Speaker 1: Welcome to the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio from
Voice Idaho. This is your host, Adam Graham. In a moment,
we're going to bring you this week's episode of Dragnet.
But first I do want to encourage you. If you're
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Detectives dot net. But now, from March twenty seventh, nineteen
fifty two, here is the Big Rose.
Speaker 2: The story you were about to hear is true. The
names have been changed to protect the innocent. You're a
detective sergeant. You're assigned a homicide detail. A thirty eight
year old woman disappears. She leaves her sister and her
four children behind. There's evidence of foul play. Your job
find her.
Speaker 3: Drag mat the documented drama of an actual crime. For
the next thirty minutes, in cooperation with the Los Angeles
Police Department, you will travel step by step on the
side of the law through an actual case transcribed from
official police violence, from beginning to end, from crime to punishment.
Dragnet is the story of your police force in action.
Speaker 4: It was Monday, June third, was overcast in Los Angeles.
We were working the day watch out of homicide detail.
My partner's aid, Jacob's the boss's that brown, Chief of detectives.
My name is Friday. I was on the way back
from communications and it was eight fifteen am when I
got to Room forty two homicide. Joe, let's do I Brian?
You seen Ed went all a minute, said he'd be
right by. Oh thank you. I don't see anything in
the book. Nothing new, huh, not much pretty slow.
Speaker 5: Now's your mother, Joe? Or she wasn't feeling too well?
Speaker 4: No, she's not. As a matter of fact, doctor says
to anemia. It's gonna take a little time to get
over it. I guess I'm sorry to hear it. I
gotta do some checking down at the auto desk.
Speaker 5: If I get any calls, I hadn't to switch it
down there with you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, sure will, Brian, thanks you bet you? Oh, excuse
me for.
Speaker 5: Me, Tom all right?
Speaker 4: Ed, what'd they give you?
Speaker 5: Missing report? Woman? How about the Ma'm no.
Speaker 4: It's nothing, not the missing report there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's all here. Someone out on sixty fourth Street
names Rose Baker. It's been gone about a week.
Speaker 4: Last scene Tuesday, May twenty seven pm. Who's this? It
made the report Carl Shelton, Who's he's her boyfriend.
Speaker 5: Miss Baker's husband died about five years ago. It's been
running around quite a bit since then. Had a lot
of man trouble.
Speaker 4: She disappeared before then.
Speaker 5: Huh yeah, half dozen times. Never been gone this long though.
Holmes took this report from Shelton. He gathered Miss Baker's
not too stable. She's going to drink quite a bit.
Doesn't see to care anything for her home or kids.
Speaker 4: Seeing here she has four children. They're living with her aunt,
missus Baker's sister. It's kind of a funny arrangement in there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Baker. Woman packed her bags and walked out of
the house about a year ago. Her sister's been taking
care of the kids ever since. My mother comes back
for a visit once in a while.
Speaker 4: Miss address we've got on missus Baker. It's the same
address as her boyfriend, Carl Shelton.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right. They both have apartments in the same building.
Speaker 4: This a recent picture of miss Baker supposed to.
Speaker 5: Be Yeah, nice looking woman.
Speaker 4: Huh. Sister's listed here as the last person who saw Well,
how's that Baker?
Speaker 5: Woman?
Speaker 4: Still wasn't living at home, was she?
Speaker 5: According to the sister, missus Baker came over to the
house to see her the night she disappeared, sometime around
eight o'clock. Two of them had some business to talk over.
Seems the sister had a check for four hundred dollars
she got from selling some furniture. Claimed the kids had
been sick, she had doctor bills to pay.
Speaker 4: Missus Baker's sister took care of things to that extent.
Speaker 5: Apparently, anyway, after the sister got the check for selling
the furniture, Miss Baker wanted half the money. Sister said,
that's why she came to see her that night. Two
of them got in the car and went out to
find somebody to cash a check.
Speaker 4: One drink of water, no, no thanks, Then you get
a four hundred dollar check cash at eight o'clock at night?
Speaker 5: Would you know, sister sitting miss Dickon, did somebody good
cash at farm? Turned out the person couldn't cash it.
Sister stopped at the bar for glass of beer as
a Baker took a car and went to look up
somebody else she thought could cash it. That was it.
Miss Baker hadn't been seen since.
Speaker 4: Who was is somebody else?
Speaker 5: Well? I did? Sister claimed she doesn't know. Miss Baker
didn't tell her.
Speaker 4: Sounds like missus Baker wanted the whole check, wouldn't you say?
Speaker 5: That's what the sister figured, and Miss Baker didn't come back.
She finished the glass of beer, left the barn, started
walking home. Two blocks from the house, she found her
car park and it was time to Miss Baker. Car
keys were in the glove compartment. So it's a sister's
share of the money. Two hundred dollars in cash.
Speaker 4: Well, how about the firm that issued the check? They
get it back canceled?
Speaker 5: Yeah, a couple of days ago. Miss Baker's endorsement on
the back.
Speaker 4: Yeah sounds pretty wild, isn't it.
Speaker 5: The whole thing does talk to half dozen people who
saw miss Baker that night. None of their stories gibed
Hony mean. Her boyfriend, Carl Shelton, he claims Miss Baker
told him she was going out of town for a
few days with a girlfriend.
Speaker 4: They check it out.
Speaker 5: Yeah, girlfriend didn't know anything about it. Then they talked
to a woman who works with Miss Baker. She said, yeah,
the Baker woman was planning a trip. Miss Baker mentioned
anything about it to her sister. No, sister said, Miss
Baker told her just the opposite, said she was getting
out of her apartment into a new place. She's going
to spend the next couple of days moving. They checked
the boyfriend. Shelton said, if Miss Baker was moving was
new to him.
Speaker 4: Either she's a liar or one of her friends are huh.
Speaker 5: It's all Baltic stuff. No two stories anywhere near like, what.
Speaker 4: Do they figure for a motive? They got a line
on anybody who might have wondered out of the.
Speaker 5: Way, big field to pick from. She fought with Carl Shelton,
she fought with his sister, some of the people she
worked with. She had three four other men around town
on the string too. Any one of them could have
wanted her out of the way.
Speaker 4: All our relative has been checked out, all our friends
places she'd be most likely to go.
Speaker 5: I'll check not a trace of or nothing.
Speaker 4: I guess we better start moving on. It a lot
of ground to cover. See if we can't straighten out
some of those stories.
Speaker 5: One thing's sure, somebody's Lyne.
Speaker 4: Eight thirty five am. Before we left the City Hall,
we checked with Sergeant Holmes and Missing Persons who had
taken the report on Rose Baker's disappearance. He had nothing
to add to what was in the report with what
he'd already told ed. First on the interview list was
the sister of the missing woman, Bernice Maron. She was
employed as a saleswoman for a grocery supply firm. We
called at the home where Miss Maron lived with her
four nieces and nephews, but there was no answer. The
next door neighbor told us that Miss Marron was working,
that she usually didn't get home until four or fifteen
or four thirty in the afternoon. In the meantime, we
figured we might as well check the next name on
the list, Missus Baker's boyfriend, Carl Shelton. We'd already checked
him through our and I and he had no record.
We drove out to his address, a three story apartment
house on sixty fourth Street. Shelton's apartment was on the
main floor rear. He answered the door in his bathrobe
and slippers. He told us that he was employed at
one of the local oil refineries, and that this particular
week he was working the graveyard shift eleven at night
until seven in the morning. He showed us back to
a small kitchen at the rear of the apartment. While
we questioned him, he fixed a percolator of coffee and
put it on the stove.
Speaker 5: You're sure about miss Baker's plans are and she never
mentioned anything to you about moving out of the apartment
house here, you know.
Speaker 6: And never somebody's handing you a line there. If Rosie
was going to move, she'd tell me about it.
Speaker 5: This minute.
Speaker 6: I gotta get that coffee.
Speaker 5: Looks about that?
Speaker 6: He always watch some java.
Speaker 4: Got an old potfully, Yeah, Noah, and I'll thank you.
How long did you say you've known miss Baker?
Speaker 6: About a year year and a half. You got along
pretty good, she'd right from the start. Sure don't understand
her taken off like this.
Speaker 4: Miss Baker ever talked to you much about the family,
her sister, four children. I mean, did you see them regularly?
Seemed to get along with them allright to you.
Speaker 6: I don't think i'd know that. Rosie never had much
to say about him. The only thing I could gather
was that she just got sick of the routine, you know,
keeping up a house, doing the wash, mopping dust, and
taking care of four kids.
Speaker 5: She just checked out.
Speaker 6: That's all her sister beniee takeover. You ask me. She
never should have had a family to begin with. Rosie
isn't the kind. She's a party girl, likes a good time,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Something I don't understand.
Speaker 5: Shelton.
Speaker 4: You said a minute ago you couldn't figure out miss
Baker's going off like this when you filed a missing
report on her. You said she was planning a trip
out of town.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4: Well, isn't it possible she might have taken off without
telling you? No, I don't think so.
Speaker 6: She'd have told me she's planning a trip, all right,
But she wasn't going to leave till the next night,
Wednesday night. She's going to pick up this girlfriend of hers, Iris,
and the two of them were going to take the
bus down to Laguna for a couple of days.
Speaker 4: Well, it's our understanding this girlfriend Iris didn't know anything
about the trip. Can you explain that?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 6: I guess Rosie forgot to tell her. I can't figure
these women sometimes. Maybe she was gonna phone her Wednesday morning.
She knew Iris could get away almost anytime.
Speaker 5: And you think it's possible she might have gone down
to Laguna by herself.
Speaker 6: No, that's not like Rosie. Besides, before I went in
a reporter missing, I called a couple of places down
Laguna where Rosie usually stops that they hadn't seen her.
Speaker 5: Possible she might have gone some other place.
Speaker 6: No, without telling me. No, desides, she wouldn't go alone.
I know that, Sheldon.
Speaker 4: We understand missus Baker was friendly with two or three
other men around town. You think it's possible she might
have gone someplace with one of them.
Speaker 6: Sheldon, No, No, I can't buy that. If it was
eight months ago, i'd say maybe, but not not.
Speaker 4: Why not?
Speaker 6: We had it out, that's all, it was all settled.
She wouldn't do anything like that. Again, pretty sure about that?
I am yeah, positive. I didn't get it at all.
She wouldn't do that. To me and off just packing
up and leaving. Rosie wouldn't do that to me. She's
got four children. Yeah, she did it to them.
Speaker 4: We questioned Carl Shelton for another half hour, but he
failed to come up with anything in the way of
a definite lead. Ten forty a m. We drove to
the home of the missing woman's girlfriend and Iris Kirby.
Two things she was pretty definite about. She knew nothing
about an out of town trip Missus Baker was supposed
to have planned for the two of them, and secondly,
she had no use for Carl Shelton. She told us
that Shelton was her ex boyfriend and that she had
introduced him to Rose Baker, and that shortly after that
he dropped her. A few weeks later, Shelton began to
keep steady company with Missus Baker. Outside of her personal
grievance against Shelton, Iris Kirby had nothing to offer in
the way of a lead to the whereabouts of her friend.
Eleven thirty a m. We got in the car and
headed for the factory in the south end of town
where Rose Baker was employed. We stopped off in the
way for lunch, a bowl of soup and a sandwich.
Had had a cheeseburger and a piece of pie before
we left. We checked the office to see if there
were anny calls. Nothing. The place where missus Baker worked
was on Santa Fe Avenue, a one story building covering
almost half a block. They manufactured men's work clothes, shirts,
and overalls. We checked with a personnel office. We asked
if Rose Baker had any friends that she worked with.
We were told that there was a Mildred Dunn who
was a fairly close friend of the Baker. Woman ed
and I waited in the office while they sent down
to the plant for Mildred Dunn.
Speaker 5: Miss Dunn, that's right, police officers. My name's Jacobs. Is
my partner starting Friday.
Speaker 7: How do you do are you?
Speaker 4: I'd like to ask a few questions about Rose Baker,
missus Dunn. I understand you're pretty close friend to hers.
Speaker 8: Yes, that's right. I've known Rose ever since she came here.
She worked on the machine next to me.
Speaker 5: She come home yet No, not yet. You remember miss
Baker saying anything you about taking a trip, Miss done
mean just before she disappeared.
Speaker 9: Yes, she did. She'd been looking forward to it.
Speaker 8: That's probably where she is, don't you think off on
her trip?
Speaker 4: Oh we don't know, ma'am. Did you mention anything definite
about the trip to you? Where she was going when
she was leaving, Well, I.
Speaker 8: Think she was going to Laguna Beach.
Speaker 9: It's hard to tell.
Speaker 8: She's always kidding around, Rose is. Once she said she
was going to fly to Switzerland for a vacation, Sam Fritz.
She's always kidding around like that. Oh, that's so like
Once when she had a date with Fred, she said
she was going to the pump room in Chicago, you know,
just being funny.
Speaker 4: I see who is this Fred? Missus dune fell.
Speaker 8: In the shipping department. Fred Lyons nice fella.
Speaker 4: He and Missus Baker so much of each other.
Speaker 8: They used to, yes, quite a bit. I don't know
if they were serious about each other. I thought they
were till a last month or so. Maybe they had
a tip or something. Maybe Rose got tired of him.
Speaker 5: I don't know, but you do to think the two
of 'em were serious at one time.
Speaker 8: Oh yes, it wasn't more than a month ago, and
all of a sudden they weren't sweet on each other.
Least Rose wasn't about him.
Speaker 9: She told me that I guess we.
Speaker 4: Better check on him.
Speaker 8: Ed.
Speaker 4: Is this Fred Lyons working to day? Do you know?
Speaker 8: Ma'am?
Speaker 10: Oh?
Speaker 8: No, he quit last Tuesday.
Speaker 4: One fifteen pm. We finished questioning, Mildred done and we
went back to the personnel office to get Fred Lyons's
description the last known address. We checked out the address,
but Lyons had moved out the previous Tuesday and left
no forwarding address. We questioned the landlady, looked over his rooms,
checked through the neighborhood, and talked to everybody he knew.
We found nothing to indicate that Lyons had anything directly
to do with Rose Baker's disappearance, but we did find
out that he knew missus Baker and that he thought
quite a bit of her. We went back to the office.
Gott a broadcast and an apb on Lions.
Speaker 5: I want to check the book, Josie. If we got
any light calls?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, right, homicide Jacob, that's right? All I sure?
Where was that? All right? Thank you got something? Yeah?
Hollywood Division, woman's purse fond the bacont lot out there,
high school kid founded a lot of identification inside. Yeah,
Rose Baker. Three point fifteen pm.
Speaker 4: The purse was brought downtown to the crime lab for
detailed examination. Brian and Barrett from Homicide went out to
interview the boy who found the purse and to check
the neighborhood where it was discovered. Meantime, Ed and I
drove out to talk to the missing woman's sister, thirty
six years old, Bernie Marrin. She and her sister's four
children lived in a five room stuck out house just
off Exposition Boulevard. We got there shortly after Miss Maron
returned home her job. Her two older nephews were out
in front cutting the lawn. She showed us into a
neatly kept living room where we interviewed her. She was
a plain looking woman, brown haired, gray eyes. She showed
little concern about her sister's disappearance.
Speaker 11: I gave up trying to keep track of her a
long time ago. Sorry, and I haven't any idea where
she's gone. I used to worry about her.
Speaker 5: I don't you know how about that person of hers
that was found the sapronym Miss Mariam. Wouldn't you say
that makes it a little unusual?
Speaker 9: An I don't think so. She loses things all the time.
I don't know what she does.
Speaker 11: When she goes off of those things. I don't want
to know. It's drunk and does a lot of fooling around.
I suppose she's lost two or three persons the same way.
Speaker 4: What about last Tuesday, the night she disappeared, you know,
so she'd been bringing in.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I got the idea she'd had a couple of
highballs before she came over. She wasn't drunk, but she
wasn't feeling any pain. I will say, would you excuse me?
I want to yell with the kids out there? Yes,
ma'am right right, that's enough of that playing around out there.
Speaker 9: Let's decided person that lawn more.
Speaker 2: Huh okay, no.
Speaker 9: Better, hurry up. You still got the backyard, you do, remember?
Speaker 1: Yah?
Speaker 11: Well, a good thing that came out of that married
sergeant throws kids out there. There's two more besides Frank
and Bobby. The girls, my nieces. One's nine, one, seven,
marvelous kids. Girls are just as pretty as pictures. I'm
glad I have a chance to take care of them.
I guess I just like kids. I can't understand it
when people don't appreciate them. I don't have a family
of my own.
Speaker 4: Oh, I see, miss Marin, when you were with your
sister last Tuesday night, you say she didn't mention anything
at all about taking that trip out of town.
Speaker 9: No, just the opposite.
Speaker 11: Like I told you, she said she was moving out
of her apartment into a new place. That's why she
needed the money.
Speaker 3: M m.
Speaker 5: Well, what's the story about this money your sister came
to pick up, Miss Mann. I don't think I quite
got that clear.
Speaker 11: Well, we had this baby grand piano my mother gave
Rose to me just before she died. Kids have been
sick the last couple of months, one thing and another.
I needed a little money to catch up on some
doctor bills, so I sold the piano and I needed
to do it, but the bills had to be paid.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 11: Rose found out about it somehow, and she wanted half
of the money I got for the piano. She wanted
the money for herself, and she wasn't even willing to
pay for her own kids doctor bills.
Speaker 9: It'd be different if I was charging her to take
care of the kids.
Speaker 4: I just do it because I like them.
Speaker 11: Well, anyway, she found out about it and I had
to split the check with her.
Speaker 9: The whole thing was for four hundred dollars.
Speaker 5: I understand your sister got the check cash that night.
Speaker 9: That correct, Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 11: It was eight o'clock at night. But Rose said she
knew somebody who'd cash it. She wanted the money that
night and save an argument. We got in the car
and went to see this friend of hers, some bartender.
He couldn't cash the thing, so Rose took the car
and went out to look up another friend she thought
would cash it. I didn't want to go chasing all
over town with her, so I stayed at this bar
and had a beer.
Speaker 3: M hm.
Speaker 4: And that's the last time you saw your sister's Yes.
Speaker 11: I waited a couple of hours, and then I walked home.
With two blocks from the house. I saw my car
pulled up the curb right on Exposition Boulevard. Car keys
were in the glove compartment, two hundred dollars in cash
right under them.
Speaker 9: No sign of Rose, though.
Speaker 5: Well, what time was it when he got back to
the house.
Speaker 11: You remember, it was after eleven It close to eleven thirty.
Speaker 9: I think I went right to Ben And.
Speaker 4: Since that time, you've had no indication where your sister
might have gone, No form calls, no letters, no word
from one of her friends who might have seen.
Speaker 9: No, not a thing. She's in trouble.
Speaker 11: You can't understand why I'm coming for a long time,
last five years, going downhill all the time.
Speaker 9: She's no good, sergeant. I don't know how it happened.
Just no good at all.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much, Miss Barren.
Speaker 4: Thank you, ma'am.
Speaker 9: Oh, not at all. No trouble. Yes, I'd better get
dinner started for the kids.
Speaker 4: Well, if you hear anything about your sister, we'd appreciate it.
If you give us a call.
Speaker 11: Yes, all right, it's going to be the same old story,
same thing all over again.
Speaker 9: You can bet on it, ma'am.
Speaker 11: She'll come back when the money's gone.
Speaker 4: Five point fifteen pm, ED and I drove back downtown
and went directly to the crime lab. The missing woman's purse,
which had been found in the vacant lot out in Hollywood,
had been examined thoroughly. They'd found nothing that had provided
us with a new lead. We checked communications, but there
was still no answer to the APB we'd gotten out
on Fred Lyons, the man who'd worked with Rose Baker
and who dropped from sight the same day she did.
Thirty pm. We got back to the squadroom.
Speaker 5: Hi, I'm Brian. You just get back. Yeah, you get
the word. No, what's that missus Baker? They just found
her body.
Speaker 3: You are listening to dragnet authentic stories of your police
force in action.
Speaker 4: June third, Monday, six pm, the body of thirty eight
year old Rose Baker had been discovered in the Hollywood
Hills area, approximately three fourths of a mile from the
intersection of Mulholland Drive and oaknol Terrace. A dirt road
branched off to the left of Mulholland and wound about
three hundred yards down the hill to a dead end stop.
Just below the guardrail which circled the edge of the road.
There were two eucalyptus trees. They overlooked a deep ravine
covered with scrub oak and patches of laurel. Halfway down
one slope of the ravine they found the body of
the missing woman. There were two bullet holes in the
left side of the skull. There was another one at
the base of the throat. In her clenched right hand.
There was a fifty cent piece. The immediate area surrounding
the body had been roped off and Lieutenant Lee Jones
and the crime lab crew were making their preliminary investigation.
There was no sign of the murder weapon. The coroner arrived,
and when the preliminary investigation was completed, the body was
taken downtown to the County Morgue. All clothing and personal
effects were removed from the body and sent to the
crime lab for detailed examination. Rose Baker's sister, Bernice Meron,
was brought to the County Morgue and identified the body.
A few minutes after ten o'clock that night, ed and
I got back to the office.
Speaker 12: I got it.
Speaker 4: I'm side Friday, is it, Sergeant Friday? Yeah, sir, that's right.
Speaker 12: This is Carl Shelton.
Speaker 5: Sergeant.
Speaker 6: You were out to talk to me this morning.
Speaker 4: You remember, Oh yeah, Sheldon, I heard about Rosie.
Speaker 12: Just a couple of minutes ago.
Speaker 10: I got to talk to you, Sergeant.
Speaker 12: I gotta tell you.
Speaker 5: Was that?
Speaker 4: So do you want to tell me now?
Speaker 6: I don't want to tell you on the phone.
Speaker 10: I'll drive in to see you.
Speaker 12: I'll leave right now.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, all right, do you mind telling me what
it's about?
Speaker 12: Yeah?
Speaker 10: I know who killed Rosie?
Speaker 4: Eleven oh eight pm Karl Shelton arrived at the office
ed and I took him down the hall to the
interrogation room, where he gave us his story. He told us,
first of all, that he was well acquainted with most
of the regular customers at the tavern where Rose Baker
and her sister had first stopped to cash the four
hundred dollars check. He told us one of these people,
Leroy Hanson, had contacted him after he read in the
morning paper about Missus Baker's murder.
Speaker 6: I've known Larroy at least four or five years. He
used to work with him. He wouldn't lie to me.
Speaker 5: What this pellattas Shelton, that's Leroy Hanson. He said.
Speaker 6: He got to the bar a little after midnight. Hadn't
be at least that because Leroy doesn't get off work
to eleven thirty. Said he saw Rosie sitting in a
car parked a couple of doors down from the bar.
There was a woman in the car with her. He
described her just like Rosie's sister. They were having a
beef and.
Speaker 4: His friend of yours here what missus Baker and this
woman were talking about.
Speaker 6: No, but he's smart enough to know a big argument
when he sees one, he says, they were really going
to it? Is he sure about the time? He's got
to be. Larroy works at a sheet metal plants south
of town. He gets off at eleven thirty, takes him
more than a half hour to get in. Why should
he lie about it. He wasn't even gonna mention it
till he found out she was dead.
Speaker 5: This woman, he says, Miss Baker was with She fits
her sister's description that.
Speaker 6: Close exactly, and there was a guy with Leroy.
Speaker 4: He'll back it up.
Speaker 6: If the sister says she wasn't sitting in that car
with Rosie outside that bar after midnight, she's a liar,
well she is.
Speaker 4: If you can prove your story.
Speaker 6: Here's the phone you asked Learroi.
Speaker 4: Eleven twenty two pm. We put in calls to both
of the men who were supposed to have seen Rose
Baker and her sister Bernice sitting in a parked car
outside the tavern six nights before. Both of them corroborated
Carl Shelton's story down to the last detail. They were
especially certain about the time. Bernice Marron told us that
on the night her sister Rose disappeared, she hadn't seen
her after nine fifteen PM, and that she had walked
home and was in bed by eleven thirty. Both Leroy
Hanson and his friend told us that they had seen
Rose Baker and a woman answering her sister's description sitting
together in a car parked outside the tavern. They were
both certain at the time that it was well past midnight.
We made a check on Leroy Hanson and his friend.
As far as we were able to find out, there
was no logical reason why they should lie about what
they'd told us. Ed and I got in the car
and drove out to the home of Bernice Maron, just
off Exposition Boulevard. It was twenty minutes past midnight. We
rang the front doorbell and got her out of bed.
Speaker 9: Oh officers and then who it was? Come in?
Speaker 5: Thank you man?
Speaker 11: Oh, you have to wait long before I answered, I
sleep pretty sound.
Speaker 5: Would have to ask you to get dressmas Maren like
to talk to you downtown.
Speaker 4: Why what's the matter, Well, some more questions we have
to ask you, ma'am. A few more things we have
to clear up about your sister. It's pretty important.
Speaker 11: I've told you everything I know. I don't like to
go out and leave the kids alone at night. What
is it you want to ask me about?
Speaker 4: Well, you told us the last time you saw your
sister was about nine fifteen last Tuesday night, and it's marya.
Speaker 9: Yes, that's right.
Speaker 4: We've got a couple of people who claim they saw
you with your sister after midnight Tuesday. You were sitting
with her in your car parked outside of tavern. You're
having an argument with her. At least two people saw
you and they'll swear to that.
Speaker 9: No, that couldn't be right. They said it was after
midnight and they saw me.
Speaker 4: Yes, ma'am, that's what they say.
Speaker 9: And do you believe it? You believe it was me?
Speaker 4: Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 9: We do you think I killed Rose? Said it?
Speaker 4: Yes, ma'am. We think so. How about it, miss marn It'll.
Speaker 11: Take me a minute to get my clothes on. I
want to talk to the oldest boy man if you, Frank,
But it'll be all right.
Speaker 4: I'll have to go along with you, all right, this.
Speaker 9: Way down the hall in here. I don't want to
wake the other kids fighting helping, all right, Frank.
Speaker 7: Wake up, Frank, Frankie, what do you want as I
hate to wake you up, Frankie, I'm gonna have to
go downtown tonight. I'm leaving now in case I'm not
here when you and.
Speaker 9: The kids get up. I want you to take care
of everything, all right, honey.
Speaker 12: Okay, what do.
Speaker 7: You have to go downtown for it?
Speaker 11: Well, it's something about your mother. Frank might take a
little time. You see the girls get off to school
on time in the morning, won't you, Bobby too. The
sandwiches are all made, they're in the ice box. All
you have to do is put them in a paper sack.
Speaker 9: All right, yeah, okay, why do you have to go now?
Speaker 4: Can't you wait until tomorrow?
Speaker 11: I'm afraid not, Honey. You take care of everything, huh.
Make sure all the doors are lot and don't forget
to feed the dog.
Speaker 5: No, I'll forget.
Speaker 4: What's the matter?
Speaker 5: Is anything wrong?
Speaker 10: Oh?
Speaker 4: Of course not now.
Speaker 11: If something happens so I can't get back tomorrow, I'll call.
Speaker 9: You on the phone.
Speaker 11: All right, Yeah, okay, you'll be sure and call huh,
I'll call you, honey. Go to sleep now, it'll be
all right. You get some sleep. Good night, thank'ee.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, good night.
Speaker 11: I'm sorry to keep you waiting. I had to tell
Frank what to do. The kids wouldn't understand. I mean
if they woke up and didn't find me here.
Speaker 4: Yes, ma'am, what'd you do with a murder gun? Miss?
Speaker 9: Ma'm in my garage. I'll show you.
Speaker 11: I had her for kids to raise. It's not easy.
You know what it costs to feed them, put clothes
on their back. It's not the kids I minded. They're wonderful.
I love every one of them. I'm glad to get
the chance to raise them. Never married myself, never had
any of my own. Hasn't been easy at all, working
all day, coming home, cooking for them, doing the wash,
trying to keep the house clean. Rhodes never gave me
a dime to pay a bill for her own kids too.
She gave us nothing, and she tried to take everything,
tried to bleed me for my last dollar. I catched
the check that night and said she was going to
keep all the money. I couldn't stand anymore. We are
you and I killed her?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, I'm sorry, ma'am.
Speaker 5: We'll have to go.
Speaker 9: Yes, all right, Well I do, sergeant, What'll I say?
Speaker 4: I advise you to tell the truth. You'll get a
fair trial.
Speaker 9: I know that it's not what I mean. What do
you mean inside there? What am I going to say?
How'll I explain it?
Speaker 5: Ma'am?
Speaker 9: The kids? How do you tell four kids you killed
their mother?
Speaker 2: The story you have just heard was true. The names
were changed protect the innocent.
Speaker 3: On October third, trial was held in Superior Court, Department
ninety two, City and County of Los Angeles, State of California.
In a moment the results of that trial, When their aunt,
Bernice Alberta Meren, was apprehended on suspicion of one to
eighty seven PC, the four Baker children were taken into
protective custody by juvenile authorities. Bernice Maren was indicted for
murder and entered a plea of self defense. She claimed
that at the time of the murder, her sister attacked
her with a knife while they argued over the division
of the four hundred dollars check. Bernice Maren was tried
in Superior Court by a jury composed of nine men
and three women. She was found not guilty. You have
just heard Dragnet a series of authentic cases from official files.
Technical advice comes from the Office of Ties Chief of
Police W. H. Parker Los Angeles Police Department Technical Advisors
Captain Jack Donahoe, Sergeant Marty Winn, Sergeant Fans Bracer. Heard
tonight were Barney Phillips, Virginia Gregg, Vic Perrin. Script by
Jim Moser, music by Walter Schumann, Hell give Me Speaking.
Speaker 4: Next, It's Counterspy on NBC.
Speaker 1: Welcome Back. What kind of an interesting ending in that
she was acquitted? It what was mean? With quite a
few questions about the real life situation as well some
of the adaptation issues, like did the alleged attack from
Rose actually happen or was it something that she made
up later. It does seem like when police confronted her
that would probably be one of the first things that
she would say. The adaptation leaves it feeling like that
she acted in anger, so it'd be more like a
case of perhaps manslaughter. And of course, if the self
defense story was true, it seems like there would be
some corroborating evidence in the car or on the body,
although this might also be a case of a situation
where you could say to someone no jury in the
world would ever convict me if I took some rash action,
and it actually is true, Bernice would be a very
sympathetic defendant, and a lot of people, if not most people,
have had a relative similar to Rose, so maybe that
sympathy overrowed any evidence. If, on the other hand, it
really was self defense and there was not any sort
of maliciousness, you'd hope that she would get a custody
of the kids back, or at least that that process
would be considered. But again, there is a limit to
what we can know from the Dragonet radio play. All right, well,
now it's time to thank our Patreon supporter of the day.
Thank you to Nancy, Patreon supporter since March of twenty sixteen,
currently supporting the podcast at the Detective Sergeant level of
seven dollars and fourteen cents or more month. Thanks so
much for your support, Nancy, and that will 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 Thursday with another episode of Dragonet. But
join us back here tomorrow for yours truly, Johnny it
all or where?
Speaker 12: Nice to hear from you again, Johnny. What can I
do for you?
Speaker 10: Roy? I'm putting this call on expense account. Oh ain't that?
Speaker 3: Ain't all?
Speaker 10: If I could make connections down to New York. Well,
let's see, there's a plane leaving for the West Coast
a little after midnight, so i'd arrive in LA early
in the morning.
Speaker 12: Coming out of here.
Speaker 10: Unless somebody's been pulling my leg, Roy, you have a
policy holder named Helen Daner, Yes, we certainly do. Well, now,
what's that mean.
Speaker 12: She's an elderly woman of Spenser who lives up in
the little town Tomorrow Bay, that's about two hundred miles
north of here, Johnny. She called his office early this afternoon.
She demanded your phone number there in Hartford, and well
I didn't give it to her.
Speaker 3: Why not us?
Speaker 12: She wouldn't say why she wanted to get in touch
with you, knowing how busy you always are. Will, But
just a few minutes ago I began to wonder about it. Yes, well,
after all, if she wanted to contact you about some insurance.
Speaker 10: Matter, Yeah, well, did you call her back?
Speaker 12: Yeah, since we hadn't lot her insurance, that is, I
tried to, but I got no answer.
Speaker 10: And right I'm going to grab that plane I was
talking about.
Speaker 12: Well, I wait, did you get to you. Did you
talk to her?
Speaker 10: Yes, and it has something to do with her insurance money.
So I'm flying out there riot your company's expense, not
just a minute, unless, of course, you'd rather pay off
her insurance to some beneficiary, honey, then just be sure
to have a rental car waiting for me when I
pull into the airport.
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 Atohole. This is your host, Adam Gray, him signing off.