Speaker 1: Welcome to the Great Attack of the Old Time Radio
from Boise, Idaho. This is your host, Adam Graham. In
a moment, we're going to bring in this week's episode.
I'm dragging it, but first I do want to encourage you.
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Great Detectives dot net. Now from May twenty fourth, nineteen
fifty one, here is the Big Mailman.
Speaker 2: The story you were about to hear is true, only
the names have been changed to protect the innocent. You're
a detective sergeant. You're assigned to forgery detail. Now United
States Postal Inspector comes to your office. You'll receive the
same complaints he has. Somebody is stealing mail in your city.
Your job help get.
Speaker 3: Him drag Net The document a drama of an actual crime.
Well 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 files, from beginning to end, from crime
to punishment, Dragnet is the story of your police force
and action.
Speaker 4: It was Monday, March third, was reigning in Los Angeles.
Speaker 5: We were working the day Watch out of forgery detail.
My partner's Ben Romero. The boss is Captain Harry Elliott.
My name's Friday was seven forty five am when I
got to Room twenty nine forgery detail.
Speaker 4: Marten Jill Hi Ben Sure coming down out there? Yeah?
Look at this code soken. Is that the same trench
coat that English one?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Ever since I had it cleaned, it seems to soak
up the water a little more. Does it leak? Oh no,
it just seems to take on a little more water,
keeps me dry. Got something to show you, Joe.
Speaker 7: Yeah, remember that old raincoat of mine used to leak
up through the seams over the shoulders.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, they could look at this what you got there?
Speaker 7: Pretty neat. Huh yeah, what is it? My new raincoat?
Never know what you're small? Compact?
Speaker 4: The whole thing's hardly any bigger impact of cigarette?
Speaker 6: No bad? Huh Yeah?
Speaker 4: What'd you get it?
Speaker 7: Wife bought it for me. Amy says it's regged to
full sized raincoat says forty long.
Speaker 4: Amy says, so didn't you try it on?
Speaker 7: I don't know you know how they make something like this.
It's made out of plastic. Size isn't too important. Just
plain coat, slipped right on over your suit, just like
any other raincoat. I know it a fan. You haven't
worn it, shetow No, it hadn't started rain and I
left him?
Speaker 4: Could I see that?
Speaker 6: Sure?
Speaker 7: Real compact, isn't it now? Something like this is really practical.
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 7: A little package like that you carried around with you
all the time every day, company room and tall.
Speaker 4: Yeah? What's it looked like?
Speaker 7: Just like that little pouts here, same stuff. It's transparent,
you know, regular plastic.
Speaker 4: Could we look at it? Inside it? Okay, let's see
we're here.
Speaker 6: You better do it.
Speaker 7: Okay, well I just done zip it here? You jowish compact,
didn't it?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 7: There we go? Look there, Joe all folded up nice
and knee Joy's light weight too, plastic's great in fine,
you know. Now we go full size rank coat. See, yeah,
it's fine. Never know if full size coat is going
anything like that little pouts there would is no bigger
than tobacco part. Yeah that's pretty good. You know what,
try it on, Joe. Never know you had anything on
showys light and nice?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can see.
Speaker 7: Now we just put it back into the pouchs till
I'm ready for it.
Speaker 4: I say.
Speaker 7: Now, color goes up, one folds in lock theirs. No, no, no,
that isn't right. Goes this way. Let's put it down
on the table.
Speaker 4: That'll be better.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, that's better. Now here we go. Now we
fold the arms in here. Now the bottom part comes
up this way.
Speaker 6: Now we fold it over and again he's in it.
Speaker 7: Just follow the crease marks in your home, Joe. Yeah, now,
if you don't have me that little pouch.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, there you go.
Speaker 7: Well, thank you. Now, no, I yuess that's too big.
Well we'll make one more folding guy. Yeah, well it's
small enough this way, but it's too fat in You.
Speaker 4: Better watch it there.
Speaker 6: You're gonna tear that little sack it's funny.
Speaker 4: I fold it right over the old creases there too,
fat in Welcomen't you just carry it in your pocket
like that without the pouch. Sure, that's it. Flip in
my coat pocket? No, No, that won't do, George boys,
just right out.
Speaker 7: It's kind of spring jumps out like a piece of
pongee self. Yeah it seems to well, it's still light
weight and easy to hand. I'm sure easy to carry
you just like that? Yeah, well made little thoughts. Seems
a shame not to be able to use it.
Speaker 4: You smoke a pipe? No, you know that, just cigarette.
I'll find some use for it. Probably one hundred things.
Speaker 7: A fellow could use a little dogs like for if
I could just think of them, right all, Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 6: I ain't Romero. You want to step in here from it? Right?
Speaker 4: Kevin?
Speaker 6: You fellows?
Speaker 7: No, inspect the Smith Post Office department.
Speaker 4: Sure are good to see you.
Speaker 6: Little How you doing, Jill So, No, thank you, yes
very much.
Speaker 7: Inspector Smith's over here on that mail thiep case that
we've been walking up.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, did you receive those reports we sent over
to there yesterday?
Speaker 6: No, I haven't been to the office yet. Came straight
over here.
Speaker 5: Burglar returned it over to us yesterday afternoon. Ben and
I ran it down. Seems to us like it might
fit in somewhere here.
Speaker 6: Miller and Ash and I've probably got your reports now.
I was just going to call in. Do you mind
filling me on it?
Speaker 7: Apartment house over and over landlad reported the theft a
part of a mail box out there.
Speaker 5: And somebody stole a master panel off the front of
the community mailbox at the apartment house.
Speaker 4: Figure it must have happened sometime during the night.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, I believe we got something on that too.
A postman on the route reported.
Speaker 7: And that's how he's getting into the mailbox and steals
the front panel, makes the key for himself, and then
he's in business. Guy like, whereafter could put a key
like that? The good use for a great many different
mailboxes round town.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's the same mo. We've been on this guy
for a long time. He pulled the same thing down
in San Diego, was knocking down about two thousand dollars
a month, then he laid out. Now he's at it
again up here in la.
Speaker 5: As you know, we've been getting reports of the thefts
and the passing of the checks about ten days ago.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I know, we've got five checks passed.
Speaker 5: By this same thief. According to handwriting analysis. We know
it's the same guy.
Speaker 7: Talk to the victims and the bank tellers description of
the guy seems to tell.
Speaker 4: You with what you people have on him. Yeah, there's
just one thing we haven't been able to piece out yet.
Speaker 6: What's that?
Speaker 1: Yo?
Speaker 4: But when he steals a check, how does he know
what bank to pass it on?
Speaker 6: I think we got the answer to that one.
Speaker 5: Well, let's say that he steals a letter. We know
he doesn't only hit the community mailboxes. Sometimes he goes
to a private residence fishes the letters right out of
the mail slots.
Speaker 6: In that case, Yeah, some kind of a gimmick he
gets down in those slots with it.
Speaker 4: That's what we figure LEO. But we'll say after he's
got a letter with a check in it, and now
it's easy enough for.
Speaker 5: A good forger to put an endorsement on it, But how.
Speaker 4: Does he know what branch of the bank to pass
it on.
Speaker 6: Well, sometime or other he's stealing bank statements as well.
Maybe he's just lucky at the time he steals a check.
There's other mail in the box too, victims' bank statements.
Speaker 7: Well, as far as that goes, I suppose he's stolen
more than once from the same party. He could probably
get away with bank statements easy.
Speaker 6: That's it. People never seem to report anything missing in
the mails until weeks after it's happened. It's easy to
see why.
Speaker 7: I'm not sure anything's wrong until they wait several days.
They don't want to bother us in the case of
anything routine like monthly bank statements, and in the case
of a check will sometimes it's from a relative or
someone who owes the money, and they don't want to
embarrass him by writing or calling to find out about it.
Speaker 5: And I suppose in the case of anything like a
dividend check. We've got a couple of those leo, but
people who lose.
Speaker 4: Them just don't think it's time for him to arrive yet,
so they just wait. Huh.
Speaker 6: That's it, and that's why it's been so successful. Plus
the fact that it takes about a week for any
kind of check to be process through center clearing at
any bank and then to the bank, wouldn't necessarily know
that anything was wrong at that time.
Speaker 7: Until the bank receives a complaint from the party who
missed the check. They couldn't have any way of knowing
that anything was wrong.
Speaker 6: That's right.
Speaker 7: Tell him what you were telling me this morning, Leo. Well,
you people aren't in it deep enough to know this yet.
Speaker 6: But this guy's been hitting the same branch bank maybe
two three times in a row. Not here in La Heading, No,
not yet. It looks to us like he's just started
up his operations here in town. That's the way he
worked it down in San Diego.
Speaker 5: No, it's easy enough to figure if he got a
teller in some bank to go along with him, someone
who didn't suspect him, and since the victims reported so light,
he could get away with it at least that many
times at the same bank.
Speaker 6: And yeah, if people report missing mail immediately, to make
it a lot tougher for the thief.
Speaker 7: The last name and I'm still good Hobby Fletcher, that's
what we're going on. Yeah, you've got bulletins out to
all the banks carrying that description on him.
Speaker 6: And he changed alien. The WMA average build hundred and
fifty hundred and sixty pounds, gray eyes about thirty two
to thirty five. Well, addressed carryings a briefcase like of personality.
That's all we got on Oh there's a little something
we picked up yesterday from a bank teller. She told
us the man had long sideburns. For what it's worth,
you might.
Speaker 5: Add that, Okay, Don Myers and handwriting his check through
his files.
Speaker 4: Lee.
Speaker 5: Oh, they haven't got anything on him, and the stats
office hasn't been able to make him on his m own.
Speaker 6: And we know you people are doing everything you can
for us. We appreciate it.
Speaker 4: I wish we could do more. Name Harvey Fletcher. Of
the five checks that we've got on the guy.
Speaker 5: According to handwriting analysis on him, he's only used that
name once. Rest of the time he signs the same
last name as the pay's name on the face of
the check.
Speaker 7: He passes himself off as a brother or husband or
some relation to the rightful pay.
Speaker 6: That's what's taking in all those bank tellers. Plus a
smooth personality. It's cool, collected, all the confidence in the world.
Ye know, figures, and we got one day before yesterday
with a little different twist. He's going to help us
any but here's the way he's working it. In some
cases deposits a large check to the victim's account, then
he only takes out a small portion in cash, throws
a tellers off even more.
Speaker 7: Here's mos fun the stats, Leo. That's his copies of
the last five checks that we got on the day.
Oh yeah, thanks, her Maya says, they're all in the
same handwriting. Is there anything else we can do for you, Leon?
We've got all the banks in the area covered, got
bulletins out on them. That's fine. I don't think we've
overlooked anything. Patrol units have been a learned well.
Speaker 5: His latest stuff to that mailbox panel. It's too bad
we can't localize his operations a little, Leo.
Speaker 7: Didn't you say that if he makes a key, that
key would fit any number of boxes in the city.
We couldn't pin him down to one neighborhood, could we.
Speaker 6: That's right, That key will work on different mail routs.
He probably knows the neighborhood around Alvarado is hot. Now
he'll leave it alone anyway.
Speaker 7: It's impossible to stake him out on the actual thefts
of the mail. It's too bad we can't get to
him through one of the banks when he cashes him.
Speaker 6: Oh your man, par and ours put together couldn't cover
all the banks in LA at one time, But we've
been spot checking throughout the city, hoping maybe to tab him.
Speaker 7: Just by luck, we might get a break from one
of our bulletins. Maybe some tellos.
Speaker 6: Well, I'm not sure yet. That's one of the reasons
I came over here this morning. But maybe we've got
a little something. What's that Well Bank out in Westwood
phoned us yesterday. Teller thought she recognized the guy from
his description. Didn't dawn on her till after the guy
left her window. She rushed out in time to get
the license number of his car.
Speaker 4: Maybe it's a break.
Speaker 6: Huh, Yeah, it looks pretty good. The check was drawn
on the account of a William E. Scott. That's the
number two victim here in LA. That's right, you've got
the photos out of his checks right there. Yeah, I know. Well,
everything seems to fit. This check he passed yesterday out
and Westwood was probably stolen at the same time as
the first one, or at least it came from this
Scott's mailbox that we know.
Speaker 7: Or didn't this William Scott report the theft of two checks.
I know he didn't do us. Maybe he did to you, No, he.
Speaker 6: Didn't, said he couldn't be sure. He gets quite a
few checks through the mail, owns a lot of stock,
gets dividends.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and probably doesn't know when they come each month.
Speaker 6: That's right. He didn't miss the first one until it
was way overdue. Might even be others missing, he doesn't
know for sure yet.
Speaker 5: Well, anyway, he's positive on this latest one out in
Westwood that the bank teller caught h sure.
Speaker 6: As soon as the bank manager called him, he knew
he hadn't authorized anybody to cash any of his checks.
The mos. Well, that's what's kind is going on. It
looks real good, smooth operator deposited part of the money,
took the balance in cash. The major switch in his
operation was the fact that he didn't go to the
victims regular bank as he did on that first check.
That sounds good. I mean, we kind of think so.
That's the reason I came over here this morning, Conway
are handwriting man thinks it's the same as the guy
we're after. He asked me to check it through Don
Myers to be sure.
Speaker 4: What signature do use on this last one?
Speaker 6: Now that's another part of the m or the checks out.
You remember, on the first check, he forged the victim's
name William Scott, and he made it a second party
check by signing the phony name George Scott, passing himself
off as a nephew of the victim.
Speaker 4: Pretty smart.
Speaker 5: He goes to this victim's regular bank, and he doesn't
take the chance of being tabbed as the paye. He
covers by using that nephew gimme yeah.
Speaker 6: This time he goes to a different branch, not the
regular branch of the victim deals with us. In the
first case, he simply forges the victim's name and lets
it go at that.
Speaker 4: Are you doing anything in that license number?
Speaker 6: Ashton and Miller checked it out late yesterday afternoon. They're
on it now, need any help so far? I'm interested
in what Don Myers has to say about the handwriting.
You want to be through about now. I'll give him
a call. Thanks, Harry, Oh Don?
Speaker 7: Who is this is Elliott? You know Don's checked that
stuff through for Inspector Smith yet. Okay?
Speaker 6: Thanks? So no, that's all right, we'll get to.
Speaker 4: Don was called out of the office for a minute.
Speaker 6: That was sloan.
Speaker 7: He says, he's sure Don's finished with it. Oh fine,
you say when he be back, he just duck down
to that Brown's office for a minute. I'll call down
there for you.
Speaker 6: That's sorry. I don't walk down there myself. I need
the exercise go and.
Speaker 4: I walk on down with you.
Speaker 6: Let's go, all right, you fellas will be back there one,
I'm sure as soon as I check with myers.
Speaker 7: All right?
Speaker 6: Uh? Which way is it from here? Hall looks the
same from one end of the other. Huh, okay, this
affects you'd like to f federal building?
Speaker 4: Does many? I get all turned around the bear?
Speaker 6: Yeah. Well, this fellow's down in San Diego had a
rough going this thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I was talking to McGuire and Ormsby down there just
the other day. They said they were going around circles
on it.
Speaker 6: He broke a lot of ground for us, checked out
a lot of suspects, cleared him, checked out all that
stuff that Breton from CII sent them. Yeah, you know
how thorough that guy is.
Speaker 4: It figures they've done a lot of leg where Friday.
Speaker 6: You say you just talked to him down there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right, Lyn.
Speaker 6: Well, then you know about all those bulletins they got
on the guy. Description, exemplars of his handwriting set him
every police department in the United States.
Speaker 5: And it's a big job. I'll go get done. It's
right here, thanks Joe, right don Yeah, Joe Leo Smith
in the post office departments waiting to see you. All right, Joe,
just on my way back to the office. Oh don sorry,
I had to duck out for a minute.
Speaker 6: Oh that's all right, said, you get a chance to
look at Scott check over. Yeah, it did. Got a
couple of things to show you back in the office. Okay, fine.
Was Conway positive on this one. He said he felt
we the right man, but he wanted your opinion to
be absolutely sure.
Speaker 8: I couldn't be positive, but I think maybe as a man,
there's a great similarity, but too much.
Speaker 6: Pressure on the downstrokes. Yees. The O's just not too sure.
Speaker 8: They're a little different than some of the previous samples
of the guy's handwriting.
Speaker 6: Uh huh, I can show you better. Back to the office.
Got a few things for you.
Speaker 4: I think there's a possibility.
Speaker 8: Don Let me put it this way. I won't say
it is, and I won't say it isn't. Let's pick
him up and find out for sure. Here were Go ahead, fellows,
thank you, I've blown those things up here.
Speaker 4: Uh call fee lal, I'm three.
Speaker 6: Oh thanks Harry. Excuse the smith talking.
Speaker 4: You did?
Speaker 6: Uh, we did all right. Look, why don't you bring
him down a forgery detail here at the city hall.
We'll talk to him here, write it right, thanks, Well,
it looks like the end of the trail. That was ash.
He and Miller picked him up. He's our man, admitted
the forgery.
Speaker 4: Looks like San Diego did all the work and we
get all the luck.
Speaker 9: Anyway, we got him.
Speaker 10: You are in the scientific Investigation division of a metropolitan
police department, the ballistics room.
Speaker 2: You have just heard a test bullet fired from a
thirty eight caliber revolver found in the possession of a suspect.
Speaker 10: The test slug is removed from the ballistics box and
compared with the slug found at the scene of the crime.
Speaker 2: There they are side by side. They look alike, but
examination will prove a world of difference.
Speaker 4: In the routine solution of the case.
Speaker 5: The police officer has always benefited by the leg work
of his fellow officers. In this case, the men of
the San Diego Police Department, in conjunction with the Post
Office Department had done most of the spade work, and
the actual apprehension of the suspect appeared to be almost
too easy.
Speaker 4: On our end. Even though Ben and I hadn't participated
in the physical arrest of the.
Speaker 5: Suspect, we felt the same gratification for the speedy solution
of the case as did the postal authorities.
Speaker 4: Monday, March third.
Speaker 5: Three, twenty seven pm, Miller and Ashton of the Post
Office Department brought the suspect in for questioning. The prisoner
was turned over to inspected Leo Smith. Ben and I
sat in on the interrogation.
Speaker 6: Carver Gleeson. That's your true name, yes, sir it is.
You say you've never been arrested before. No, sir, I
never have. You know. We're going to check that out, yes, sir,
All right now, let's go over it again the same way.
That's up to you. We want the truth. I've told
you the truth. You asked me questions about stealing mail,
about forging checks. You said I was down in San Diego.
Well it's not true. None of it's true. Have you
ever stolen from the mails?
Speaker 4: So? I never have.
Speaker 6: I know. That's pretty serious events. What makes you think
forging isn't what you're trying to say.
Speaker 9: No, I'm not.
Speaker 6: I didn't say that, but this was the first time
I've ever done anything like this. I didn't even think
about the consequences. Should have thought about them. When's the
last time you were in San Diego? I've never been there.
I don't even know for sure where it is. How
long you've been in Los Angeles? About three months?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 6: Where's your home Akron, Ohio? How old you say you were?
Twenty five? And what you been doing since you got
out here? That's just it. Nothing can't find a job,
or how you've been getting by, how you've been living,
been staying down to YMCA Hope Street. I guess it
is what you been doing for money? Well, my folks
gave me a little when I left Akron. I thought
i'd have a job by now. I didn't want to
write home for anymore. So when I found a check,
I figured I could get away with it. I needed money,
and I cashed it. And where'd you say you found it?
Or on Let's Street out that way singing nagger? Is
that how you said?
Speaker 4: L Yeah?
Speaker 6: What were you doing out there? Well? I was answering
an ad in to classify and was trying to find
a job. I had to park the car down the
streets from the place, and on my way back, I
found this check on the sidewalk right near the bank
on the corner. Where'd you get the car? It's my father's.
The car is registered in your name with California plates.
How to explain that? Well, what folks told me when
I got to California to go right to the authorities
and register the car if I was gonna stay so
I wouldn't get in any trouble. That's where part of
my money went. You got anything else you want to
tell us, Well, I did it. I admit that. I
want to make it up somehow. The check was for
fifty seven dollars I gave them in that arrested me
fifty of it and I spent seven dollars. Yeah, that's
all on the record. I did wrong. I'll pay the
seven dollars back, but you can take that up with
the judge. Gleason Friday, MARYL. You want to step outside
with me a minute, Yeah, right, Grease, And you wait
here with that officer.
Speaker 7: Yes, sir, what do you think he's telling the truth.
He's not the one we want. How about you, Joe, Yeah,
I'll go along with Ben. It makes three of us.
Speaker 5: Monday, March third, five pm, we went in and checked
with Don Myers, and carefully going over exemplars of Carver
Gleason's handwriting, he had definitely eliminated him as our suspect.
Carver Gleason remained in custody awaiting trial. Three months went by.
During this time, the burglaries and forgeries continued. Suspects were
picked up, checked out, and released. We got nowhere. Tuesday,
July twelfth, we received a communication from Chief Adam Jensen
of the San Diego Police Department, who stated he was
forwarding a radiogram from Chief John W. Pole Scene of
the Milwaukee, Wisconsin Police Department. The radiogram from Chief pole
Scene stated that his handwriting man in Milwaukee had identified
the suspects handwriting as listed in one of the San
Diego bulletins as.
Speaker 4: Belonging to Philip E.
Speaker 6: Holloway.
Speaker 5: Holloway was acted two years previous on a reckless driving charge.
The physical description of the man matched closely with the
one that we'd received on a suspect known to us
as Harvey Fletcher. They further stated that although he was
at one time a resident of Milwaukee, they had nothing
further on him. It was just an outside chance, but
we decided that in all probability, this could be the
suspect's true name, Philippi Holloway. This information was forwarded to
the postal authorities. Ben and I started to check through
our channels to determine the whereabouts of the suspect, Philippi
Holloway with a possible alias of Harvey Fletcher.
Speaker 7: That's it, Joe. Nothing in any of the phone books. Yeah,
covered everything I can think of. Our records, Sureiff's records.
Nothing from CII utility companies. Yeah, well, maybe Smith found
something on him. We haven't got anything here, Thank God.
Give him a call, aren't you?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'd like to know. That's extension sixty six four.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I know, yeah, six six four Hello, Inspector Smith.
Speaker 4: Please?
Speaker 6: How's that? Well?
Speaker 7: I see, no, that's all right, thank you. On his
way over here. He left five minutes ago.
Speaker 6: I sure hope he's got something, Joe, Ben, I think
maybe we ran it down.
Speaker 4: Good. How'd you do it to the postal service?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Didn't figure did it?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 5: We didn't think he'd stay put long enough to have
a permanent address.
Speaker 6: We's been on the move. We got the last known
address on him, received mail there two days ago.
Speaker 7: You want to check with Don Myers. He's been working
over those exemplars at Milwaukee Center. It just did called
him about fifteen minutes ago.
Speaker 6: Oh, we just got back from Mary and I what
do you have to say this son? He and Conway
agree all the way to this trip. Yeah, alloways our man.
Speaker 4: Together with a postal authority's been and I helped him.
The twenty four hour.
Speaker 5: Surveillance placed on the suspect, Philippi Holloway Our fightings disclosed
that he was living in a modest apartment house and
he was employed by a local vacuum cleaner company as
a door to door salesman. This type of occupation would
enable anyone to have suspicion free access to any and
all types of home mailboxes. The first three days of
the surveillance failed to disclose any the incriminating evidence. Thursday
July seventeenth, fifth day of the twenty four hour surveillance,
two thirty pm, Holloway came out of his apartment building,
got into his car and drove approximately four miles to
the Echo Park residential district.
Speaker 4: He parked his car, got.
Speaker 5: Out and went up the steps of a small apartment
house together with Inspector Leo Smith.
Speaker 4: Ben and I followed him.
Speaker 6: You want to pull up here, Ben?
Speaker 4: This is good?
Speaker 6: All right?
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's going for that mailbox, isn't he.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he's got the keys opening the panel.
Speaker 4: Nott a worry in the world.
Speaker 6: Broad daylight. Look at that, he's got all the letters
out of the box. Got him in his pocket on
his way back to his car.
Speaker 4: Leover is a bank right up there in sunset.
Speaker 6: See, okay, let's stay with him. How's it look, Joey?
You can see him a head in there? Is he
pulling out?
Speaker 4: Wait a minute, all right, let's go better pull up here. Huh?
Speaker 6: Look at that just like it was blueprinted right in
the back. Come on, yeah, joe you see him there?
He is second one that just get in line right
behind him?
Speaker 4: Right assume me I help you?
Speaker 6: Yes, I wonder if you can catch a check for me?
Speaker 4: Yes, sir, would you endorse it to you?
Speaker 6: Also?
Speaker 11: Sure?
Speaker 6: Anyway, as you can see this as one of my
mother's checks, I guess I can catch it alright. For us.
Do you have any identification? I'm sorry, I don't. I'll
say I have this envelope to check with mail day and.
Speaker 7: The left here.
Speaker 4: Yes, I think that's alright.
Speaker 6: How would you like this so he doesn't want it anyway?
Miss just hold like check for us please postal inspector. Yes, sir,
I thank your pardon. I believe you're making a mistake here.
Speaker 4: No, there's no mistake. Come on, step over here, shaken down.
Speaker 6: I don't understand all this. That k you used over
there on Baxter Street, that the one you made from
that panel you stole over on Alvarado about four months ago.
Know about that? Yeah, we do. And you know all right?
For wild that king was a pretty good one, isn't they?
They're in the lock in the world. I can't make
it key for we got one in mind. You might
have trouble with.
Speaker 2: The story you have just heard was true under The
names were changed to protect the innocent.
Speaker 10: On October fifteenth, trial was held in the United States
District Court state of California. In a moment the results
of that trial, the suspect, Philip Elwood Holloway, was found
guilty on all counts. He was sentenced to ten years
in the federal penitentiary. Five years of his sentence was
suspended and he was placed on probation, one of the
conditions being that he make restitution of the stolen money.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen. Accidents of all types kill more persons
from one to thirty five years of age than does
any single disease. America's homes and children can best be
kept safe if every father, mother, and child develops the
personal responsibility to know and observe home safety rules. Make
home safety a family affair.
Speaker 4: Be careful.
Speaker 2: The life you save may be your own.
Speaker 10: 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, Los Angeles Police Department.
Speaker 11: Stay tuned for Counterspy next over most NBC stations.
Speaker 1: We'll come back. This is probably one of those episodes
that was more interesting to me, due to my background
in financial services, than it will be to most of you.
With Dragnet, there's often this very fine balance between being
educational and being entertaining, and this one kind of fails
on the entertainment side, though it should be said the
educational element was important in that time because and for
us listening seventy odd years later, it's an interesting cultural artifact.
It captures the sort of psychological and consumer tendencies that
made the thieves job easier in this area, like you know,
careless practices and not you know, like not being aware
of when you should be expecting your divid in checks,
or having sort of these social psychological things where you're
reluctant to ask people like you said, you sent me
that payment, I don't have it in the mail. And
then you have just a huge systematic problems such as
the length of time it took to process checks and
how people had to wait for their bank statements.
Speaker 4: And then of.
Speaker 1: Course you have the identification standards that were used at
bank branches. And even though this was recorded half a
century before I got into the industry, there was a
part of me inside screaming when the teller said she
could take the envelope for identification. Of course, the consumer
couldn't do anything about the processing issues, but they could
do things to protect themselves in terms of being aware
of when you receive your dividend checks and just being
willing to call and say, ah, I'm just checking I
know you sent it, but I'm wondering if it might
have been lost in the mail. We might need to
place a stop payment those sort of things. And you
can also see why there's been such an embrace of
things like automatic payments, direct depausits, electronic brokerage, you know,
et cetera, because those carry with them some risk of
some high tech criminal activity. But in many ways that
may be preferable to dealing with all of these sort
of low tech scams and frauds that are very hard
to track. Now it's a lot easier to deal with
encryption on a financial website than to have a situation
where like, okay, well we kind of need to be
able to watch every mailbox in a single portion of
Los angel And of course, check processing would be moved
forward after nine to eleven when planes were grounded and
it really slowed the entire economy down because you couldn't
process checks. And I think what Dragnet was dealing with
and the police officers at the time was sort of
the growing pains of a changing world and the sort
of banking practices that might have worked okay in a
small town where everyone knew each other, We're not going
to work as technology advanced, as the ability of people
to take advantage of the sort of shifting population of
Los Angeles, the constant in migration to and you know
this would happen in other cities as well, and this
would be some of the disk for some changes in
the financial service industry. But in this episode of Dragnet,
we just get some of the pain points that began
that movement. The other thing that this highlights is the
idea of entered departmental cooperation, because the focus of Dragnet
is on the work of the Los Angeles Police Department,
but there are cases that require coordination with the FEDS
and with other cities, and we saw that here where
you work with the postal inspector with the San Diego
Police Department even got some help from the police department
in Milwaukee and they even let Inspector Smith deliver the
zinger to the suspect. And you can't get much more
cooperative than that on Dragnet. The world has changed a
lot in the last seventy four years, but one thing
that hasn't. You really can't get those coats back into
their little packet. And that's pretty much true of everything
that comes in a nice convenient pouch. You try to
fit it back in and you're either gonna tear it
or it won't look right. But in one way, it's
it's something that an unchanging reality that gives you a
bit of comfort. I guess all right, Well, now it's
time to thank our Patreon supporter of the day, and
I want to thank Mike, Patreon supporter since June twenty fifteen,
currently supporting the podcast at the Shawmus level of four
dollars or more per month. Thanks so much for your support,
mich And that will do it for today. If you're
enjoying the podcast, please follow us using your favorite podcast software.
And if you're enjoying the podcast on YouTube but like
the video, subscribe to the channel and mark the notification bell,
all those great things that help YouTube canials to grow.
We'll be back next Thursday with another episode of Dragnet,
but join us back here tomorrow for yours truly, Johnny'd
all are ware of.
Speaker 12: A hobby desert, thousands of square miles of sand, sun
bleached gravel and rock of cactus, sage and Jeshua trees,
hi flat maces, towering crags, countless trails leading off from
the highway, long abandoned roads leading up into the harsh
Bleak Mountains, with their promise of infinite wealth to the
prospectors who scratched away in the hungry search for silver
and gold. And who knows, perhaps some of these were
trails of the pioneers who beat a tortuous path westward
to the great Pacific, who with their oxenen heavy wagons,
were lucky if they made six miles a day. Yet
here I was cruising along on an easy sixty miles
an hour, and above me a jet plane lazily tearing
off six hundred miles an hour. Yeah, it made me
think about the men who lived in struggle here, the
men who died of hunger and thirst, following the same
path I was taking, never knowing that only a a
few miles away behind the mountains was the mighty Colorado water,
food and life for those lucky enough to find it.
Speaker 1: I hope you'll be with us then in the meantime.
Send your comments to Box thirteen at Greatdetectives dot net,
follow us on Twitter at Radio Detectives, and check us
out on Instagram, Instagram, dot com, slash Great Detectives from
Boise Idaho. This is your host, Adam Graham signing off.