Plot Summary for
"Columbo" A Deadly State of Mind (1975)

Mark Collier is a psychiatrist and Nadia Donner is a patient of his. Mark is also Nadia's lover and his main concern is for a book he is writing. When Nadia and Mark are caught by her husband, Mark kills him with a poker. When the police arrive Nadia tells an unlikely story about two robbers. But will Lt. Columbo believe her? Written by Baldinotto da Pistoia

Things aren't going well for Dr. Mark Collier, a psychiatrist who specializes in hypnosis. He's stealing drugs from his clinic to use in an experiment with his disturbed patient, Nadia Donner, but he's not getting the results he wants. Nor is he getting them from the lab experiments conducted by his harried research assistant. It seems his book, which is dependent on these results, will fail. Far worse, he's having an affair with Mrs. Donner - and Mr. Donner finds out. The husband confronts these two illicit lovers at his beach house, but in an angry moment Dr. Collier kills him with a fireplace poker. Collier convinces Mrs. Donner to lie to the police and claim that two intruders killed her husband. But can she convince the rumpled, redoubtable Lt. Columbo that she's telling the truth? Written by J. Spurlin

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