
Mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher - a down-to-earth, middle-aged widow - ferrets out the criminals in idyllic Cabot Cove, Maine, which apparently is the murder capital of the United States for the show's 12-season run. Though while traveling, she uncovers a fair number of killers as well.

Jessica is pulled into a murder investigation by a woman (Vera Miles) who claims Jessica's husband fathered her son.

A policeman-turned-professor challenges Jessica to solve a series of campus muggings that soon escalates to murder.

A friend (Bradford Dillman) is suspected of killing the author (Jessica Walter) who was writing an unauthorized biography of his wife.

Sheriff Metzger assumes his younger brother, the black sheep of the family, is guilty of murder, as charged.