The harbor of Jessica's home town, Cabot Cove, is actually the Jaws (1975) lake on the Universal Studios tram tour.
Lansbury earned Emmy nominations for Best Lead Actress in a Drama Series for the each of the show's twelve seasons but failed to win any.
One of Jessica's interesting traits was that she could not drive (unlike the actress who played her, who did drive) and was reliant on bicycles and taxis or rides/lifts from someone in her enormous coterie of friends, relatives, acquaintances, police officers/law enforcement, and, occasionally, suspects.
Jessica's middle name is Beatrice, which was a tribute to Lansbury's best friend, actress and singer Bea Arthur, who never appeared on Murder, She Wrote (1984).
Although set in fictional Cabot Cove, Maine, the show was filmed on the West Coast, in Mendocino, California, and the Universal Studios backlot in Los Angeles. The location filming in Mendocino used the Blair House Inn Bed and Breakfast as the exterior of Jessica Fletcher's house. It was built in 1888 for Elisha Blair and his family by Oliver Johnson, a local builder. Due to the amount of filming that took place at the location for the series, a V.I.P. room was renamed as Angela's Suite, and a replica of Jessica's bike is in the garden. Many other locations purporting to be in New England were actually filmed in Oregon and Northern California.