Price and Jennifer Sky as Vanessa Farrow |