Some of the murders that are enacted in the series can be disturbing, especially for such an old show.
- Brimmer in "Death Lends a Hand". Just imagine yourself in his situation, accidentally losing control of your anger and punching Lenore, causing her to fall over and die from head trauma. Then you check their vital signs and realize that you accidentally killed someone. This episode can be a good lesson on the importance of staying in control of your anger, so that you don't end up like this. Gil Meleé's soundtrack
may enhance the feeling of despair. - Lady in Waiting has a particularly twisted mood to it, thanks to unhinged-sounding Billy Goldberg soundtrack. Indeed, like the music, the killer becomes colder and more like the brother she murdered.
- Dr. Barry Mayfield (Leonard Nimoy) in "A Stitch in Crime". Nimoy acts similarly to his performance as the emotionally reserved Spock from Star Trek: The Original Series (which, especially for fans of the show, could make it even creepier). Sharon Martin complains to Dr. Mayfield about his (intentional) use of the wrong suture during a heart operation on his boss Dr. Hideman, but Dr. Mayfield coldly mocks her distress. After Sharon calls to meet with a suture supplier, Dr. Mayfield follows Sharon to her car with his tire iron and kills her, like a Terminator bot. The scene is shot with no dialog, but the look on Sharon's face suggests that she can hardly believe that Dr. Mayfield is willing to murder her.
- Also disturbing is wondering how Dr. Mayfield turned into the plotting person he is. Mayfield's smug, indifferent laugh angers Columbo. He's also perfectly willing to murder a complete stranger with a lethal drug injection in some attempt to frame the man for the initial murder. The fact that Dr. Mayfield is a heart surgeon, who hides murder behind surgery, may be Nightmare Fuel for Real Life surgery patients.
- Which happens again in "Uneasy Lies the Crown" when a dentist plants a deadly drug under a time-release gel in his intended victim's tooth.
- Also disturbing is wondering how Dr. Mayfield turned into the plotting person he is. Mayfield's smug, indifferent laugh angers Columbo. He's also perfectly willing to murder a complete stranger with a lethal drug injection in some attempt to frame the man for the initial murder. The fact that Dr. Mayfield is a heart surgeon, who hides murder behind surgery, may be Nightmare Fuel for Real Life surgery patients.
- In "Double Shock" in an effort to make it seem as if the victim had had a heart attack, their corpse is placed onto a powered exercise bike, making for a ghastly image as the limp body moves unnaturally.
- Imagine being a cadet at Haynes Academy from By Dawn's Early Light. You're performing a routine for Founder's Day. The founder's grandson is going to fire the cannon, which happens everyday. Then all of a sudden, BOOM, the cannon explodes and tears the grandson to pieces. Those kids get to have some PTSD before they even get into a combat situation.
- Dr. Mark Collier in "A Deadly State of Mind" abuses his hypnotherapy skills to control Nadia Donner, who he is having an affair with. In this universe, his hypnosis along with his use of drugs makes his control of Nadia so strong that he "programs" her to commit suicide when she become a liability in covering up his involuntary manslaughter of Carl.
- "How to Dial A Murder" has Dr. Eric Mason train his dogs to maul anyone who says the word "rosebud," and later tricks his best friend to say the word while he's alone in the house with the dogs. The viewer is only given a few discreet glances of the victim struggling as the dogs attack, but his screams and the ferocious snarling of the Dobermans are chilling, especially for anyone with a fear of dogs to begin with.
- Later in "How to Dial A Murder," Magda reveals that she knew Mason's wife was having an affair with his best friend and didn't tell him due to a fear of hurting him. Furious at this betrayal and realizing that she knows too much, he pretends to comfort her while placing his hands around her neck and is just about to start strangling her when Columbo interrupts them.
- "Columbo Goes to the Guillotine" involves a murder with a trick guillotine. Dyson is fooled into lying down with the safety locks removed, and screams in blood-curdling terror as the blade falls. The police are called when a bartender managing a bar starts noticing blood dripping from the ceiling (this isn't shown in family-friendly airings), but the bartender cannot force his way into the 2nd-story room to investigate. Columbo's team saws a hole in a door to reach in and unlock it, and witness the not-filmed decapitated victim. It probably doesn't take much pondering to visualize the murder scene.
- "Murder, Smoke, and Shadows," Alex Brady orchestrating Lennie's murder. Alex takes him to a set, gives a blustery introduction and the jokes about killing him. By then Lennie says Alex knows the reel containing Jennie's death was not fake. Alex responds by intimidating Lennie by sinisterly asking him, "What the hell do you know about truth?" It progresses from there with Alex continuing to approach Lennie and taunt him with lines like "Better run, Lennie. Escape, Escape!" Eventually Alex corners Lennie at some electrified gates, and as the former finishes his speech, Lennie turns to push the gates open only to be electrocuted on the wet street on the set. Then, of course, there's Columbo's revelation that the electrocution had completely melted off Lennie's face, making it difficult for cops to identify him at first
- "Death Hits the Jackpot" has a premise that can provide Paranoia Fuel. Freddy Brower wins a television lottery but is in the process of filing a divorce with ownership of debts in dispute. Not wanting his soon-to-be-ex-wife to get any of the money, Freddy goes to his uncle Leon Lemarr, and arranges for him to come forward as the "winner" of the money and secretly give it to Freddy. Unfortunately, Freddy is too excited to notice the warning signs that he has been betrayed (Leon is procrastinating on giving Freddy the money). Leon then comes to Freddy's apartment under false pretenses to drown him in his bathtub so that he can keep the money for himself. It's later strongly implied that Leon is considering doing the same thing to Nancy, as he's shown using the same procrastinating tactics on her.
- The ending to "A Case of Immunity", the smugness of diplomat Hassan Salah when he confesses to his crime in front of Columbo and the King of Suari. Hassan practically begs Columbo to save his life by waiving his precious diplomatic immunity. It was either American or Suari Justice, and the thought of the latter frightened him so much that the former is the better alternative.
- "Columbo Goes to College" can hit too close to home for professors who are worried about students who can't accept failure. Two college students, Justin and Cooper, find themselves in a sewer when Professor Rusk isn't fooled by their theft of the final exam. When Rusk threatens to give both Justin and Cooper a failing grade or have them expelled, the duo rigs their truck with a pistol, remote camera sight, and a remote trigger-pull. Next, the duo tricks Rusk into leaving during the next class, to go to a non-existent meeting with Justin's prestigious father. Rusk dies from a shot to the head when he is fooled into walking to his car.
- "No Time To Die" already has it bad when Columbo's nephew Andy finds his fiancée Melissa kidnapped immediately after their wedding, which would be bad enough for anyone to experience. To make it worse, there's the strong fear that this was done either in revenge for something Andy did prior in his job as a police officer, or for Melissa's rich family to pay ransom. That's not enough? It turns out the kidnapper is one of the few genuinely mentally ill antagonists of the series, and chose to kidnap her because he's become obsessed with Melissa's modeling career. Then just to make Rudy Strasse even creepier, we find out he was traumatized as a child when he watched his own father murder his mother, followed by killing himself, leaving Rudy alone with his deceased and mutilated parents. He did not grow up well, and his plan for Melissa is to set up a fake marriage ceremony, rape her, and then kill her, followed by killing himself, just as his father did. In the end he's the only antagonist of the series shot and killed by the police rather than being arrested, let alone the only one to not interact with Columbo directly.
- Fielding Chase (William Shatner) in "Butterfly in Shade of Grey" has a hammy personality that can come across as creepy, as though Fielding is wearing a disguise to hide his ugly self. Fielding is possessive of his adopted daughter Victoria to the point of being perfectly willing to shoot anyone who tries to get her to leave him. Fielding calls a publisher to strongly manipulate them into not publishing his daughter's book, but her friend, Fielding's longtime investigator Gerry Winters, sees past this and still convinces her to travel to New York. Fielding becomes very irate and ends up fooling Gerry into calling his home later, so that Fielding can travel to Gerry's home to shoot him in the back while distracted. Also, Fielding is perfectly willing to shoot Columbo with a shotgun and may have been successful if Fielding had not hesitated by boasting to Columbo that he knows Columbo is unarmed.
- In "Ashes to Ashes", the premise of using a cremation oven to eliminate the body of a murder victim. The music that accompanies the episode is also Darker and Edgier than usual. Gossip reporter Verity Chandler (Eric's former lover) confronts Eric Prince, boasting about exposing his theft of valuables from a coffin. She is about to exit the cremation room, and Eric abruptly smashes her in the head from behind with a tool he uses to extract gasses from bodies, causing her to collapse on the floor like a rag-doll. He shows no guilt about the aggravated slaughter, even striking her dead body a second time in rage, hinting at a deep hatred he has toward Verity in spite of his reserved emotion.
- In "Try and Catch Me", Abigail Mitchell tells her son-in-law that she knows he murdered her daughter, then locks him inside a dark, airtight, walk-in safe. Edmund knows that he is going to die by suffocation over the next day or so, and that no rescue is coming. Not a good way to go...
