MISSING LINKS - "COLUMBO" & "NASHVILLE"

'COLUMBO'

"SWAN SONG"

Country-Western singer Tommy Brown wanted to regain control of his life (and the fortune he was making but which he was forced to give totally to his wife.  (Edna had the proof that Tommy had raped a sixteen year old member of his backup choir.)  So Tommy arranged to murder them both by drugging their coffee during a flight in his small plane.  After they passed out, he jumped out of the plane and let it crash.  Edna's brother Luke complained to the LAPD that Tommy had killed his sister, so Lt. Columbo went to the funeral home to talk to him.....

LT. COLUMBO:

I'm here to see Mr. Luke Baskett. 

MR. GRINDELL:

Yes. He's paying his last respects 

before the bodies are shipped out to Nashville.

Both Edna Baskett Brown and Mary Ann Cobb were interred in a cemetery in Nashville.  A few days later, they were exhumed and forensic tests showed that there were barbiturates in their systems.  But then they were re-buried there in Nashville.

This happened in March of 1974.  Forty-three years later, almost to the day, country singer Rayna Jaymes was laid to rest in the same cemetery.

I can't prove this of course.  But the television universe is built on coincidence.  There's probably a Greek demi-god of coincidence, it's so prevalent.  TV shows like 'Columbo' and 'Murder, She Wrote' depend on coincidences.  

And since we didn't see any of the names on those surrounding tombstones, who's to say one of them didn't at least have the name of Mary Ann Cobb on it?  (None of those graves look grand enough to have been the final resting place of a rich woman like Edna Brown.)

Maybe one of those country western performers and members of  Rayna's family at her graveside service might have noticed their graves and remembered their significance to their business.  But if so, they kept it to themselves.  And besides - they had bigger things to worry about.

Like the fact that there was a weeping angel in the cemetery.  (It was quantum-locked and facing away from the people who could have been looking at them.)

BCnU!