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 The Big Story.
But first I do want to encourage you. If you're
enjoying the podcast, please follow us using your favorite podcast software. Also,
I want to encourage you to check out our other
podcast and today I'm highlighting the Great Adventurers of Old
Time Radio. We post twice a week a great adventure
series from the golden age of radio. We're currently featuring
Tarzan and Counterspot and you can subscribe to the podcast
at Great Adventures dot info or wherever you get your
podcast from This week a bit of a rarity in
this series as we get episodes that are in circulation
for back to back weeks, which given the fact that
about eighty five percent of the episode so far, it's
a nice little street. But now from January eleventh, nineteen
fifty here's the episode Gambling and Divorce Can Mean murder.
Speaker 2: A Big Story.
Speaker 3: You're the nightclub, you just signed the register. You just
give me your money. I'll kill you the gun. Just
tell me this. How's the hunting in these parts.
Speaker 4: You mean, dear bear, rabbit, that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Where can I get a twenty two automatic pistol
or rifle?
Speaker 5: Gee?
Speaker 4: I don't know?
Speaker 3: All right, tell me this. I see a big, full
page ad in the paper. Open house at cal Never Ranch.
What's that.
Speaker 6: It's a big place out near the California border, about
thirty miles out.
Speaker 4: They do it the opening of every season. Free drinks
on the house, free meal, big grub packed.
Speaker 3: Maybe that'll be even better than what did you say, deers,
bears and rabbits. Yeah, that ought to be even better.
Now I want a twenty two rifle or automatic pistol now.
Speaker 2: Reno Nevada, The story of a reporter who showed that
gambling and divorce can also mean murder. Reno, Nevada, The
Stories that actually happened. Frank McCullough's story as he lived it.
Speaker 4: The body was found slumped over the wheel of a Cadillac,
a bullet having entered through the left temple and lodged
in the brain. The necktie was drawn up tight against
the throat. He was identified by a local resident of
the Lake Tahoe region, just inside the Nevada border near California,
Why sure, Sheriff. Everybody knows him. Name's Winsle. Owns a
lot of property in these parts. Some says riches creases,
some say didn't have a dime. Two feet from the
rich or poor real estate dealer, on the floor of
the car was the casing from a twenty two caliber shell,
and on the seat next to him was a bag
of sweet rolls bought at the Alixa Bakery near Lake Tahoe.
These rolls bought here, That's right, Sheriff.
Speaker 7: These are our six for a quarter. They're very good.
Speaker 5: I'm sure.
Speaker 4: I'm sure they're a big fat man about seventy buy them.
Speaker 7: You mean, mister Winsor. That's right. He buys them almost
every other day. You know, sometimes I can't understand what
he buys them because he likes them, like he says,
or because that's what he eats for his lunch.
Speaker 4: Did he say anything to you about going to the
open house at the cow Never Ranch?
Speaker 7: Isn't that funny now that you mention it? I said
to my husband, what's he buying rolls for? If he's
going to the cow Never Ranch opening? You'll get enough
to eat there?
Speaker 5: Okay? Thanks?
Speaker 4: Say let me have one of those brownies.
Speaker 5: They look good by Now.
Speaker 4: The news of the death that reached you, Frank McCallum,
reporter for the Reno Gazette, reached all of Renault, and
you were out at the cow Never Ranch with Sheriff Parsons.
As he questioned the headwaiter, the ranch was a beautiful,
sprawling place. It's dining room in California, open till till.
It's bar and gambling room in Nevada, open all night,
very pleasant and comfortable and very convenient. And the headwaiter
went with the place.
Speaker 5: Well, you see, Sheriff, our open house is perhaps the
most popular event of the season. We get oh two,
five hundred three thousand people in that day. And Winsor
was in. Oh yes, like I said, it was crowded,
and mister Windsor was waiting on the line for the table,
and I didn't have a table, I mean, I couldn't
give him a table alone. So I asked him if
he would mind doubling up. He said sure, and he
sat down at the table with this other fellow.
Speaker 4: What was the other fellow?
Speaker 5: Like just a fellow young. I really didn't notice.
Speaker 4: What did they talk about? I mean, at the table.
Speaker 5: Well, I wouldn't need to drop, okay, show.
Speaker 4: Me the waitress.
Speaker 7: Well, he was very fussy. I brought him the curry
chicken and he said, you call this curry chicken. And
he sent it back. And then he said the mashed
potatoes had lumps in them. The coffee was called Oh no,
said the other fella, the young fella, good looking one.
You couldn't do nothing to please him, even about the
ice cream. He had to say something.
Speaker 4: What did they talk about?
Speaker 7: Well, as near as I could get, you know, I
was very busy. The young one was interested in buying
property in the area, and the fat was I guess
that's his name, But he kept saying that there wasn't
any better land in the lake Tyhole region, you know,
like a sales talk. And the young one kept saying, well,
he didn't know if he wanted to stay in this
part of the country, and the famine kept saying how
he couldn't do better. He kept saying, these were the choices,
not in the whole area. But I was busy. I
didn't really hear what they said. They leave together, well
they must have, because there they weren't. When I looked
the next time, there was a lady and a gentleman
sitting there. I was surprised because the young one left
the dollar. He didn't act like a tip of to me.
Fat one didn't leave nothing.
Speaker 4: Link between the two men, the fat, dead one and
the thin young one, came from an associate of Wensil's,
a young man who worked with him in the real
estate office.
Speaker 8: Well after he finished eating, I was at another table.
He came over and he said, Eddie, that's my name, Eddie.
I think I got a sale. And I said, gee,
mister Wenzel, it's a funny time to be going out
with a prospect.
Speaker 3: It was going on eleven o'clock.
Speaker 8: And then he said, listen, if I can't sell that
boy a piece of property by moonlight, I'll eat my
own necktie.
Speaker 4: And then to find the tie tied around his neck
like it was. Gee. He was a fine, happy, good man.
And it stops there. A rich a poor man shot
through the temple. Last scene with a good looking young prospect.
Period and that's all. Nothing else shows up. But you,
Frank McCullum, are a crime reporter, and for you, the
case is not closed because of a theory you have
that is this somewhere sometime someone always talks about every
major crime committed. That's been your experience, twelve years of it.
And so you start on your beer and listening system
and the dives along Commercial Avenue. We're somewhere sometime someone
must talk. Have a beer, tummy, whiskey, you've got it, tummy.
This one happened thirty miles out, thirty one from here
to the count of a ranch, thirty one miles.
Speaker 5: I'm measured once by car.
Speaker 4: How do you know what I was talking about?
Speaker 9: Yes, questions, but a lot of places.
Speaker 4: What do you know about WinCE? I'm interested in finding
out of it.
Speaker 5: Maybe you shouldn't.
Speaker 9: Shouldn't what you said you was interested? Maybe you shouldn't
be What does that mean? Just what I said? Look,
do yourself a fat favor, save yourself trouble, and I
mean big trouble. Forget about it, and come on, where's
the whiskey?
Speaker 4: How many nos? No crime within one hundred miles? He
doesn't know about it, but there's no more. He swallows
his whiskey, and another one and a third, but there's
still no more. Just the enigmatic. Maybe you shouldn't be interested, then,
Sergeant Dave Peter Sidletova.
Speaker 5: Where you're going, reporter?
Speaker 4: Oh? Just walking around?
Speaker 5: What gave you the idea you'd get any answers on
the Windstil killing here?
Speaker 4: How did you know? I was on Winstle.
Speaker 5: Look, let's don't spark, eh, I got other things to do.
What do you know, McCullen. Oh, I've got ideas. I've
got theories and I've got ideas. Okay, you play it
close to the chest, and so will I.
Speaker 4: Wait a minute. I know that Wenzel wasn't rich. I
know he was a fourth flush. He had those lots
on consignment and if he sold them, he had a
dollar and if he didn't, he had buttons that much.
Speaker 5: I know. I figured this prospect, the young guy, the
good looking one, he thought he had a take, but
he found out he didn't have a take. Something I
crossed up somewhere and the gun went off.
Speaker 4: And what do you know about the prospect?
Speaker 5: Nothing? But I know this. Two days before the killing,
there was a gunman in town. I don't know where
he stayed. I don't know what he did. I don't
know what he was after.
Speaker 4: That's something I heard about.
Speaker 5: Also, I know this guy, the gunman was out shopping
for a twenty two. Now that's the only connection. What
he looks like I don't know. And what he was
after I don't know, except he tried to get a
twenty two.
Speaker 4: You want to see him up what I've got, what
you've gotten, vice versa.
Speaker 5: All right, you got a deal. No stories in your paper.
Speaker 4: A gunman and a prospect buying real estate to caliber
gun and from the way Sergeant Peter's talked, from the
way Tommy talked, a case that isn't very healthy. Don't mentioned,
and so you don't, not to your best friend, not
to your wife. But the next morning, Tommy, whose last
name nobody knows, comes over to you in another commercial
avenue bar.
Speaker 9: You got a loose half buck on you, quite sure?
All the time, Tommy whiskey not chaser. See you and
Sergeant Peter's as a beer and you'll be getting in
the gossip columns next.
Speaker 4: How do you know?
Speaker 3: Make that a beer chase?
Speaker 9: You you know the Golden Light Hotel.
Speaker 4: I've heard of it.
Speaker 9: There's a nightclif there by the name of Addison. But
like I told you before, it's something you shouldn't be
interested in.
Speaker 4: I'm not Tommy. It's just that I'd like to get
a room at the Golden Light. Where would I get
a twenty two? I don't know anything about a twenty two.
Speaker 6: You think if a fella comes in here and says,
get me at twenty two, I'll go out and get
him at twenty two.
Speaker 4: Look Atison, I heard you weren't very particular.
Speaker 5: Okay, Okay, I ain't denying.
Speaker 6: If this sain't the best hotel in town, you can
get things here, sure, but guns, oh sir, that's out
of my line.
Speaker 1: That's way off.
Speaker 4: Look, let's stop kidding around. You know just what I'm
talking about. I'm talking about wins.
Speaker 7: Look, you know what's the worst thing in the world
to know is.
Speaker 6: To know something about something you don't want to know
about a fellow killing another fella. That's the most dangerous
thing in the world to know.
Speaker 4: You ought to be glad.
Speaker 5: I'm not talking to you.
Speaker 6: I've been walking around with this thing for three days now,
and I'm going crazy with it. I don't want to
know it.
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk about it.
Speaker 5: Let me alone. What he looked like?
Speaker 4: What did the gunman look like?
Speaker 6: I'm telling you, three days, I'm going crazy with it.
I'm not going to say another word. Don't you think
I want to.
Speaker 5: Live pool.
Speaker 4: The information alone frightens someone, but paralyze a man as
the clerk is paralyzed. Only one thing could do that,
the presence of the killer in town and then in
a hotel bar.
Speaker 10: He says, you mccollor, go ahead, he says, stop talking
to Peter's a cup, He says, stay away from Tommy the.
Speaker 5: Stooling, who says.
Speaker 10: He says, leave Adison alone, stay out of the golden light.
Speaker 4: Look, stop getting mysterious, he.
Speaker 10: Says, forget about it, because he says, he says, he's
watching you every single step of the way. And he says,
maybe you're a smart enough reporter to want to go
home to your wife and the two kids you got.
One's six and one's two, aren't they That's what he said.
Speaker 4: You're on a case of murder, but you haven't spoken
about it to anyone, not even your wife. You Frank mccullar,
reporter for the Reno Nevada Gazette, and Sergeant Dave Peters
are working together on the case, and though you keep
it to yourselves, someone knows every move you make. Someone's
watching you. Maybe the killer, and you just left a girl,
a girl you never saw before, who told you.
Speaker 10: He says, forget about it, forget all about it.
Speaker 4: That's what he says. And so of course you go
to your partner, Dave Peters.
Speaker 5: You're slipping, Frank, Why because obviously she knows more than
she told you, Because there are ways of getting to
learn what that more is, and you didn't do it.
So I think I can. I'll go back to the
hotel bar and we'll find out what it is. Okay, Pardner, Okay.
Speaker 7: I can't tell you.
Speaker 4: I can't.
Speaker 7: I swear I can't. He'll kill me if I tell you.
Speaker 5: Did you ever hear of the police department? Lady, Guys
don't go around killing people just like that. Now, who
is he? And where is he?
Speaker 8: In?
Speaker 5: Talk? And you want me to go through the whole
routine and arrest you for suppressing information, hindering the prosecution
of justice and so on and so forth. Where is he?
Speaker 10: He's up in room two for asleep.
Speaker 4: Luddigan is his name.
Speaker 7: But please, maybe I'm stupid, but don't say it was me.
Speaker 11: Huh, all right, luddigin come out of it, come out
of it.
Speaker 4: His eyes it is he looks coked up.
Speaker 5: Maybe come on lud again. Come on, come on, let's
set up.
Speaker 4: What are you doing? Take your hands off me? Leave
me alone? All right? Lettergan? Where'd you get the gun?
Speaker 5: Uh? Why don't you call me Ludigan? Is that who
I am? Oh?
Speaker 4: Don't sound right?
Speaker 5: Don't sound right?
Speaker 4: What are you doing? Putting on an act?
Speaker 5: Here? Come on? Stand up? Stand up? State, come on,
stand ups.
Speaker 12: Walking around All of a sudden, I said, you know,
I don't know who I am, all of a sudden
like that, and I heard a violin playing some music somewhere. Violin,
and it started a tingle all down my arms and
my legs again, a tingle. And I said, it must
be I got something to do with a violin. That's
who I am. Something to do with a violin.
Speaker 4: What do you get?
Speaker 12: I went to the store, this music store, and I says,
give me a violin and a bowl. I put up
my shoulder under my neck and I started to play,
and I says, please God, let me know how to.
Speaker 5: Play the violin.
Speaker 12: Maybe did I'll find out who I am? But I
couldn't play.
Speaker 3: Came out sour.
Speaker 12: I couldn't play a thing, not a note, only made
scratching sounds. I never found out until you just now
said luddigan. And I don't think that's right. I don't
think that's who I am.
Speaker 5: You registered in the hotel, you signed the register.
Speaker 12: Only time I felt anything that was right was when
I heard that music. And now that don't mean nothing, even.
Speaker 5: Nothing?
Speaker 4: You know what do you think?
Speaker 5: All right? Let again, sit down and go back to sleep.
Don't go anywhere, am i? Frank? I think he's on
a lettle me too if he isn't level and then
our girlfriend is giving us a beautiful line.
Speaker 4: For sure, that's what it is. She threw us a
lot again, figuring that we take him in adope, amnesia
can't prove where he was, where he wasn't figured we'd
be satisfied with him.
Speaker 5: That means that's right. And I'll tell you another little surprise.
I talk to your friend Tommy, just to make sure
you know who she is. Oh, she's the wife of
the night clerk at the Golden Light.
Speaker 4: Well, well, well.
Speaker 5: Only we're not going there right now. We're gonna wait
until it's nice and dark and late and he's sleeping,
and we'll pay him that call night clerk he's off
duty tonight. Put the light on, right, Hey, what are
you doing?
Speaker 3: What's the idea?
Speaker 4: Hey? Oh yeah, oh that was a nice idea. Throw
us a fall guy, throw us a guy who don't
know who he is, and maybe we'll pick him up
and maybe that'll end again.
Speaker 6: Look, I tell you, you gotta believe.
Speaker 5: We'll believe you when you start talking about the tall, thin,
handsome guy, the guy with twenty two. There's nobody around.
We'll checked. There's nobody around but two of my men.
So if you want to talk quiet, that's okay too. Talk.
Speaker 6: You think I'm kidding huh about it being dangerous to know?
I'm telling you never, in my life I never meet
a guy like him, and I met a lot ice cold.
Everything he said, everything he did, plan careful, Icy, You
look in his eyes. You have to turn your face away.
Speaker 4: All right, Fine, Now let's get down to the facts.
Speaker 6: The first thing he'd done was you know about the
ad in your paper, the cow Never Ranch takes for
the open house.
Speaker 4: Oh, no, more stalling, not, I swear I'm.
Speaker 6: Telling you well.
Speaker 4: He asked me about it.
Speaker 6: He turned to the page and showed me the ad
and says that was two days before the kill him.
Speaker 3: I think the hunting there might be better than theirs.
Bears and rabbits. Now get me at twenty two.
Speaker 6: I never got nobody a gun before, never, But you know,
just to look at this guy that if you didn't
do what he said.
Speaker 4: Never mind go on.
Speaker 6: So I got it for him through a guy I know.
And then I didn't see him for twenty four hours,
and then.
Speaker 4: He came back.
Speaker 6: He came back going on one in the morning.
Speaker 3: I was all alone, How much money you got, Adison?
Speaker 4: Gee, I ain't got any money. What do you mean?
Speaker 3: I'll tell you a funny story about that gun you
got me. I went out to the place, the ranch,
and I met this big fat dub Wintle. He tells
me how Richie is all the landing eons? Five acre
is there? Twenty ac is there? So I says, this
is what I'm waiting for. He's got a fat Cadillac.
He takes me out there in the moonlight to see
the prize lights, and I says, all right, pap, what
do you got in your pocket? And the dumb fat
slobby started a scream. So what can I do? He
had eight bucks in his pocket in the back. Give
sweet rules he did.
Speaker 5: I left.
Speaker 6: You shot him.
Speaker 3: How much money you got? I got a nineteen forty
nine Mercury Dancetairs. I'll leave it with you for security
because they'll probably be roadblocks anyhow. How much money you got?
The car is yours.
Speaker 6: And that's the truth, sergeant. I got it for two
hundred dollars, and he give me the car. I never
drove it, I never touched it.
Speaker 4: Where is it?
Speaker 5: It's out in the back of the garage.
Speaker 4: License plates, there ain't none. He made me bury him.
Speaker 6: He said, don't look at the numbers. If you ever
seen a man's face cold ice.
Speaker 5: All right, let's go where you buried the plates.
Speaker 4: You dig them up Texas license plates. And now it's
a matter of way to you check the plates with
the Texas authorities and find his name. Martin Stevens, a
record a page and a half long, wanted for robbery,
for assault, escape from prison. This man is danger everything
in the book. And you'll wait and then a disturbing
report comes in from Houston, Texas. Martin Stephens picked up Houston,
Texas today thanks to have been the city past five weeks.
Corroboration by wife's local school teacher can sticker reliable. You
want extra dish, Peters, I don't get it. I don't
get it at all. Let me see that unless Steve unless, Yeah,
it was icy eyes. The kind of thing he made
Addison do, shouldn't be hard for God like that to
have his own wife lie the same way.
Speaker 5: I'm putting in for extradition.
Speaker 4: Right now, he comes Martin Stevens, well dressed, thin, tall,
good looking, a tolerant smile playing on his face.
Speaker 3: I was never written about it. I never heard of
this wrench, whatever you call it. I never stayed at
the hotel on Commercial Avenue, and I don't know how
to use a gun. Otherwise I met your service.
Speaker 4: The eyes are, as Addison said, absolute ice, now warm
for purposes of charming people, convincing them. So because your
experience as a reporter has helped so much, you were
present when Sergeant Peters lines them up, the inexorable array
of people, one after the other.
Speaker 5: As I said before, he waited on the line because
I didn't have any free tables. And then I showed
mister Winstle to a table. This gentleman was sitting there.
Speaker 7: Oh, I can't make a mistake. No sir, him being
so good looking with that cute mustache, and the way
he left me a tip.
Speaker 8: It was a whole dollar bill, mister Winshell said to me,
pointing to him. If I can't sew him by moonlight,
I'll eat my own neck tie.
Speaker 10: It was his idea to tell the cop and the
reporter that this lood again, the fellow who lost his mind,
that he was the one who'd done it.
Speaker 4: Okay, Allison, take a good look. I don't know. Those
are bars between you, one in steel bars, and he's
been frisked. His eyes can't wanny more than look at you. Well,
he's the one.
Speaker 6: I got him the gun, and I gave him two
hundred dollars and he made me bury the plate.
Speaker 4: Okay, Edison, one home, forget all about it.
Speaker 3: Even with all that, you still won't prove it. You
won't prove a thing. I spent the whole time in Texas, Houston, Texas.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't be so sure, Stevens. I think we'll prove it. Fine,
and you do. The jury listens to the witnesses, the waitress,
the headwaiter, the business associate, the night clerk and his wife,
and then they listen to the handsome man with a mustache,
and I see eyes, and they make a judgment, and
the judgment is as you stated. And once more, your
theory is right. Somewhere sometime, some one always talks.
Speaker 2: Now we read you that telegram from Frank McCullough of
the Reno, Nevada Gazette.
Speaker 4: Entrial for First Green murder. Killer in Tonight's Big Story
accused the night clerk of being the murderer. The state
clinched their case by producing the murdered gun, which killer
had pawned in Los Angeles. Killer was sentenced to life imprisonment,
and so.
Speaker 13: Ends another Big Story. In order to protect the names
of people actually involved into Night's authentic Big Story, the
names of all characters and the dramatization were changed, with
the exception of the newspaper reporter.
Speaker 3: This is the United.
Speaker 13: States Armed Forces Radio Service, the Voice of Information and Education.
Speaker 1: Welcome back. Well, it's time to go ahead and go
over the cast. Frank McCullough was played by Bill Quinn.
Also in the cast Athena Lord, Roy Bester, Joe DeSantis,
Mandel Kramer really the first voice I recognized in this
William Keane and Paul Man of note that there was
a character in this episode named Peters, but Kramer didn't play,
which I guess might be best given that he was
playing Peters on Counterspot. Now, somewhat amusingly, this episode, despite
the title, has nothing to do with divorce or gambling really. Now,
if I were to speculate on an explanation, it seems
that episode was named for what Areno was known for,
as at the time, it had the least stringent requirements
for obtaining a divorce in the United States. So if
you saw a movie or a radio program and a character,
particularly a woman, were on their way to Reno, then
you could bet that you would later find out that
they were getting a divorce. And of course gambling we get,
but again, neither had anything to do with this story.
It's just something that the area was known for. Now,
in terms of this episode, we once again have a
case based on a more recent event, this one from
just seven months earlier, and it involved real estate investor
Walter Hempel, who, according to doctor Joe Webb, was wealthy.
There was someone who was found and charged but later released,
and the killer was found in Houston, a man by
the name of Mark James Donnelly and the Reno Hotel
employee was important. He Donnelly actually told the employee, I've
got to talk to you. I'm in trouble and have
to get out of town. And he told him that
he had killed a man and showed him the dead
man's wallet. So he ended up getting sentenced to life imprisonment.
That trial completed in November, so only two months before
this aired.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 1: Now it's time to think all our Patreons of the day,
and I want to thank Laura, Patreon supporter since April
twenty eighteen, currently supporting the podcast at the Shawmas level
of four dollars more per month. Thanks so much for
your support, Laura, and now'll do it for today. If
you're enjoying the podcast, please follow us using your favorite
podcast software and be sure to rate and review the
podcast wherever you download it from. We'll be back next
Tuesday with another episode of The Big Story. But join
us back here tomorrow for Broadways My beat where.
Speaker 14: And uptown north on Broadway and East one hundred and
tenth Street in Central Park in the part of the
night that hung over a lake where I was standing
in the floodlights and the roll boat and detective Muggament
and the huddled shape.
Speaker 4: I got him, daddy alight right? Better give me a
hand with him?
Speaker 5: Got him?
Speaker 14: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Is it okay? Once a citizen was right, Danny Man
drowned in Central Park Lake. The citizens said, some flow.
Speaker 14: This boy wasn't drowned.
Speaker 5: Logo, look in the back.
Speaker 14: The small caliber gun hasn't been dead too long? About nineteen?
Speaker 5: Good looking boy? Nothing?
Speaker 9: Uh?
Speaker 14: The wallet pocket's empty, no identification? What's he got in
his handle? In his hand, his fist, he could be
holding it, Yeah he was. Look, let me have it.
Strange looking ring, isn't it antique? No initials?
Speaker 4: Sign?
Speaker 1: I hope you'll be with us then in the meantime.
Send your comments to Box thirteen at Great Detectives dot net,
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out on Instagram, Instagram, dot com slash Great Detectives from Boise, Idaho.
This is your host, Adam Graham. Sign and AF