Plot

An inventor in love with gadgets murders his mother-in-law after she fires him as CEO of her electronics company, and uses his expertise of surveillance systems to craft the perfect alibi. Lt. Columbo is on the case.

An electronics genius kills his mother-in-law due to her plans to oust him from the family business of which he is the managing director, as she believes her son-in-law's reckless spending on gadgetry is responsible for the company's revenue losses which have amounted to thousands of dollars.

Harold Van Wyck loves investing new gadgets, but it is cutting into the family's company's profits. Not only that, Harold has been cheating on his wheelchair-bound wife, and his mother-in-law has proof of his indiscretions with several women. She tries to blackmail Harold - resign his position as president of the company first thing in the morning so see replace him with her son Arthur, or she will expose his affairs to her daughter. Harold resorts to murdering her and using his gadgets to give himself a perfect alibi - that he was at an art show at the time of the murder. Lt. Columbo is convinced Harold is guilty of murder and doggedly investigates.—charmardee-smith

Electronics expert Harold Van Wick has wired his estate-home with closed-circuit television cameras and video recorders. His costly fascination with gadgetry raises the ire of his frugal mother-in-law, who owns the firm where Van Wick is the chief executive. She orders him to resign, threatening to reveal his philandering ways discovered by her private detective, but Van Wick has already set in motion a scheme to murder his angry mother-in-law, recording her demise on video tape while feeding a recording of an empty study to the guard monitoring the estate's rooms on television screens at the gate to the Van Wick estate. Having already forced open a window and planted footprints outside it to make the kill look like the deed of a burglar, Van Wick timer-sets the recording of the murder to play while he is away at a social function, thus giving him an alibi. But Lieutenant Columbo - that super-smart detective in a rumpled raincoat - suspects Van Wick and asks incessant questions as he probes the murder and tries to link it to him.—Kevin McCorry <mmccorry@nb.sympatico.ca>

Harold Van Wick just loves inventing gadgets, and his house is filled with them. However, investing in new technology is causing his family's electronics company's profits to shrink severely. His mother-in-law decides to remove him as head of the company and threatens to show her daughter evidence of his infidelities. He thinks his inventions will help him commit the perfect murder. Later it seems his mother-in-law was shot by an intruder while he was at an art gallery. But clever gadgets aren't enough to fool the rumpled, redoubtable Lt. Columbo.—J. Spurlin