Speaker 1: Welcome to the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio from
boy Idaho. This is your host, Adam Graham in a
moment where you're going to bring you this week's episode
of Dragnet. But first, I do want to encourage you,
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I spoke not too long ago on the Great Adventurers
podcast about trigger warnings and now I generally don't use them,
but this is an episode that had a advisory at
the time somewhat vaguely worded, I will encourage lessen nurse
to take that seriously. This one is a rough one,
but that out of the way. Let's go ahead. July fifth,
nineteen fifty one. Here is the big Love.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen. This program is for you, not your children.
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 homicide detail. A woman
and her two year old child disappears suddenly, there's no
apparent reason for it. Five days pass, no trace of them.
Your job find them.
Speaker 3: Drag Net the documented drama of an actual crime. For
the next thirty minutes, in cooperation of 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 buyouts, from beginning to end, from crime to punishment.
Drag Net is the story of your police force in action.
Speaker 4: It was Tuesday, April twentieth, was overcast in Los Angeles.
We're working the day watch out of homicide. My partner's
Ben Romero. The boss is Captain Blaine Steve. My name's Friday.
I was on the way back from communications and it
was one thirty five pm when I got to Room
forty two homicide.
Speaker 5: A Hi, Joe, it's still for not much may word.
Ben goes inside. Captain Jervis be right back.
Speaker 6: Oh thank you, keeping you busy.
Speaker 5: I'm about the same little hectic around the household.
Speaker 6: Well that's right.
Speaker 4: Ben mentioned something about that you're getting ready for a
wedding out there, aren't you.
Speaker 5: Yeah. My daughter Alice sure getting a nice fellow. That's
so yeah, ambitious kid, part time account, goes to law
school at night down Loyola. Real nice fellow. On to
getting married a week from Saturday's gonna be a big
church thing. Sure, glad doesn't happen often. Oh what I
mean big production. Never saw so many bills in my life.
New dress for Alice going away, luggage, bridesmaids dresses, eats, drinks,
new carpets for the hall, new curtains in the living room.
Wife must think I made of the stuff.
Speaker 6: You should have had all boys make. Yeah, you're giving
your daughter away?
Speaker 5: Huh yeah, Well it reminds me I got to be
sure and send my suit the cleaners. Get a good
press job on. It sure is funny.
Speaker 6: What's that?
Speaker 5: It seems for years a wife's been afraid we'd never
get Alice married off. Now it's finally and the works
of wife's still unhappy. Oh that those are moping around
the house wiping it. Her eyes keeps muttering something about
losing her little girl, her little girls leaving her.
Speaker 6: I don't know, Well, how old is your daughter? Thirty two?
Speaker 5: Well, let'll be down stats office if anybody wants, right
mac oh, fard.
Speaker 6: Me BENI I didn't see.
Speaker 4: Hi.
Speaker 7: Where you been making a couple of phone calls? I
think we might have some Yeah, what's that the Gorman case?
I had to call from one of the neighbors while
you were gone.
Speaker 6: Uh? Where is that calendar of our see? I don't know. Well,
here I got one in my pocket, here in my wallet.
Oh here you are?
Speaker 7: Okay, Well let's see now missus Gorman and a little girl.
Nance She disappeared on the fifteenth, Is that right?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Thursday?
Speaker 7: Quiet and her husband, mister Gorman father the missing complaint
on Friday morning?
Speaker 6: Right? Yeah? What are you getting at?
Speaker 8: Well?
Speaker 6: You remember when we talked to mister Gorman, he couldn't
think of any reason why his wife and his little
girl should disappear like I did.
Speaker 7: Yeah, remember me asking him the question if his wife
ran around at all, if she was.
Speaker 6: Interested in any other man. That's right, he told you.
Speaker 7: Not this man who just called in. He lives out
in the Gorman neighborhood. He swears up and down that
Missus Gorman was keeping company with another man.
Speaker 6: Who is this neighbor anyway, name's John Pearson, lives about
four blocks.
Speaker 4: From the Gormans. Well, we talked to neighbors a lot
closer than that to the Gormans. They didn't seem to
know anything about it. What else the sky tell you?
Speaker 7: Let's see, the man Missus Gorman was supposed to be
running out with is a Ralph kan his next door
to mister Pearson.
Speaker 6: Well, how does Pearson sound you?
Speaker 7: Pretty typical neighborhood watch dog. But here's the interesting part.
Missus Gorman and little daughter Nancy disappeared last Thursday. Now
Gordon appearson is Ralph Kane. Hasn't been seen around since
Friday night. He told me on the phone he saw
Keane toss a couple of suitcases in his car late
Friday night and drive off.
Speaker 6: So he hasn't come back yet. It might be something.
Speaker 4: Well, how much of a romance was missus Gorman supposed
to be having with this Ralph Kane.
Speaker 7: It's pretty heavy. Cordon and Pearson said it's been going
on for six months anyhow.
Speaker 6: And mister Gorman didn't know anything about it and got
me there.
Speaker 7: If he did, he didn't let us in on it.
Wonder if you'd have any reason to cover it up.
Speaker 4: It's possible, I guess didn't want the scandal. How sure
are you that Ralph Kane's really missing? Might be just
off on the weekend.
Speaker 9: No.
Speaker 7: I checked the place he worked, he's a printer. Didn't
show up for work. Money, didn't show up a day either,
no message, no excuse. I think I called a friend
of Kane's. Appears new bott. Friend doesn't no where he's going. Well,
I guess we better get on it. It's the first
decent lead in five days. Yeah, just thanking Joe. Neighbors
like Pearson? What would we do with them?
Speaker 4: Five days before, on a Thursday evening, a mister Phillip
Gorman returned to his home in the Westlake district of
Los Angeles to find his wife, Barbara Gorman and his
two year old daughter, Nancy missing. There wasn't any note,
no explanation of any kind. Few clothes were gone. Mister
Gorman filed a missing report, and a broadcast and an
APB were gotten out on the mother and daughter.
Speaker 6: Neighbors, friends and relatives were checked. No leads.
Speaker 4: Routine investigation failed to turn up anything. Mister Gorman could
give us no explanation for the disappearance. After three days
we got out of a radiogram, still no results. Tuesday one,
Ben and I got in the car and drove out
to see John Pearson, who'd phoned in the information about
Missus Gorman's supposed boyfriend, Ralph Kine. We found Pierson out
on the back porch of his home beating some milk
to a pair of housecats.
Speaker 10: I thought everybody knew that sergeant Missus Gorman running around
with that Ralph Kane. I'm all busy, buddy. I wouldn't
have mentioned it at all if this hadn't happened.
Speaker 7: And you say Kane had been seeing Missus Gorman for
the last six months? Is that right, mister Peers for
about six months? That's how long I've seen it go on.
James don't be such a hog. Let Fred have some
of the milk too, Beaty, little the devil.
Speaker 4: Do you know of anybody else in the neighborhood who's
been aware of this, mister Pearson, I mean Missus Gorman
and miss Ralph Keane.
Speaker 10: Well, I know for sure that Tholoma White next door
knows about it. She's mentioned it to me. Kane used
to park with Missus Gorman near that vacant lot by
Thoma's house.
Speaker 6: Those were the knife that mister Grman was working late.
Speaker 4: Would you know if mister German was aware of this
that his wife was running around with another man.
Speaker 10: I'm pretty sure he did. Sergeant, that's a strange part
about him. Well, how do you know George, the man
who delivers the groceries. He just happened to mention it
to me once. All right, James, right, it's all gone,
I run.
Speaker 6: Off and play.
Speaker 10: Yes, George the grocer man, he made a delivery to
the Gormans wants and heard them round about it. George said,
mister Gorman was very mad, talk divorce, all that sort
of thing.
Speaker 4: Well, how about the Gorman's little girl, mister Pearson, little
Nancy tragic Sergeant, such a sweet little thing.
Speaker 10: Missus Gorman kept her under an iron hand. Imagine the
little girl is only two years old. Missus Gorman was
after her with a stick all the time. She's not
much of a mother, not the way I look at
it anyway. Well, what's your opinion of all this? Do
you think that Ralph Kane has run off with missus
Gorman or what else?
Speaker 6: Can you think? Two of them carry on for six months?
Speaker 10: Missus Gorman disappears Thursday, Mister Kane leaves Friday night.
Speaker 6: What else can you think?
Speaker 7: This neighbor year is tell them a White? Does she
live in this house over here? We're going to right,
that's right right next door. You go over and talk
to her. She's home now, thelm will tell you the
same thing I did. All thank you very much, not
at all, sergeant. Just one thing I can't understand about
missus Gorman's little girl, Little Nancy. Can't quite understand why
she's gone. Doesn't seem to fit somehow. How do you
mean if you're gonna run off with a man, you
don't take your family along.
Speaker 4: Two fifteen pm we went door and talked with the neighbor,
Delma White. She told us the same story as Pearson.
From the two of them, we got the description DMV
furnished just with the license number of Ralph Kaine's car.
We checked further with Keane's friends, relatives, and his landlady.
No one had seen or heard from him since late Friday.
We searched the duplex where he lived, no leeds. We
went back to the office and checked Kane through R
and I. He had won arrest for petty theft. We
got out a broadcast and an APB on him. Lat night,
Ben and I drove out to see the husband and
father of the missing woman and youngster, Philip Gorman. He
was employed as a groundskeeper at one of the baseball
parks in the city.
Speaker 8: Pretty fair, it turned out tonight.
Speaker 4: Huh, Yeah, weather's cleared up a little.
Speaker 5: Bobby helped.
Speaker 8: Huh.
Speaker 6: Where's the groundkeeper shacked out.
Speaker 8: The end there? Yeah, you can't see it from here.
It's just below the end of the bleachers there.
Speaker 6: Oh, it's come out here very often, not as often
as i'd like to. He's down this way.
Speaker 7: Hey, watch your step for Joey's and mud butter.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I see it.
Speaker 10: Oh, sorry, you're allowed to get back in the stands.
You're not allowed down in the sand. Hurry, mister Gorman
fighting Ramaro you Yeah, sure, I didn't recognize you for
a minute.
Speaker 6: You got a few minutes. Mister Gormant would like to
talk to you if we could.
Speaker 10: We're sure right now if you're on you found out
something about the wife a little girl.
Speaker 6: No, it's there's nothing definite. We got a few questions.
We'd like to ask you.
Speaker 8: What's fine with me? I got nothing to do for
a couple of mornings. What's it all about?
Speaker 7: When we talked to you at your house the other day, Garman,
you remember me asking if you could think of any
reason why your wife and your little.
Speaker 5: Girls would disappeared like you did.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I remember, there's nothing like to think of, Sergeant.
Speaker 4: Would you recall us asking you if your wife might
have been interested in some other man, somebody she might
go off with.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I remember what I told you. I didn't think
that was it.
Speaker 4: Now, look, if you know something and you're not telling
us because you don't want to scandal, you can forget that, Garman,
because whatever you tell us is in the strict confidence.
Speaker 8: You know, I don't know what you're reading, Sergeant. I
told you everything I know, and we'll be honest with you. Garman.
We think you're trying to cover up. Well that's not true.
I don't have anything to cover up.
Speaker 6: We picked up some new information on your wife this afternoon.
Speaker 4: Well here she was pretty friendly with a man named
Ralph King, lives a few blocks in your house.
Speaker 6: Well here that you knew what was going on. You
and your wife Barbara had a row. You talk divorce,
how about it?
Speaker 10: Well, let's go inside the shack here. I don't get
away from some of this noise. Fine, sure, I hope
you don't mind it in here.
Speaker 8: It's a little dirty. I keep all the maintenance.
Speaker 6: Stuff in here.
Speaker 10: That's all right, Gleming. Now, how about Ralph King? Yeah, yeah,
I knew about it. It's like you said, all the scam.
I just didn't want to get out.
Speaker 6: Well, look, if you're going to hold out unless it's
not going to help much to find your wife a.
Speaker 10: Little good, I know, surgeon. I just didn't want people
to find out what a bum I married it.
Speaker 6: You know what.
Speaker 10: Some neighbors were like, I can't understand how happened. I
met the wife when I was in the army.
Speaker 6: We'll see.
Speaker 10: I brought her back out here. Everything was fine. After
the baby was born, she started to change. Nothing satisfies.
You be going to run around. I'm but a bum,
and I guess I found out too late. You know
it's Ralph Kane. What do you know about him? You
know his single guy works at the print shop downtown.
Pretty good looking, guy's got money to spend. It's all
Barbara cares about.
Speaker 7: What's your idea about her? You think Kane and your
wife have gone off to get it.
Speaker 6: I'll tell her the truth.
Speaker 8: I'm not sure.
Speaker 6: Maybe they did.
Speaker 10: I've been trying to check around them all. I'm not
getting very far. Only one thing I'm really worried about.
That's my little girl, Nancy. I don't care what my
wife does or how far she goes. I just want
my little girl by good.
Speaker 6: So wasn't you any idea at all where your wife
might have gone?
Speaker 10: Oh? None at all. She has no California too run.
She's only been out here here.
Speaker 4: You don't know any of Keane's friends, is hangouts or
the places you think he might go.
Speaker 10: I'd never eally met the guy, so I'm going to.
I know what he looks like, I'll meet him.
Speaker 7: There was just one more thing going. And if your
wife was set on running off with another man, why
did you take your little girl with her? He wasn't
too devoted to the baby on her hand.
Speaker 10: That's right. That's What's got me worried. The only thing
I can figure out is a wife hated me more
than I thought she knew that. I thought Nancy's about
the greatest thing alive. Guess rather and let me have her.
She took Nancy on.
Speaker 4: Was it possible she might drop the baby off as
I'm friend or relative and tell them to keep on.
Speaker 10: I've checked on that already. You got the names of
all the people we know. I'm sure they'd get in
touch with it if they had little.
Speaker 7: Devil check them anyhow. Now, does anything else comes up,
you let us know right away. All right, Sergey, It's
just a baby. That's all Nancy's as far as I'm concerned.
My wife never lived. Kind of hard to take him with,
Yes it is. I think you got the finest set
up in the world. Nice home, job, baby, good furniture,
everything you need, yeah, everything.
Speaker 8: But a wife.
Speaker 4: The search for the missing wife and the two year
old daughter went on the broadcasts and teletypes on Missus
Gorman and Ralph Kine failed to let us a thing.
Speaker 6: A week passed there were no leads. Another week went
by nothing.
Speaker 4: The half dozen replies we'd gotten on our teletype went nowhere.
Speaker 6: They were blind leaves.
Speaker 4: Wednesday, May FIP, we got a call from the manager
of an auto court in the south end of the city.
Speaker 6: He told us that a man, a woman and a
little girl.
Speaker 4: Answering the description of the missing trio had stopped at
his place the night before. Along with Jack McCready from Homicide,
Ben and I drove out and interviewed the man. We
showed him pictures of King, Missus Gorman, and two year
old Nancy. He identified all three. He could give us
no idea where they'd gone. We checked through the cottage
where they stayed.
Speaker 5: No, nothing.
Speaker 7: It's about as clean as you can get a little
something here, what's that o' here?
Speaker 6: Kid's picture book? Let's see. Yeah, take a look right here.
This book belongs to Nancy Gorman. Well, we know they
were here, that's about it. Yeah, Mac, where are you.
Speaker 5: All right?
Speaker 6: What did you got?
Speaker 8: Mayor?
Speaker 6: I have a look, where'd you find that?
Speaker 5: Poking around this trash barrel? Here? It's like part of
a little girl's dress. Huh, yeah, there's not much there.
Did you find the rest, Elley? Oh that's all there
is just that little collar.
Speaker 6: We take a look here, Ben, the stains right here
over here too. Yeah, what do you think may blood stains?
I'd say so.
Speaker 4: We drove back to the office, to the crime lab
and had Lee Jones run the stains on the dress.
He ran a benzadeine test and then a biological precipitin
the stains were made by human blood. Well, it still
didn't put us any closer to the missing child or
her mother.
Speaker 6: The search went on. We redoubled our efforts. No luck.
Another ten days passed.
Speaker 4: We had a few more responses to our all Points bulletin,
but none of them panned out.
Speaker 6: On May sixteenth, we got two more leads to check out.
They went nowhere. We got back to the office a
little after six pm.
Speaker 7: Better call mister Gorman after we check in. Keep him
off of our back. Yeah, I hate to keep telling
him the same thing.
Speaker 6: No word? Yeah, how about it? You call Gormant tonight?
Speaker 5: Uh, mac, let's Dylan got something for your sheriff substation
called East LA.
Speaker 6: What about the Gorman case.
Speaker 5: They found him another auto court right there in East
La Ralph Kine and Missus Gorman.
Speaker 6: They got him both under surveillance. How about the little girl, Nancy, Well,
that's a hitch. No sign of her.
Speaker 3: You are listening to dragnet authentic cases from official files.
Speaker 4: Saturday, May sixteenth, nine pm, along with Levinson McCready from Hamas,
Ben and I drove out to the Sheriff's substation in
the east end of the city. One of the deputy
sheriffs directed us to the motor court where Missus Barbara
Gorman and Ralph Kane were under surveillance. We found the
two of them in one of the rear cottages. There
was no trace of two year old Nancy Gorman. Levinson
and McCready took Ralph Kane out to the car to
interrogate him. Ben and I remained in the cottage with
Missus Gorman. She was a tall, blonde, thin faced and nervous.
She spoke with a decided accent. We questioned her for
more than two hours. We got nowhere.
Speaker 6: Why don't you sit down, Missus Gorman? Relax?
Speaker 9: How can anyone relax these questions?
Speaker 6: She have no right to do for this well, maybe
you haven't got it straight.
Speaker 4: Missus Gorman. This is a pretty important matter. We'd like
to find out about your little girl too.
Speaker 9: Do I don't know she ran away?
Speaker 6: Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 4: Now we've had ten different versions. You stopped at a
hotel in Nevada and she disappeared. You were in an
auto court in Bakersfield, she ran away during the night.
We've heard just about all of them. How about the truth?
Speaker 9: Told you everything? I'm going to tell you. I don't
know what's happened to the kit. She's gone, that's all
she's gone.
Speaker 6: An explanation for it? Where is she gone?
Speaker 9: She ran away? How many times do I have to
tell you? I left with Raf, who went out of
the city. After a few days, Nancy got lonesome. She
wanted to see her father, who were asleep one night,
and she ran away. It's all there is to it.
It's simple. Why can't you understand?
Speaker 4: Well, you're gonna have to do better than at Missus Garman. Now,
how about the truth? What happened?
Speaker 9: You can't keep me here all night? Where's Raf? I
want Raff?
Speaker 4: Why did you take the child with you in the
first place? Missus Garman, It's pretty obvious that she didn't
want her. Did king want you to take her along?
Speaker 9: Oh? No, he wanted me to leave her, just he
and I. That's all he wanted. Should have left her
there all this trouble questions, It's.
Speaker 6: An easy remedy, ma'am. What did you really do with
a little girl?
Speaker 9: She wanted off? The truth? We didn't know it. She
wanted off. We couldn't help it.
Speaker 6: How about the little dress? We found in that autocord
with dames on.
Speaker 9: The same questions. She always asked the same.
Speaker 6: Questions, What about the dress? Ma'am?
Speaker 9: Do I always have to repeat? I told you? Rap
got his hand he was shaving. It was just a
no dress or rag. Rap bandaged his hand with it.
Speaker 6: Well, usually wear bandages a while out. You don't just
throw him away.
Speaker 9: It was only a scratch. She didn't need the rag
very long.
Speaker 6: Quite a few stings on the dress man must have
been more than just a scratch.
Speaker 9: No, it's just a scratch. Can't you believe anything I say?
Speaker 6: No, not so far.
Speaker 9: Please? Can I go aside for a few minutes. I
have a headache. It's so hot in here?
Speaker 6: All right, Miss Gorman? Go ahead? Many thanks.
Speaker 9: The air is so good, terrible headache?
Speaker 6: You mind telling you something? Missus Garman, Please.
Speaker 9: Can't you let me alone for a minute?
Speaker 6: Why did you leave your husband him?
Speaker 9: Any woman would leave him?
Speaker 6: It's Rat.
Speaker 9: I love Rat and.
Speaker 6: Your little girl? What about her?
Speaker 9: My husband wanted her, not me. I'm just not like that.
I didn't want her in the first place. It was
a mistake, terrible mistake.
Speaker 4: Is that why you got rid of it? But that's
pretty obvious by this time, ma'am. When you left your husband,
you took your little girl along for Spike Kane didn't
wanter you found out you didn't either see you got.
Speaker 6: Rid of or NOAs that.
Speaker 9: I didn't say that putting words in my mouth. I
didn't say that at all.
Speaker 6: Joe Ben Yeah, might go here.
Speaker 5: Kein's giving us half the story. Shouldn't be too hard
to get the rest.
Speaker 9: It's a lie. There's no story to tell. Nancy ran away.
That's all we know.
Speaker 5: Mac Kaine says they tried some kind of a death packed.
He and missus Gorman here got in a room and
turned on a gas.
Speaker 9: He didn't tell you. He didn't tell you.
Speaker 5: Afraid, So ma'am, that's your boyfriend's story. What else make Well,
as I say, Kane and missus Gorman got in the
room agreed to end it all.
Speaker 6: They had a little girl with him in the room.
Well why was that?
Speaker 5: Kane says, he doesn't know. Seemed to simplify things having.
Speaker 6: A kid with him. Can tell you what happened?
Speaker 5: Yeah, they turned on the gas.
Speaker 9: No, no, never mind, miss Garman, never mind, you don't
have to say it.
Speaker 6: Do you want to tell us about it? Miss Garman?
Speaker 9: Yes, I'll tell you.
Speaker 6: Three am.
Speaker 4: We went back inside the cottage at the auto court.
We gave her a cigarette, and Barbara Gorman sat out
and told us the story. Four days after she'd left
with her two year old daughter and Ralph Kin. She
knew she'd made a mistake. She admitted that she never
should have taken the child. She said the little girl
seemed to be in their way all the time. Cain
was all for deserting the child or sending her back
to her father. Missus Gorman wouldn't agree to it, just
out of pure spite. One night in an auto court,
she and Kin had a big drinking party. They brooded
over the mixup that they'd gotten themselves into. Cain didn't
have any money to get married. He knew he'd lost
his job. Even if they could get married, Missus Gorman
wasn't sure she could get a divorce. Another full day
and night of drinking, and they decided on a lover's
death pack. They turned on the gas.
Speaker 7: I don't get it, missus Gorman. Why'd you have your
little girl in the room with you? Why didn't you
leave her with somebody, with anybody?
Speaker 9: Why she was mine? Wasn't she? I thought we could
go together, all three of us, but it didn't work
that way.
Speaker 6: Well what happened?
Speaker 9: We Raff and I woke up. Throats were burning, My
eyes were burning. Looked over Nancy. She wasn't moving. It
was just like she was asleep.
Speaker 6: Won't you do?
Speaker 9: Then we got in the car and left. We found
a nice place in the desert. There were nice flowers there.
We buried Nancy.
Speaker 6: How about you and Ralph Kin? You knew you were
in deeper? Why didn't you try it again?
Speaker 9: Oh? We did a couple of times. We loved each other,
the only thing we could do. But every time we tried,
we couldn't go through with it. We'd try, we never
could finish it. Raf got a job we were gonna
buy a gun. Tomorrow, we try again, and you.
Speaker 6: Show us where you buried your little girl.
Speaker 9: Yes, placed in the desert out New Palm Springs. It
was a nice place. There's lots of nice flowers around.
You understand, don't you. We were in love Ralph and I.
My husband wouldn't understand the way I loved Raf twas everything.
It was the whole world. Raff and I. I didn't
mean it that way. For Nancy. There's a mistake. You've
got to understand. I didn't mean it that way.
Speaker 6: That's the way it is.
Speaker 9: It doesn't matter. You can't hurt us, not Traff and I.
You can't take away what we've got. You'll never take
that away.
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 6: Do you want to get you cooked?
Speaker 9: Yes, it doesn't matter what happens. It's for half. I
don't care what they do. I'll keep on loving him
same way I love him Now, doesn't matter. We'll pay
for our mistakes.
Speaker 6: Yeh, lady, They're going to cost you.
Speaker 4: At five am, we put in a call for Lieutenant
Lee Jones and the crime lab crew in the corner.
When they arrived at the auto court, we drove to
the spot in the desert near Palm Springs, where Ralph
Kane and Missus Gorman pointed out the spot where they
buried Nancy. The body was uncovered at the exact spot
was taken back to town to the County Morgue, where
an autopsy was performed. Kane and Missus Gorman were booked
in suspicion of murder. By five o'clock that afternoon, we
had the results of the autopsy.
Speaker 5: Uh huh right, thank you bye.
Speaker 6: What's the story?
Speaker 5: Mah, not what we thought. I think Missus Gorman sold
us a bit of goods. Little girl didn't dine in a.
Speaker 6: Room full of gas? What the docs say?
Speaker 5: You found two bullet o's in the body.
Speaker 4: That night, after hours of interrogation, Ralph Kine and Missus
Barbara Gorman both broke down and confessed that they'd killed
the child in cold blood. They pleaded drunkenness that they
weren't responsible for their actions. They were returned to their
cells and held without bail. The child's father, Philip Gorman,
was notified the following morning.
Speaker 6: Ben and I accompanied him to the County Morgue. It's
this way, mister Gorman.
Speaker 4: Oh thanks, Are you sure you want to go through
with this, sir, mister Garland.
Speaker 10: Well, I might as well tell you the truth. I'm
not sure I do.
Speaker 6: It isn't going to help much, mister Gorman, believe me.
I just wanted to see it just once more. Yeah,
Well it doesn't work, wouldn't be the same, not the
way you remember.
Speaker 10: Just wanted to see it. I just wanted to find out.
What's it bottom mother, Ralph king, what is it that
can make them do it? Let me groce, he's only two.
What can make anybody do a thing like that?
Speaker 6: Your wife called it love?
Speaker 2: The story you have just heard was true, only the
names were changed to protect the innocent.
Speaker 3: On September tenth, the trial was held in Superior Court,
Department eighty nine, City and County of Los Angeles, State
of California. In a moment the results of that trial,
Missus Barbara Gorman and Ralph Donald Kin were tried and
convicted in Superior Court of murder in the first degree.
Missus Gorman was sentenced to life imprisonment. Kin received the
death penalty. He was executed at the State Penitentiary San Quentin, California.
Speaker 2: Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bill of Rights section of the
United States Constitution protects our freedom. Today that freedom is
endangered by tyranny and aggression. Every American must help make
our free government an example to all peoples by dedicating
himself to a constant active citizenship. Freedom needs you.
Speaker 3: 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 2: Stay tuned for Counterspy next over most NBC stations.
Speaker 1: Welcome back. This is one of those stories that, now
that I'm a dad, it just hits really differently, really hard.
What these two people did I don't have works, at
least not edifying works. The suicide pack story was bad enough,
but what actually happened was just horrific. The outcome speaks
to the reluctance of juries to give women the death penalty,
and that's the only explanation for why she would not
have been executed. On the production side, the opening lighthearted scene.
Speaker 11: I'm sure I've heard before.
Speaker 1: I'm just not sure where. I thought that it was
the big pair, but I wanted to listen to that,
and it had a different wedding related opener. The one
odd part of this episode was where Joe Friday's narration
told us the woman spoke with a heavy accent. That's
one of those things that you shouldn't have to include
a narration that should be obvious in an audio production
and kind of irrelevant if you were doing the drag
Net TV thing where they occasionally did, where you'll just
show them talking but not actually show the sound and
have Friday summarize what said. The accent that she used
is actually kind of vaguely European than anything I can
specifically identify. Maybe it was out of some sensitivity to
issues with making it too specific given the nature of
the crime. You had many displaced persons in the world,
and many who had immigrated to the United States or
wanted to immigrate to the United States, so highlighting a
specific nationality may have been something they wanted to avoid.
Listener comments and feedback Now, Christopher Rights love not bet
been listening since nineteen eighty five, and now to your podcast.
Thank you Adam, Well, thank you Christopher. Really to appreciate
your support and you're listening to the podcast, and we
have some comments regarding the episode the Big Run Dawn Rights.
It may just be my point of view, but fifty
eight is an elderly in regard to the age of
the one of the victims. Come on, Joe and Naomi.
Joe says, Dawn, you beat me to it. I had
to rewind to check i'd heard it correctly. Mcke Mechanic
sixty six pointed out, maybe not, but Jack Webb died
at sixty one. People tend to live longer. No, although
lifespan for Americans is on a downward trajectory. I think
it's an interesting point and always want to be careful
and sensitive to my audience. A lot of people, you know,
you hear your own age described as elderly. You gotta
go ay.
Speaker 2: I do think that.
Speaker 1: To expand on what Mechanics sixty six said, life was
harder in the past. The further you go back and
you don't have to go back to this era. There
have been many points about how actors used to look older.
You can go as recent as the first season of Seinfeld.
Jason Alexander was twenty nine when he filmed that first season.
Does not look twenty nine. Apologies to mister Alexander, but
at least not like a modern twenty nine year old,
and it's even more stark one I saw compared Carol
O'Connor at the age he started doing all in the
family to Paul Rudd, much older than O'Connor was then.
And while there might be some Hollywood magic involved, even
looking at non celebrity photos through the family albums, people
just looked older. And I think life took more of
a toll it. You tended to have more people who
were involved in hard physical labor, and there were so
many things about diet and the way we took care
of ourselves, and then just the things that people had
been through. If you were a fifty eight year old
woman in nineteen fifty one, you were born in eighteen
ninety three, you'd been through two world wars and a
great depression, and who knows what other hardships and that
will age a body. And we actually had a really
good episode of the Old Time Radio Snack Wagon we
did with a couple of commentaries and stories by that
great storyteller John Nesbitt about how life had become far
more easy and convenient and healthy in the time between
when he'd been a boy back towards the turn of
the century and the nineteen forties and it's been an
even more dramatic turn since then. And you know people
will say things like the your forties or the new thirties,
or your sixties or the new forties. Well, there had
to be an old thirties and an old forties, and
I will say that whether fifty eight would be considered
elderly or not, I remember growing up in the eighties
and into the nineties that there were restaurants where the
senior menu was something you got when you were fifty five,
and I actually figured out and told my dad how
many years until he could get the senior discount. He
was not pleased at the prospect, but it was a
different time, and whether he was technically correct or not,
even then, I think that it was something that could
have had some merit. Also on Spotify Mechanics sixty six Rights,
once again, Joe Friday makes an arrest that any competent
defense attorney would have been able to get thrown out
for an illegal search. If you have to clean the
window to see inside the garage, it's not in plain sight,
and we know they would never have lied about that
in court. Well, I appreciate the comment. The thing is,
when it comes to questioning the legality of Friday's actions.
They're often based on modern interpretations of the case law.
The criminal case law in regards to criminal procedure, arrest,
due process, and the interpretation of the Fourth Amendment is
something that has evolved over time, and we also have
to keep in mind while the Dragnet episodes were released
in nineteen fifty one, the cases they were based on
could have occurred many years prior at the time of
Dragnets in nineteen fifty one, the controlling case regarding the
exclusion of illegally obtained evidence was the nineteen forty nine
case Wolf versus Colorado, in which they found the exclusionary rule,
which they had applied to the federal government since nineteen fourteen,
was only adopted by seventeen states, thirty others had rejected it,
and that it was not a departure from the basic
standards of due process to allow states to introduce illegally
obtained evidence in state trials. This would not be overturned
until nineteen sixty one, or ten years after this episode aired.
So if this story happened in nineteen sixty one rather
than nineteen fifty one or before, yeah, it would get
thrown out in state court, but it didn't now Dragnet
did acknowledge when laws changed, although not often in a
supportive manner. One of the last radio episodes of Dragnet,
The Big Ruling, has fried a non due halp with
evidence being thrown out as a result of a new
ruling he hadn't kept up on, and subsequent Dragnet seasons
when the series returned in the nineteen sixties, showed how
criminals were able to take advantage of loopholes. In the
nineteen sixty six Dragnet TV movie, many viewers resonated and
still resonate with his quirk in the law speed. Yet
the Dragnet universe, I guess, if you want to call it,
could also be a bit more balanced in terms of
what is the duty of the policeman. It is the
duty to follow the law as it exists. One of
my favorite episodes of Adam twelve was called The Dinosaur,
and it is about a police officer who had been
amazing and heroic and had actually been someone that the
hero of Adam twelve Malloy looked up to, but he
had been injured in a lone of duty and he
spent eight years out of the force and came back.
But when he came back, he was stuck in the
old ways he had been doing things, and as a result,
criminals got led off and a woman nearly died as
a result. And at this point molloy had kind of
emerged in more of a leadership role, not a sergeant left.
But he just told the guy to pack it in.
He said, people need to grow with change, and you
didn't have that chance. It illustrated the degree to which
police procedures and the expectations of them in their jobs
had changed over the few years as a result of
various court rules, and I guess, as an aside, that
also might be one reason why the nineteen fifties Dragnet
kind of disappeared from circulation. One of the appeals of
Dragnet was that it showed the police and action how
they worked, but when how they worked had change radically.
You also, of course, did have the appeal of the
color episodes, but it made sense, probably to stop syndicating
the show. It is fair to question whether an arrest
today would have been allowed, or whether the evidence would
be thrown out today or even a few years after
the fact, but the fact is that it probably would
not have been thrown out in nineteen fifty one because
the exclusionary rule was not operative in most states in
the Union. Now it's time to think our Patreon supporter
of the day, and I want to go ahead and
thank Robert Patreon on supporter since August 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, Robert, 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, be sure to lock the video, subscribe
to the channel, and mark the notification bell. Join us
back here next Thursday for another episode of Dragnant, and
next Monday, be sure and listen for Danger with Granger.
But join us back here tomorrow for yours truly, Johnny Dollarware.
Speaker 12: I take it you and your husband haven't been too
happy together recently. We haven't.
Speaker 11: That's why I'm not sitting around moping and moaning and
weeping over his passion.
Speaker 12: And you have no idea what might have happened to us?
Speaker 11: No, that is yes, well that is unless he got
drowned or something like that on one of his silly
fishing expeditions. So unless someone found out how much money
he was playing and killed him for that.
Speaker 12: He took a great deal of money with him, yes,
he always did.
Speaker 11: How much, missus Halford, He never told me, but it
was thousands of dollars and may be sure of that.
Speaker 12: He left here in Sebruary.
Speaker 11: Yes, the weather was too cold in Florida, too cold
all along the Atlantic postly so that's what he said
in his regular weekly postpod. So he tried up in Alabamondon, Tennessee,
and then Kentucky and then have a nosewhere. Then in
April he's come back here. How long he was here,
I don't know. I was in Fort Wayne.
Speaker 12: For a few days. Then how do you know he
was here at all?
Speaker 11: They moved one of the kids in the living room
to get to the floor safe to get some more
money to waste on fishing.
Speaker 12: Well, how do you know he was going fishing again?
Speaker 11: Because of the nod he left and the big freezer
with the fish he brought back to put into it.
Speaker 12: Oh, may I see that note? I don't know.
Speaker 11: Why not it's the making prisons here done in Fort
Wayne and willing.
Speaker 12: To saw it to you. And you're sure your husband
left no clue what's the way he was going.
Speaker 11: I'm very sure, mister Dallas, my husband is dead.
Speaker 12: The word I would have heard from it.
Speaker 11: You're doing nothing but wasting your time here, my time.
I told everything I knowed police over and over again.
If you think you can accomplish more than they have,
why don't you go down there and talk with the tenant.
Speaker 1: BAS hope you'll be with us then in the meantime,
send your comments to Box thirteen at Great Detectives, lot It,
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. Sign and off.