Speaker 1: Welcome to the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio from Boise, Idaho.
This is your host, Adam Graham. In a moment, we're
going to bring you this week's episode of Dragnet. But first,
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Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: From February eighth, nineteen fifty one, here is the Big.
Speaker 3: Cast, Ladies and gentlemen, proud to bring you its prize
winning radio program, winner of the Motion Picture Herald Fame Award.
Speaker 4: The story you're about to hear is true, only the
names have been changed to protect the innocent.
Speaker 3: You're a detective sergeant. You're assigned to Homicide Detail. Twelve
men drop completely from sight over a short period of time.
There's evidence of foul play. Four months past, you finally
locate the leading suspect in the case. Your job, pick him.
Speaker 5: Up, drag meet the documented drama of an actual crime.
For the next thirty minutes. In cooperation with the Los
Angeles Police Department, you will travel step by step on
the side of the law through an actual case transcribed
from official police violence, from beginning to end, from crime
to punishment. Drag Net is the story of your police
force in action.
Speaker 3: It was Wednesday, October the sixth, was sultry in Los Angeles.
We were working the day watch out of homicide. My
partner's Ben Romero, the boss istat Brown Chief of detectives.
My name's Friday. We were on the way out from
the office and was ten forty five am when we
got to our Tegas Street number twelve eighty five, second floor. Yeah,
room fourteen. They all smell the same, don't they. What's
a rooman housing coorea? H No, these are the odd
numbers here, must be down that way. Huh yeah, here
it is fourteen. Yeah, it's a minute, taking his time,
Try it again.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, all right?
Speaker 4: Yeah, police officers. Your name Henry Ross.
Speaker 2: Get out of here, get all right?
Speaker 1: Come on?
Speaker 2: Where all right? What what do you want?
Speaker 4: Ben? Yeah? I got him? What is this?
Speaker 2: You guys really costs?
Speaker 4: Come on, get up so fuller, no fulling, you're really coss.
I thought you're faking. We showed you your identification at
the door.
Speaker 2: I thought you're faking. That's the truth.
Speaker 4: There's a couple of guys got to mess me up.
I thought you were them.
Speaker 2: Is your name Henry Ross? Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 6: I thought you were one of those moochers had a
fight within the bar the other night. So he's gonna
get a power and come back in take care of me. Yeah, yeah,
I got no reason to fight with cops. I didn't
do my room any good land ladyes, sh're gonna scream.
Speaker 3: Come on, you want to finish up dressing? I want
to talk to you downtown. It's a bout officer missing person.
They'll brief you when we get downtown. Oh that's Harry
with me. Take his handcuffs off, please, it's kind of
hard dressing with him.
Speaker 4: All you have to do is put your shoes on.
You man, all right, I don't know.
Speaker 6: Why you had the slap handcuffs. Tell me I didn't
know your cops. You mind if we chick through your
things wrong? Why you mind? Oh go ahead if you want.
Speaker 2: I got on the hip.
Speaker 6: You know, if you spoke up at the door, that
wouldn't have been a fight. I thought you were that
mooch in the bar and he's praying. I thought you
were looking for trouble.
Speaker 4: You by ready to go.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'd like to brush my teeth off.
Speaker 2: You don't mind.
Speaker 4: I got a real muffull of cot in his monkey.
All right, what do you keep your tooth brush and
so here?
Speaker 2: I'll get it.
Speaker 4: No, I'll get it. Never mind.
Speaker 2: Here, Yeah, first show, it's in the glass. Don't you
trust me?
Speaker 4: There? You go? Want some toothpaste?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: All right, yeah, turn on the water tap on? Thanks?
Speaker 6: Nothing, Joe's pretty clean, of course I'm clean. What do
you expect anybody could have made the mistake?
Speaker 2: I didn't know your.
Speaker 4: Cops was Worth Ross. That's your full name.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: Hard to ever used the Elsworth. It's a real lazzy name.
Speaker 4: Huh. What's a fetch on all this?
Speaker 2: Officer?
Speaker 4: We told you a missing person. I want to talk
to you about it. I don't think I can help you.
Nobody I know he's missing. How about Paul Davis Davis?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know Davis.
Speaker 4: I don't know what his name is. Paul been gone
a long time, isn't miss Davis?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: That's right?
Speaker 2: Even more? Something wrong?
Speaker 4: You think we figure murder?
Speaker 3: After going over his room thoroughly, we took Henry Ellsworth
Ross back to the city hall to the interrogation room.
Who was a slightly built man, dark hair, brown eyes,
swarthy complexion.
Speaker 4: It was a long shoreman by trade.
Speaker 3: Among his friends and acquaintances, he was known as a
heavy drinker and a man with a violent temper. Ben
and I questioned him for a half an hour and
got nowhere. He sat across the table, relaxed, scraping at
a thick callous on his hand with his fingernail.
Speaker 4: I'll tell you the truth. I just don't know what
you're getting at. I think I know a guy named Davis, and.
Speaker 3: It's about as far as it goes. Sure, that's all
you've got to Dallas, of course, I'm sure, ah loock,
I got a right to call a lawyer if you're
gonna sit there and throw a lot of.
Speaker 2: Charges at me.
Speaker 3: We're not throwing charges at your hand. We've got a
missing person's case. We'd like to have you cooperate.
Speaker 4: That's about it.
Speaker 3: Well, maybe i'd like to, but I can't. Paul Davis
is just a name of me. Maybe I know him,
I I don't know. You got that report event m Yeah,
just a minute, there you go. Thanks, here's the way
it goes in. Yeah, according to his wife. Paul Davis
left Los Angeles by auto a little over four months ago,
was driving up to Oakdale, California to take a job
with a dairy company up there.
Speaker 4: He never got there. He's been missing ever since.
Speaker 2: So what's the picture.
Speaker 4: All we've been able to find is Davis's car.
Speaker 3: It's a thirty six Ford coup seven Toms seven nine
two was sold a month ago up in Low Dye, California,
but Davis didn't sell it. Man with the name of
Carter signed the pink slip at the time of the sale,
Henry Carter.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I don't mean anything to me.
Speaker 4: Wes Carter made it look like Paul Davis had signed
the Ford over to him. We checked it out. Davis's
signature was forged.
Speaker 2: That so supposed to. That has something to do with me.
Speaker 3: Did you ever use the name Henry Carter? Of course
not Ross, that's some of the name might go by.
Never had your name, Jane, never used the navy I
told you no.
Speaker 4: I wonder if you'd mind taking a look at this.
Here you go this year.
Speaker 2: We just got to do with me.
Speaker 4: It's the pink slip to Paul Davis. Carr.
Speaker 3: See these signatures on the back here, transfer of ownership.
You recognize either one of them?
Speaker 2: Paul Davis Henry Carter.
Speaker 4: Doesn't mean anything to me?
Speaker 2: Is it supposed to? It should?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Why the signatures? They're both in your handwriting? How
about Henry?
Speaker 2: About what?
Speaker 3: I don't even know what you're talking about. You're trying
to give me the treatment. What's this all about?
Speaker 4: Trying to locate Paul Dave. I'm not even sure I
know the guy. I think you better level Henry. Our
handwriting man checked both the signatures that you're writing, and
then maybe you better get a new handwriting man.
Speaker 3: I never saw that slip. I never wrote those signatures.
Anybody can copy handwriting.
Speaker 4: Oh it got something else for your ross. I like
to have you check it over, see if you can
identify it. What is it? It's a letter? I want
to take a look. Here mean anything to you? No?
Speaker 2: No, nothing?
Speaker 3: Now, OK, A'm not gonna tell me this is my handwriting.
That's what the report said. Oh it's crazy.
Speaker 2: I never wrote like that in my life.
Speaker 3: All the writing characteristics match up same as the signatures
on Pink's lap. All right, maybe they are the same.
I didn't write either one.
Speaker 2: I never wrote like that in my life. Here let
me show you all.
Speaker 4: Sorry, Henry Ben you want to pull the package tomorrow
and I yeah, okay.
Speaker 3: Don savvy one bit of this, sergeant. How about laying
it out man. You can see the name at the
bottom of the letter. It's signed Henry Carter. Same the
pink slip.
Speaker 2: Well that is meaning to me. Well.
Speaker 3: This letter was sent to the wife of Paul Davis
about nine weeks ago, and it says here that Davis
supposedly was too busy to write his wife, so he
had this Henry Carter send a letter.
Speaker 4: He also writes in here that Davis sold his car
to Carter. Somebody trying to cover up huh no, we
think so. We think it's Henry Carter.
Speaker 6: This Davis guy's been gone about four months. That's right,
you said you thought Davis was murdered. I'll come just
an idea.
Speaker 3: Eight men had disappeared from around here in the last
fourteen months, just like Davis. Six more up in the
San Joaquin Valley the same way. They took off alone
on auto trips and never seen again, not a trace.
Speaker 4: Pretty funny.
Speaker 3: Here you go, Jill, Thank you, You've got your record
here Henry from Baton Rouge sent to Sheriff Clemens sport A.
Speaker 2: Look, we have to drag all out again. It's past.
Speaker 4: It's just one thing we had to check. Henry. You
told us that you never used an aliens.
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 4: I have. I didn't know what you're getting at.
Speaker 3: I didn't figure there's any use dragging out dirty laundry again.
Speaker 4: I asked you if you ever used the name Henry Carter. Okay,
I've used that. It's common name. There's a lot of
Henry Carters around. We only know what toll pet your description.
Speaker 2: I'm clean, you know all that.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna smoke Henry, now, yeah, yeah, thanks, well let
me have one here you goes. Thanks, I'm gonna match here. Yeah.
We rode this thing for four months. It's all over
the state. Here. Thanks, I'll tell you what we got, Henry.
We'll let you make up your own mind.
Speaker 2: It's not my writing.
Speaker 3: On June fourth, Paul Davis left Los Angeles and his
car headed for Oakdale late in the afternoon. He stopped
for gas at the service station just beyond Sandford. The
attendant says, a man was with Davis.
Speaker 4: You fit.
Speaker 3: That man's description, Henry. Yeah, I've seen monks like that
in court. Now get on the stand and can't remember
their own name.
Speaker 4: A couple others. You and Davis stopped for Hamburger just
outside of Gorman.
Speaker 3: There's a man there. He remembers you too. He stopped
again in Bakersfield, picked up a court of.
Speaker 4: Oil for the car. You and Davis had a coke.
It's the last time he was seen alive.
Speaker 2: That makes me a killer, huh.
Speaker 3: Month after that, the pink slip to Davis's car came
through DMV up in Sacramento. That was for the transfer
of ownership from Davis to Henry Carter, both in your handwriting.
A couple of weeks later, Missus Davis got that letter.
Month ago, Davis's car was sold to a dealer in Lodi. Yeah, yeah,
we found a dealer. Rus showed him a mugshot. He
says you sold him.
Speaker 2: In the car at all.
Speaker 4: It's just the main part. There's more. We've been on
the road a lot. We followed you from here to
Sacramento and back, Henry, every stop, every detour. It took
us a long time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess it did.
Speaker 4: What do you say, not any way? You want it, Henry,
he got on the smoke. Yeah, yeah, here, you know
nice here.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I guess you worked hard on it all over
the state.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Try.
Speaker 3: It must be pretty hot up in the valley summer time,
Dusty en We I've never been up in the valley
in summer.
Speaker 2: It's too hot for me.
Speaker 4: We got people who saw you there.
Speaker 6: What's improved? Ten people in some riding, Sam, But you
can't build a case on that, you know it, don't
You're gonna try. Do you think I murdered Davis? You said, yeah,
you think I murdered those other guys too? What was
it the ten twelve of them we're asking about Davis?
You think I killed him? Tell me the truth. Do
you think I murdered Davis?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think he did. Well.
Speaker 3: Then you know as well as I do. There's only
one way to prove it. He find his body. One
fifteen PM, Ben and I took Henry Ross out and
fed him some lunch. Then we took him back to
the City Hall of the interrogation room, where we continued
to question him. It was relaxed and he talked a
great deal about everything but the disappearance of Paul Davis.
He didn't seem anxious to get away, made no demands
for an attorney to represent him. For a full hour,
he did most of the talking. He told us about
the different homicide cases he'd read up on. He asked
us about the twelve men who disappeared in the past months,
in the same manner Paul Davis had.
Speaker 4: Was there any trace of him at all? Did we
have any leads? How did we think we were going
to find him?
Speaker 3: Well, we finally got around asking him if he'd submit
to a light detector test. He seemed taken by the
id and agreed to it almost immediately. Ben called Sergeant
Burger and made arrangements.
Speaker 4: For the test. We made up a list of key questions.
Speaker 3: At five pm, we took the suspect to the third
floor of the Old City Jail, where Sergeant Burger gave
him the polygraph test. On the way back to the office,
Ross complained he was hungry. We stopped him coffee and donuts.
We got back to the interrogation room a little after
six pm. The questioning continued. Ross didn't seem to mind
at all. We kept talking. We let him talk eight pm.
He was still going strong.
Speaker 6: You remember the Wilson case back in thirty four. Don't
you say, woman killed a whole family? Big case you remember, Yeah,
it's pretty tragic. Got a hobby of yours, Henry, collecting
murder stories.
Speaker 3: I just read them, remember them. I guess I can
remember every big murder case in the last fifteen years.
Speaker 2: That's so.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's about all of them. I guess it is
kind of a hobby. I got a big kick out
of it.
Speaker 3: I got it, Ben, excuse me, Henry, Oh, oh sure,
interrogation room Friday, Oh yeah, Burger, how many?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Okay, thank you.
Speaker 6: You know, there's one thing I get a real big
kick out of those Detecting magazine mystery stories.
Speaker 4: The way they make out the murderer. You know, they
always build it up into something big.
Speaker 3: Somebody's always killing somebody else for a million dollars, or
maybe over some woman, some beautiful woman.
Speaker 2: Same way with the movies. That's where they get it
all mixed up.
Speaker 4: Don't think I follow you. I'm sure you do.
Speaker 3: Every time some guy writes some murder story, he's got
to build up a big reason for the killing.
Speaker 6: A lot of money, beautiful woman. Revenge maybe always got
to be a big reason motive. Motive, that's what they say.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well generally works out that way, didn't it.
Speaker 3: Why, I bet you there's a thousand murder cases in
your flaws without any reason at all. Some people kill,
that's all I've heard about, lots of them that they
just want to kill, and they go ahead and do it,
maybe for a few bucks, maybe for nothing.
Speaker 2: They just do it.
Speaker 3: That's so, that's so sure, you know that, Like this
thing you've been talking about, ten twelve guys disappear.
Speaker 6: They got a few bucks, maybe they got nothing. Somebody
plaus them on it, and that's all, no big reason.
Speaker 4: They just do it.
Speaker 3: So twelve guys are gone. It doesn't mean anything. That's
how you got it figured out, all right. The phone
call a minute ago. There was a man who gave
you the light detective test.
Speaker 4: Oh that right, how to go?
Speaker 3: He just finished going over your graph. He got sixteen
positive reactions.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what's that mean? You lied Henry sixteen times?
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 4: You better tell him to get a new machine. I
lied all the way through mind telling us.
Speaker 2: Why, Yeah, I don't mind.
Speaker 3: I guess I knew you'd find I. Let's go get
something to eat first, So I'm hungry. Well, we better
talk a little more and let's go. I'll tell you
why we're eating. Bring a pencil.
Speaker 2: We did raw your mat maple on the canyon right
buried it.
Speaker 5: You are listening to Dragnet for the step by step
solution to Tonight's authentic case history.
Speaker 4: Wednesday, nine fifty five pm.
Speaker 3: Ben and I took Henry Ross across the street, bought
him a coke at Max's place. Then we took him
next door to the Melbourne Cafeteria. It was almost closing time.
Speaker 4: Ross got himself a cottage cheese and pineapple salad, bacon
and liver with onions, rye bread, banana pie and coffee.
Ben had a hot beef sandwich, mashed potatoes and coffee.
I had the same. At the back of the cafeteria,
one of the bus boys was mopping the tiled floor.
It was a strong smell of disinfecting. How about that
table over there, Sgian had? All right with you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's okay, it doesn't make any different, that's fine. Yeah,
once the water, yeah her, yeah, please, all right, I'll
get some oh boy, living onions. This sure smells great.
Speaker 2: Huh yeah.
Speaker 3: I can't take those onions, so well they repeat on them,
not me. I didn't need any something paper. Yeah, thanks,
I'm sure hungry. I haven't eaten much to day. You
get the sandwich made with rye bread Graham bread. Oh
you should have gotten the rye real German rye bread. Yeah,
well that real nice and fresh. Here you go, man,
I don't thanks, Oh thank you. You know all that
talk really shopping up my appetite. Boys food tastes good.
Juger Joe, Uh.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks. We brought a pencil along. Henry wanted to
start taking them.
Speaker 6: The greatest time is any I guess you know, the
whole thing just comes right back to what I was
trying to tell you there in the office.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what's that?
Speaker 6: You know all about those Forny mystery stories. Yeah, every
time there's trouble, there's a big reason behind it. It's Forny,
that's all.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Sure, it's Paul Davis for Instan. I guess I knew
you would find me out. I knew this morning when
you picked me up you had it figured. Must have
been a big job huh finding me pretty big?
Speaker 4: I mean, you know a lot of mileage. How did
it happened?
Speaker 3: Well, then again, it's just like I was saying, there's
no big reason why it. I needed a few bucks.
If Davis came along, I guess he was it. I
passed me a catch up with oh yeah, and hey,
I'll get the land off there.
Speaker 2: There you go? Nice?
Speaker 4: What'd you meet? Davis?
Speaker 3: Henry's hitchhiking out on Ventura?
Speaker 2: Not a diamond my jeans. I was going up to America, Opa.
I thought I had a job up there. This David
come along, pick me up.
Speaker 4: You never know him before?
Speaker 3: Then, no stranger, he says, going to Oakdale, little guy,
grimm me a ride. Go ahead, Well we'll stop for gasses,
say for now. And I saw he had a few
bucks in his walt. I guess that's when I got
the idea bad. What killing him?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 6: Maybe that gives you an idea what I was talking about.
You don't need any big reason to kill somebody. David said,
eighteen bucks. I suppose I told that to a writer.
Somebody killing the guy for eighteen bucks. That wouldn't make
much sense, huh. He told you I'd never sell you
need a million dollars, beautiful woman?
Speaker 2: Good morning?
Speaker 4: Yeah? What'd you kill him? Henry?
Speaker 6: Just outside of Baker's Fill a little canyon there. I
got Davis to buy a fifth of sherry and Bakersfield.
He drank someone the way I passed the saw. Huh yeah, yeah,
there's no good without playing a saw.
Speaker 4: How'd you kill Davis, Henry?
Speaker 6: That's funny thing. He drank some of the wine, got
a little sleepy. I was just outside of Baker's drill
dark by that time. I spotted this little canyon. I
figured as good as place as any, so I get
him pull off the side road and had a few
more drinks.
Speaker 4: I spot this little shack out there in the middle
of nowhere. Exactly where it was, this enter.
Speaker 6: Lacking Stawyers, maybe two miles north the beggar store. We
got to the shack, finished the wine, went to sleep both.
And that's where the funny point comes in. I guess
I killed Davis, all right, but I didn't mean it.
Oh brother, get away for that.
Speaker 4: Huh.
Speaker 2: Why of these monks had to mop up up?
Speaker 4: People are eating? They'll be thrilling a minute in Its fine?
How'd you mean, Henry didn't mean the killing? You already
told you she had the idea, for sure, I had
the idea. Let me explain. Huh.
Speaker 6: We both went to sleep in the shack. Davis me
just that must have been all about nine o'clock at night.
I don't know why. It was maybe the wine I
dis but I started having nightmarees. You know, maybe that's
probably sounds like a story, but it's the truth. I
had all these dreams. I woke up, but this still
there was that the faces. Faces, it's all I can see.
It was full of faces like, I guess that's really
still asleep.
Speaker 4: Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 6: Oh, I've picked up a two by four and started
swinging at him and faces.
Speaker 4: Funny thing too, I knew every want of these faces.
How do you mean people I killed? They're only a
dozen of them, really, but it seemed like there were
one hundred of them all.
Speaker 2: Around in the air well.
Speaker 3: I grabbed that too by before and I started swinging.
I was cold and sweating all at the same time.
And I kept on swinging, and I saw Davis's face
and I swung hard. I kept swinging. Didn't he make
a sound, his eyes closed, kept on swinging at his head.
Speaker 6: Oh, I come to there. He was flying on the floor.
Seemed to take those other faces away. They didn't bother me.
Speaker 2: After he killed Davis.
Speaker 4: What'd you do with him? Henry?
Speaker 6: Oh pulled him outside the shack. I go home and buried,
burn his clothes, take his card, money, and drove off.
I'll show you if you like.
Speaker 2: Where I buried him.
Speaker 4: I mean, how about these other men? Were lot these
faces you saw? M oh.
Speaker 2: One.
Speaker 4: If I get a little more coffee, it's all gone again.
You know, no, no, thanks not to me. What about
it ross the other man?
Speaker 3: Well, I don't recall him too well, that's what you
said in the office. Ten or twelve of them, and
Sacramento the others down through the building. Like I say,
there was no big reason for killing them. It just
happened that way.
Speaker 4: What did you do with him? Your rumor?
Speaker 3: Generally? Yeah, there's one of them that stands up. Got
the name of Slattery, some kind of salesman, a real crybaby.
Before this happened, only picking up in his car outside
of Chuck Chiller. It's nighttime. He must been feeling pretty good.
I made him stop on the side road. I hit
him with a piece of angler, and he cried like
a baby. Buried him in a field.
Speaker 2: There is one of the faces that I saw there.
Speaker 4: That's funny.
Speaker 2: I shows you how psychology works.
Speaker 4: Huh yeah, what'd you do with his car? Slatteries?
Speaker 6: I mean drove it down to Mexico. So I guess
that's what I should have done with Davis's gurning.
Speaker 2: Well, here you go. Oh it's nice.
Speaker 3: These killings are yours? You got any more you want
to tell us about? I told you already ten or twelve.
I'm there pretty much the same.
Speaker 2: When was the first?
Speaker 6: Oh maybe eighteen months, two years ago? The first one
wasn't any hard and elast. It's just like I was
telling you before. Yeah, everybody builds up murder. It's supposed
to be a big thing, hard to do. All those
phony stories. I'd just hit a guy a couple of
times or something, that'd be it.
Speaker 2: A real small thing.
Speaker 4: Didn't change many That's why I say it, it's all
build up. You ever been treated for any mental sickness? Rough? No?
Why have you never been examined by a circle? Oh?
Speaker 3: After you kill these men didn't bother you at all.
I'm just that wondering time I was with Davis. That's
about it. Sure, good meal, serge?
Speaker 2: Thanks?
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, you ready, Ben, Let's go all right, I'll
go back upstairs. Huh, yeah, do you want to give
us a statement?
Speaker 6: All right, I had an idea you'd find me. I
guess I always knew that you'd find me. Well, let's
go ahead. I guess I proved my point anyway.
Speaker 4: Huh.
Speaker 2: It's all build up.
Speaker 4: Huh.
Speaker 3: Murder killing somebody, those phony stories, it's all build up.
Speaker 2: It's cheap.
Speaker 4: You know you got it wrong, Henry. Huh wait, they
read you the build.
Speaker 3: The story you have just heard was true, only the
names were changed to protect the innocent.
Speaker 5: On January seventh, trial was held in Superior Court, Department
eighty sixth, City and County of Los Angeles, State of California.
In a moment the results of that trial, Henry Ellsworth
Ross was tried and found guilty on two counts of
murder in the first degree and received the death sentence.
While he indicated that he had murdered the other ten men,
he refused to give any further information regarding the killings
or what he had done with the buddies. Ross was
executed in the lethal gas chamber at the State Penitentiary
San Quentin, California. You have just heard Dragnet a series
of authentic cases from official files technical advice comes from
the office of Chief of Police W H. Parker Angeles Police.
Speaker 4: Now I'm more excitement with Cover Spy on NBC.
Speaker 1: Welcome back a great episode of Dragnet. This story is
a chilling look into the mind of a serial killer
before that phrase was popularized. And what's really chilling about
it is how utterly nonchalant he is. No terrains, laughing, lunatic,
just a guy talking about what he does, no different
than anyone might discuss their own job or hobby. Of course,
he's right about the contrast between many, if not most
killings and these stories you'd find in a detective fiction magazine.
Lots of crimes happen for small reasons or seemingly no
reason at all. There's a reason why there are so
many unsolved crimes out there. Oftentimes there's crimes passion, or
robbery's gone bad, or moments of intoxication. However, if the
stories of murder were out of touch with the reality
of what went on in the real world most of
the time, so was he. He had killed a dozen
people deliberately and in a calculated manner to get a
few bucks, and other than that one dream, it was
no big deal to him at all, which makes him
a particularly dangerous and sinister character. But perhaps part of
the reason for his low view of human life is
this assumption that most people at their core are really
just like him. The only other thing I'll add on
a much lighter note is that I noticed Ben Romero
ordered graham bread. We discussed graham bread a few months
back when he was sent on an erran for it
late at night after a case had been resolved by
his wife and was wondering where he'd find at that
time of not but apparently you could order graham bread
in health food restaurants. It does also suggest that missus
Romero's use of graham bread had one Sergeant Romero over
to it. Well. Now we turn to listener comments and feedback,
and I have an email here from Jonathan who writes,
I never miss a Johnny Dollar episode. Best part of
the week lately. I'm really enjoying more and more Dragnet.
The production quality with the sounds are really excellent. Two things.
The passover Satyr that Joe and Ben were at was
incredibly accurate. The prayers and Hebrew were the exact same
that I really used. Good show. And then the second thing,
there was an episode where they were chasing a thief
and he shot at them. In the end, the announcer
said the perpetrator was only charged with burglary. Shooting at
a cop must still have been a cross So why
did the synopsis miss out on this? It seems odd
not charging them for shooting at them. Thanks for the
many hours of listening. Enjoyment yours truly, Jonathan. Well, thanks
so much, Jonathan, I appreciate your comments. It's tough to
imagine that using a firearm in that manner wouldn't be charged.
I can't say for sure why it wasn't mentioned. A
few things come to mind. It might be a situation
where there was a guilty play and the prosecutor just
chose not to bring the gun charge. It also might
have been a practice to only mention the underlying crimes
that the police were investigating. I can't recall a lot
of obstruction or resisting arrest being called out in that segment,
and certainly there are many crimes that it could be brought,
or may even have been brought in real life, but
there just may not have been time to cover everything.
So those are my best guesses. I can't imagine that
it would not have been addressed in some way by
the prosecuting attorney when the case was brought up for consideration.
And then we've got a comment here from Jay Huggs
six two four over on YouTube regarding the Big Dance.
It's always kind of made me a bit disappointed when
the culprits didn't have an aired interview on the show.
Granted it didn't happen much, but every now and then
you'll get an episode where the bandits feel elusive to
there being no character development and interviews. Be that as
it may, I still love Dragonet. It got me into
old time radio. Keep up the good work at them. Well,
thanks so much, And I do agree that there is
something really satisfying, after having followed our heroes through this
whole process of investigation, for them to at least have
an exchange with the suspect and to get a feel
for the people who this whole episode has been about
the criminals who have committed this crime. And I don't know,
I guess because it's on radio, we also know on
some level that there's no one who is actually cast
as these criminals on television. You can at least see them,
but no such lock on radio. Now it's time to
thank our Patreon supporter of the day, and I want
to go ahead and thank Jeremy. Jeremy has been one
of our Patreon supporters since February twenty sixteen, currently supporting
the podcast at the Detective Sergeant level of seven dollars
and fourteen cents or more per month. Thanks so much
for your support, Jeremy, and that will actually do it
for today. If you're enjoying the podcast, please follow us
using your favorite podcasts, and be sure to rate and
review the podcast wherever you download it from. Join us
tomorrow for public domain video theater at video Theater dot
Great Detectives dot net, on YouTube and now on Spotify
for podcasts, but from Boise, Idaho, this is your host,
Adam Graham signing off.