Virgil and his wife, Althea, are invited to attend services at an all-white church. While attending the service, the reverend collapses, dead at the foot of the pulpit. It seems that not everyone was happy with the pastor's integration plan.
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When Althea Tibbs is raped by a fellow teacher, the Sparta police find it difficult to get a conviction because the man's loyal wife has given him an alibi. Virgil desperately wants to avenge Althea's assault and is forced to a near-breaking point.
When Detective Tibbs investigates Chief Gillespie's kidnapping, all the signs seem to point to a racially motivated crime, but Virgil and officer Bubba Skinner are convinced that acting Chief Tom Dugan may somehow be involved.
When a couple walking their dog in the forest discover a human leg bone, the Sparta police immediately question an eccentric old lady named Adah Boone, known as the Pig Lady, who lives nearby and who everyone believes is a witch.
While Chief Bill Gillespie is out of town, a series of mysterious fires break out in town. Virgil (Howard Rollins) and the rest of the Sparta police department struggle to find out who is setting these arson fires that soon turn deadly.
Sparta is celebrating their high school's victory at the regional basketball tournament, but the shock of a deadly hit-and-run accident after the game turns their happiness into a nightmare. Detective Tibbs struggles to find the driver responsible.
Tensions run high in the police department and in Sparta when Bubba is accused of attacking a black woman. And when a second woman comes forward from Bubba's past with similar claims, Virgil steps in to try and help clear his name.
Virgil (Howard Rollins) and Gillespie (Carroll O'Connor) are faced with a violent labor strike at the local Sparta river plant. And tension runs even higher when a local city councilman is murdered when he tries to intervene between the two sides.
When Gillespie (Carroll O'Connor) is informed that a death row prisoner wants him present at his execution, the chief struggles over whether capital punishment is cruel and unusual punishment or an appropriate sentence for the crime he committed.
Virgil and his wife, Althea, are invited to attend services at an all-white church. While attending the service, the reverend collapses, dead at the foot of the pulpit. It seems that not everyone was happy with the pastor's integration plan.
Gillespie (Carroll O'Connor) suspects a newly arrived short-order cook in town may be involved in the recent murder of a young prostitute. Virgil (Howard Rollins) thinks otherwise and is out to prove that a local criminal is to blame.
Virgil Tibbs's niece and Bubba Skinner's nephew, teenagers from different worlds, find common ground -- and trouble -- in Sparta. Soon the two are swept up with an ex-con recently paroled from prison, and Gillespie is none too happy about it.
Virgil believes he acted in self-defense when he shoots a robbery suspect. But when the teenage girl's gun cannot be found, suspicions arise, even he begins to doubt his own actions. Chief Bill Gillespie does all he can to clear his detective.
Officer Bubba Skinner is seduced by a beautiful lady who has taken residence in Sparta in order to write a novel. But when her estranged ex-husband shows up, things become much more complicated, and Bubba is faced with a life-changing decision.
Chief Bill Gillespie discovers that a longtime friend and sheriff of neighboring Butler County, Ed Thompson, is a racist. In good conscience, he must investigate the deaths of black prisoners as racial tensions boil over between the two counties.
The Sparta jail descends into complete and utter chaos when the six wives of a bigamist (guest star Ted Lange) all show up to visit and shower him with gifts. But when the man turns up dead in his cell, which of his wives turns out to be a murderer?
After Virgil (Howard Rollins) narrowly escapes death at the hands of Ritchie Epson's henchmen, Chief Gillespie (Carroll O'Connor) still does not have enough evidence to prove that former hometown boy Epson (Bill Sadler) is a major drug supplier.
Sparta is overjoyed when a local boy turned, successful businessman offers to bring new prosperity to the Mississippi hamlet by moving his business interests back home. But all of his business interests may not be exactly legal. (Part 1 of 2)
Emotions run high when a black businessman (Randy Brooks) comes to Sparta to buy the town's newspaper, and it is suspected that he is romancing the paper's married white owner (Nana Visitor). Carroll O'Connor and Howard Rollins star.
Police Chief Bill Gillespie (Carroll O'Connor) and Chief of Detectives Virgil Tibbs (Howard Rollins) are at odds when Tibbs suspects that Gillespie's old friend, Sonny Mims, killed his wife because of his involvement with the dead woman's cousin.
(1/2) When Virgil Tibbs joins the Sparta, MI, police, resentment festers in Chief of Police Bill Gillespie. (2/2) After Nan and, subsequently, Willie Jones' murders, racial tensions are especially high in Sparta.
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