Relationship Dysfunctions in Crime Shows: Romance and the Weird Relationship to Money

Columbo pilot

One of the most classic motives for murder in murder mystery shows, especially Columbo, is money, specifically money in the family. 

Sometimes, the motive comes from generational inheritance: who will get the estate's money when the patriarch or matriarch dies? 

Quite often the motive comes from money in the marriage: husband kills to get wife's money; wife kills to get husband's money. 

The motive is underscored by the very modern, very Western attitude that it is tacky to marry for money in the first place. But the truth is, for most of history, marrying for money was part of the deal. Marriage was as much about survival as about progeny, and money makes the first easier and protection of the second a possibility. 

First episode after pilot: ALSO about money.

It isn't that love didn't exist. The history of art would prove that contention wrong with absolutely no effort on the part of the researcher. It is that figuring out how to be lovers in a world where people need money (to avoid starvation and debtor's prison) was always a given. "Okay, we love each other--how do we kept ourselves solvent?"

Consequently, it makes a GREAT motive since there is always also an emotional component. 

One of the most interesting occurs in Major Crimes. An abused wife kills her husband. She was clearly abused, and if she would only claim that motive, she could possibly be charged with manslaughter. But she waited until he got a promotion--sort of. There was an inciting incident. Yet she calculated the cost of leaving him. Why should she lose everything? Why should she be left poor? 

The episode is extremely well-written and portrays the tight, nearly inextricable threads of love, hate, money, and survival in one single package. 

Money & love is the writing gift that keeps on giving.