Excitement is buzzing when at the construction site of a beachfront resort hotel that a lot of the residents don't want, a skeleton is discovered. Could it be the body of long dead hero Joshua Peabody who led the patriots against the redcoats during the Revolution during the Battle of Cabot Cove.
With the help of Dr. Hazlitt, sheriff Amos Tupper finds the remains are of more recent vintage. Which makes it a homicide in his jurisdiction and a mystery for Jessica Fletcher. It gets real recent when an investor in the project is later found their shot to death. Now Tom Bosley has a real homicide and the suspect is protest leader Michael Sarrazin.
Complicating matters is Chuck Connors an FBI agent arriving in town who says Sarrazin is a 60s radical wanted by the Feds.
In the tradition of Murder She Wrote you know two things. The deceased always has many people looking to kill him and there's always a rush to judgment on someone that Angela Lansbury is always right in that the individual concerned is not the perpetrator.
This episode marks the first appearance of William Windom as Dr. Seth Hazlitt, widower and confidante of Jessica Fletcher. On a personal note one of my favorite characters from all of television. Crusty, but oh so wise.