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.
And I want to encourage you to check out our
other podcast and today I'm highlighting the old time Radio
Snackwagon now back for it's sixth season, and we've got
some great episodes coming up across a wide variety of genres.
Check it out snackwagon dot net or wherever you get
your podcast from. But now, from January fast, nineteen forty nine,
here is the episode called sixteen year Old Misfit Kills
out of Fear.
Speaker 2: Hell Mel Famous Cigarettes Present a Big Story.
Speaker 3: Frankie, Frankie, where are you?
Speaker 4: Never listen?
Speaker 5: Never run when I want them, Frankie.
Speaker 6: And shit again.
Speaker 3: Someday he'll do something terrible.
Speaker 5: I know it.
Speaker 4: Get out.
Speaker 6: Didn't you hear me?
Speaker 3: Call you?
Speaker 2: Get out of here?
Speaker 6: Leave me alone? What are you doing now? What crazy thing?
What's in that box? I told you? Leave me alone?
Speaker 3: You are to come in the shed again.
Speaker 2: If you have to come sneaking in on me again,
if you ever ask me again what I'm doing, what's
in his box?
Speaker 7: So help me. I'll brain you.
Speaker 3: I'll take a hammer and I'll brain you to death.
Speaker 4: The big story here is America.
Speaker 2: It's sound and its fury, it's joy and at sorrow,
as faithfully reported by the men and women of the
great American newspapers eight line, Louisville, Kentucky. The story of
a boy, a misfit of sixteen, a frightened boy who
killed out of fear to reporter Al Aronson of the
Louisville Courier Journal or his excellent work in this case
goes the Pellmell Award for the big Story. Of all
America's leading cigarettes, only one is outstanding. Only one is outstanding.
It's the longer, finer cigarette hell Mell. Discover for yourself
why so many of your friends have changed to pell Mell.
Pellmell's greater length filters the smoke on the way to
your throat, filters the smoke and makes it mild.
Speaker 4: That's important.
Speaker 2: Yes, Pellmell's greater length of traditionally fine mellow tobaccos filters
the smoke on the way to your throat.
Speaker 6: Filters the smoke and makes it mild.
Speaker 2: Thus, Pellmell gives you a smoothness, mildness, and satisfaction no
other cigarette offers you. So enjoy the longer, finer cigarette
in the distinguished red package.
Speaker 4: Hell Mail.
Speaker 2: Hell Malls are good, good to look at, good to feel,
good to taste, and good to smoke. Hell Mel famous cigarettes,
outstanding and they are mild. Now The story as it
actually happened. Reporter Al Aronson's story as he lived it Louisville, Kentucky.
Speaker 8: You didn't know about it, Al Aronson, reporter for the
Louisville Courier Journal. No one on the paper knew about it,
but it would electrify you and all of Louisville within
an hour. It happened, This frightening, pathetic thing to live
with you the rest of your life. It happened just
across the river from Louisville, in New Albany, Indiana, six
miles from where you sat enjoying your breakfast. It began
in the first Farmers Bank, corner of Eastern Maypole in
New Albany, Henry Easton. The bank teller said to Ernest Thornton,
the cashier. Hey, Ernie, look at that limousine just pulling up.
Speaker 7: It must be a half a block long. What a
car I meet here? Who is it?
Speaker 4: Don't know? Must be a new depositor.
Speaker 7: Every show for him, some star, and they come.
Speaker 4: It's a kid, some rich man's son.
Speaker 9: Probably.
Speaker 7: Oh, oh, isn't Henry, hasn't Donny.
Speaker 4: He's got a he's got a gun.
Speaker 3: Mister Adams, mister Adams, mister Adams, shut up, stand still,
all your stand still?
Speaker 6: Where's Adams?
Speaker 3: Where's the president of the Spatch?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 3: What is this shoe?
Speaker 4: They shut up?
Speaker 3: Around? Are you Adams?
Speaker 4: Yes, I'm mister Adams.
Speaker 7: Went around and water to the vault.
Speaker 3: You don't think you can, kid? You think I don't
mean it all right?
Speaker 4: You refuse to go to the vault?
Speaker 3: I do, and I the queen? Okay, who else refuses
to go to the vault?
Speaker 4: Come on talk? Oh okay, you laid me there?
Speaker 7: Should we rush him?
Speaker 4: Kill us?
Speaker 7: Even so? I think whispering, don't.
Speaker 6: You chauffeur?
Speaker 3: Go out in the car and stop the motor. Yes,
I can't take this place now so much noise.
Speaker 4: You're gonna drive me where I want to go?
Speaker 10: And I'm ready to come.
Speaker 8: Back, holding the gun before him.
Speaker 4: The kid.
Speaker 8: One dead man thought he was a rich man's son.
Another dead man thought he could be rushed, and a
third dead man thought he could be urged. The kid,
he was sixteen, forced the liveried chauffeur into the sleek
limousine and drove away. And that was all anybody saw
her that morning. Three dead, a sixteen year old murderer escaped.
You get the story, you youthful, serious, and I for
every detail.
Speaker 4: Al Arenson.
Speaker 8: The first lead, twelve hours after the attempted robbery and
triple murder, came from a hospital bed in New Albany,
just across the river. A man was perhaps an hour
to live, A man with a hole through his chest
made by a forty five the liveried chauffeur George Murphy.
Speaker 3: Now, don't raise your voice, George, I can hear you. Fine,
Thank you, misters. There's like I told you, sir. He
picked me up sitting in the car about nine thirty in.
Speaker 9: The morning in Louisville.
Speaker 10: What was yes, sir, I drive from mister Norton at
the Steel Plans, made me drive across the.
Speaker 7: Bri but uh it bad George. No, it's not too bad, sir.
Made me drive up to the bank.
Speaker 10: He knew that bank too, says, says, nobody'll be in
there now. I'll just to cats here, the teller and
the president.
Speaker 4: He was right, wasn't he?
Speaker 10: Yes, sir, that's right.
Speaker 7: He got there, kept.
Speaker 10: A gun on my side and made me go in
with him. He killed them three men, made me go
out and drive 'em away, misr. I tried to turn
'em in. Uh, how do you mean, George? When I
uh tried to mix him up, turning corners and twist
and so on, and tried to pull him into the
police station. But well, he knew the town. Told me
turn down here, turn down the aim all the time
keeping him awake.
Speaker 3: It's a now, Uh, I'm s I'm sorry.
Speaker 7: I said take it easy too, Yes, sir.
Speaker 10: We all the time he'd keep me from driving to
the police station New Alleys.
Speaker 7: I I didn't have know myself, and it made me
go down near the river front.
Speaker 10: Was a little blind outy. I never did see it before.
That's the way the way he done it to me.
Said to me, you might keep your mouth shut, but
I'm making sure. And then he shot you, Yes, sir,
It stuck a gun right next to my chest and
pull a trigger.
Speaker 7: Had a smile on his face.
Speaker 10: See he was mean, messed, a bad mean no more
on sixteen real mean?
Speaker 4: What uh?
Speaker 7: What did he look like?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 10: A big fella six one six two, only sixteen or seventeen,
the most pimples on his face, and a foul tongue, sir,
I tell you, a foul cuss his own mother.
Speaker 3: Ever seen him before?
Speaker 7: N no, sir.
Speaker 10: But but the way he knew them streets, knew how
to turn, knew the bank. He must must be a
local boy, I figure.
Speaker 3: But Georgie, maybe George, George.
Speaker 8: You take the theory given to you by the heroic
negro chauffeur who tried to steer the car to the
police station. You take his idea that this was a
local boy and there are no other clues to the cops.
Lieutenant Edmunds listens, lights up a cigar, But.
Speaker 7: He's chewing a local boy. Couldn't be. Couldn't be.
Speaker 3: But but he knew the town from the chauffe's description, he
knew it as well as you.
Speaker 7: I know every hold him in this town, every one
of them. Killer isn't here. There's nine kids, maybe ten
who fit that description and checked everyone. They didn't do it.
Speaker 2: But if you'd heard the chauffeur, Lieutenant, if you'd heard,
if you're a bride reporter, answer me this.
Speaker 7: He wants to do a hole up in the wall.
Speaker 2: Why does he go over the bridge to Louis Bill,
get the car, forced the chauffer all the way back
here and then do the hold up?
Speaker 7: Does that make sense? No, but it's stuck nothing. That
was a local New Albany boy.
Speaker 2: It had happened in the kop and halfway up for sentencing,
wry something news.
Speaker 8: Lieutenant Edmunds knows New Albany knows it's hoodlums, it's racketeers.
Speaker 4: Knows what he's talking about.
Speaker 8: But you aral aronson and stubborn and a man with
an eye for facts. You don't easily shake the sight
of the dead Chauffeur George Murphy from your mind or
his words. So you start looking in dives and pool
rooms and the sordid places, having no others that young
hoodlums gather.
Speaker 9: But always I never heard of nobody look like that.
Speaker 8: Pimples Always the wise guy grinned a gag and the
shaking of the head.
Speaker 4: And then.
Speaker 7: I thought, as a.
Speaker 4: Kid who knew the term that well, must.
Speaker 8: Have lived here, maybe move move. That's it lived here
and moved. You go to the movers in town. There
are six. The first four I know nothing about it.
The description means nothing, but the.
Speaker 2: Fifth A mean kid, dark haired, pimples, real low down,
mean kid.
Speaker 4: That's the one.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, I moved him to Louisville. Him and his
own man what was his name, I'll.
Speaker 4: Never forget him.
Speaker 2: Said he'd helped me with a crate, big crate, kind
of a piano crate, but no piano in it. When
I had it up, he let it well, he let
go his end. He busted my leg. I could have
killed him. But his own man was there. What was
the name Jensen or Henson something like that. Benson Benson, Yeah,
Frankie Benson, a real mean little rat with a foul mouth,
an all American punk.
Speaker 9: You find the home of the mean, foul mouthed.
Speaker 8: Kid in Louisville, a CD two room shack, kitchen and bedroom,
a little shed in the back or attired beat an
old man listens to you, and.
Speaker 5: Before you're half through, it's him. Don't say no more.
It's him. Four men killed, you.
Speaker 3: Said, that's right, mister Benson. Sooner or later it had
to be.
Speaker 5: Now it happened a son, a man slaves a whole
life for a boy.
Speaker 6: His mother died eight years ago. I never married again.
Speaker 7: Who'd marry me?
Speaker 4: And this?
Speaker 6: I knew it. I knew it. It had to happen.
Speaker 5: Has he been around since? When did he do it? Tuesday?
Today's Thursday? Yesterday he disappeared? No, No, Thursday today, he
disappeared today. Excuse me if I'm a little mixed up
on the days. Of course, you've no idea where he
went away. That's all he said. Away except the note.
Now it comes to me, the note.
Speaker 6: What it meant?
Speaker 3: What note, mister Bencer, He left me a note?
Speaker 5: I'll get it. If I tell you, you won't believe me.
Step inside into here.
Speaker 8: Here is the only other room, the bedroom. He opens
a closet where rags hang in one decent suit of clothes,
and in a pocket he finds a piece of crumpled paper,
cheap note paper with lines in it, and in childish
handwriting is a note.
Speaker 6: Read it, Read it, you wouldn't believe it.
Speaker 4: Otherwise, this is his writing, his stop me, stop me
please before I do it again.
Speaker 6: That was after he murdered them four men.
Speaker 7: Ah, it's awful.
Speaker 5: Mister. Do you do you think you can find him?
Do you think you can stop.
Speaker 4: Him before he does it again?
Speaker 6: Before he does it again?
Speaker 4: I can try.
Speaker 3: We've got to him, mister Benson Wheat, we just got.
Speaker 2: To We'll be back in just a moment with tonight's
big story. Hell Mell famous cigarettes outstanding and they are
mild or pell Mells greater length filters the smoke on
the way to your throat, filters the smoke and makes
it mild.
Speaker 4: That's important.
Speaker 2: Yes, Heellmells greater length of traditionally fine mellow tobaccos filters
the smoke on the way to your throat, filters the
smoke and makes it mild. Your eyes can see pell
Mell's greater length, Yes, your eyes can see the difference.
Your throat can tell you what it means. Hell Mells
greater length of traditionally fine mellow tobaccos means a longer.
Speaker 4: Natural filter to screen and cool the smoke.
Speaker 2: Thus, pell Mell gives you a smoothness, mildness, and satisfaction.
Speaker 4: No other cigarette offers you.
Speaker 2: Enjoy the longer, finer cigarette in the distinguished red package.
Hell Mell pell Mells are good, good to look at,
good to feel, good to taste, and good to smoke.
Remember pell Mell's greater length of fine Tobaccos filters the
smoke on the weight of your throat, filters the smoke
and makes it mild. Pell Mell Famous cigarettes, outstanding, and
they are mild. This is Si Harris returning you to
your narrator and reporter Al Aaronson's story as he lived
and wrote it.
Speaker 8: It's only a few minutes since the father admitted that
his son is a murderer to you, Al Arenson, reporter
for the Louisville Courier Journal. Just a short time since
the father showed you the fear in his heart and
the terror and desperation in his son's a boy of
sixteen who feared he'd kill and kill again unless he
was stopped. He set now in the bare kitchen on
a rickety chair, and listen to the history of this boy,
this mean, foul mouthed boy, waiting for a clue that
might tell you where to find him.
Speaker 5: He was bad since he was ten. A week after
his birthday, he stole a knife and tried to cut
one of his friend's fingers off. I stopped him. Why
did he do it? A lot of reasons. He was bad,
his mother was dead. I saw him only a few
hours a week. I worked the only work I could
get out of town. He lived like a like a
wild animal, in the streets and the gutters.
Speaker 4: Don't blame yourself with de Benson.
Speaker 5: Blame blame. I don't blame anyone. I tell you only
the facts. He stole twice. He was caught twice a
year in reform school each time. And how'd he come out?
Of course, you know about reform schools.
Speaker 6: If he was.
Speaker 5: Wild before he went in. When he came out, he
was sly, a fox, a wolf waiting for his chance.
Small boys he tortured, tied them up. Things he saw
in the movies he did to them like the Indians,
and in some of the magazines he read where he
got him.
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I know what happens to kids sometimes kids.
Speaker 5: He was bigger than me, four inches bigger, weighed a
hundred and seventy pounds. If I asked him to come
into the house, to work. Maybe I raised my voice.
He hit me many times. He knocked me down at
night at night.
Speaker 4: I don't understand.
Speaker 5: No one i'd understand. At night he slept with a gun,
a gun of forty five. I saw it once, a
gun under his pillar. We gotta find him, to stop him,
to to.
Speaker 6: Take care of him.
Speaker 3: Mister Benson. You you say he just disappeared the day
after the killing.
Speaker 6: This the boxer. I didn't tell you about the box,
that's right, the day after the killings.
Speaker 7: What box? I don't know.
Speaker 5: Maybe it ain't important. It was to him. He said
he'd bring me once. If I ain't the fear it,
he would have too. He he got a piano crate somewheres,
brought it into the shed. This is when we lived
in New Albany, before we moved and fixed it up.
Speaker 6: He called it camping out. You know.
Speaker 5: He'd get in the box and spend a whole day there,
never come out, even eating there.
Speaker 6: Maybe he's just a child's game. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe lots of kids do things like that. Why did
you mention the box, mister Benson.
Speaker 5: Because they day before he disappeared. The only thing he
said to me, This was after he killed those men.
He said, I'm leaving money for the box. Ship it
to Knoxville. Knoxville. Where he got the money from, I
don't know he he never worked a day in his life.
Speaker 3: I didn't give it to him. Where in Knoxville General Delivery?
Speaker 5: I remember because he said, here's the money, go right
down the address. Remember it General Delivery, Knoxville. And you
send it, shouldn't I have no? I don't want to
ask me.
Speaker 3: I said it, yes to see but a railway expression. Yeah,
have you got the receipt? Yes, give it to me.
What just maybe nothing? But give it to me. You
check the neighborhood. No one saw Frankie leave town. That's
said he got to the police, to Lieutenant Edmunds. So
once before I told you your theory was cracked. Say
that again, Aarons, and I don't think my hearing's that bad.
I said, this kid sent a packing crate out of
turn to General Delivery in Knoxville, and I want to.
Speaker 4: Investigate that crate.
Speaker 7: What are you trying to prove nothing?
Speaker 3: I want your cooperation to find out where that crate
is and see what's inside of it.
Speaker 7: Is that going to tell us where little Frankie is admired.
Speaker 6: What did he do?
Speaker 2: Leave an old inside and say you will find me
at the wall of the story in New York.
Speaker 3: I don't know what we'll find from what his father said.
This kid's been bad.
Speaker 4: A long time.
Speaker 7: His kid's been bad since he was born.
Speaker 3: Look, let's fight about it. All I want is in
order to stop the crate examined it.
Speaker 7: Not I play hunches long shots. I'm scrowey, but not
this scrowy.
Speaker 3: Uh who found out where Frankie lived?
Speaker 7: Okay?
Speaker 3: Who said he couldn't possibly be a local boy?
Speaker 7: Okay? Maybe I am. That's screwy. Hennessy got the railway
express on the phone. I want to place a quiet
shipton Knoxville.
Speaker 2: That's the warehouse, lieutenant, that big one, Yes, sir, warehouse three,
the krits and sexual d want me to go in
with you?
Speaker 7: What for the checkered crepe. I'm a big boy, Yeah, sir,
Lieutenant got.
Speaker 2: A flashlight once a matter of no lights in that ouse,
the lieutenant dowly a warehouse.
Speaker 4: I got a flash Lieutenant.
Speaker 7: Prepared for anything? Yeah, yes, sir, Lieutenant in Section D
must be down there. Yeah you see all right?
Speaker 3: What the devil you're whispering about.
Speaker 7: I don't know what are you whispering for?
Speaker 3: Shut up?
Speaker 7: I'm sorry. You know, this crazy idea of yours is
getting I know me too. Wait a minute, there it is.
I think.
Speaker 4: Let's see.
Speaker 7: Oh here's the address.
Speaker 3: Yeah, General Delivery Knox. So same hand, right hand ready,
same as on the note.
Speaker 4: I told you about the note.
Speaker 7: Ye. But now let's let's look a little. Stop whispering. Look,
why holds about.
Speaker 3: Six eight holes in the top, same on the side
on this side too, So why I think the rare holes?
What are you talking about?
Speaker 4: He's inside the kid, I tell you, he's in that box.
Speaker 7: You're nuts.
Speaker 3: Watch brought a candle. I'm gonna light it and while
it's burning, it'll go inside the box.
Speaker 4: What for?
Speaker 7: Don't slide of chet back up a little? That's it.
Speaker 4: You're in that box.
Speaker 7: You're crazy.
Speaker 4: Kid. Come out.
Speaker 7: You're in that cat on the side of the box.
Speaker 2: Do you hear me?
Speaker 7: Listen? Take up your inside that box like the candle.
Watch hot, you know?
Speaker 3: Okay, I hate to do this, but I'm gonna wiggle
it around.
Speaker 4: It's like your thirty cowers. I got a gun, so
help me if you don't leave me alone, I.
Speaker 7: Said, come out, I've got a chance.
Speaker 4: Watch it. Stay way.
Speaker 7: What are you doing?
Speaker 3: The only thing we can do. I'm gonna roll the
crate over. Watch up ill, okay, together.
Speaker 4: Now roll it. Never get me your love?
Speaker 8: You not what?
Speaker 9: Never but never. It's a long time.
Speaker 8: And after three more turns of the crate there's silence inside,
no more shots, no more despairing threats. And then you,
oh and the lieutenant open it up and out comes
the mean, foul mouthed boy of sixteen, who did all
these things, these unspeakable things, robbery, sawt brutality, taught his
father murder. He comes out and asks two questions, Can.
Speaker 6: You tell me why I did it? Can you?
Speaker 7: Can you help me? Mister? Can you?
Speaker 8: And then he collapses. And in the end, after the arrest,
after the confession, you and his beaten aged father examined
the box his camping out place, and you find.
Speaker 5: Look like a pullman compartment. He fixed it with a bed.
You could sleep here at day two days.
Speaker 3: He had containers under the seat. It's one there's water
and this is for food. The lantern look, wisdom, the
lantern I see and matches and what a proof case,
a knife for more guns. He had quite an arsenal.
Speaker 5: The magazines, look at all the magazines.
Speaker 8: And then something that brings your heart, that touches everything
and colors it.
Speaker 3: Dense look black hat, black shirt, black pants, and mask
to wear over his eyes, and false black whiskers.
Speaker 8: You write the story, al Arenson. The case is finished,
the killer found. But when you're done, the biggest story
is left on, written unsaid.
Speaker 7: Whose fault, Who's to blame?
Speaker 8: How does it happen in this year of our Lord
nineteen forty nine, that a boy of sixteen could murder
four men, ship himself to Knoxville, and carry with him
an arsenal, loaded guns, and a mask of false whiskers.
Speaker 2: In just a moment, we'll read you a telegram from
mal Aronson of the Louisville Courier Journal with a final
outcome of tonight's big story. Of all America's leader cigarettes,
only one is outstanding. Only one is outstanding. It's the longer,
finer cigarette in the distinguished red package hell mail or
Pellmell's greater length of traditionally fine mellow tobaccos filters the
smoke on the way to your.
Speaker 4: Throat filters the smoke and makes it mild.
Speaker 2: Thus Pellmell gives you a smoothness, mildness, and satisfaction no
other cigarette offers you. So enjoy the longer, finer cigarette
in the distinguished red package. Hell Mail pell Mells are good,
good to look at, good to feel, good to taste,
and good to smoke. Hell Mell Famous cigarettes outstanding and
they are mild. Now we read you that telegram from
Al Arenson of the Louisville Courier Journal.
Speaker 3: Further examination of crate used is hideout by killer in
Tonight's Big Store revealed that one side of it was
so hinged that it could be locked or open from
the inside. He had also provided straps to hold himself
and his provisions steady while in transit. News of his
capture so are our citizens of New Albany, Indiana. The
police were compelled to transfer him to Indiana Reformatory at Jeffersonville.
Tried for murder, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in
the state penitentiary. Thanks a lot for Tonight's Pellmell Award.
Speaker 4: Thank you, mister Aronson.
Speaker 2: The makers of Pellmell Famous Cigarettes are proud to have
named you the winner. Of the Pell Mell five hundred
dollars Award for Notable Service in the field of Journalism.
Listen again next week, same time, same station, when Pellmell
Famous Cigarettes will present another Big Story, A big story
from the front pages of the Jacksonville Journal Byline Lee Cully.
A big story about an abandoned school, a weird old man,
and the witch who walked in the night.
Speaker 4: The Big Story is produced by Bernard J.
Speaker 2: Proctor, with music by Vladimir Selenski. Tonight's program was written
by Arnold Pearl. Your narrator was Bob Sloan and James
McAllion played the part of Al Aronson. In order to
protect the names of people actually involved in Tonight's authentic
Big Story, the names of all characters and the dramatization
were changed, with the exception of the reporter, mister Aaronson.
This is Ernest Chapple speaking for the makers of Pall
Maw Famous Cigarettes.
Speaker 3: This is NBC, the National Broadcasting Company.
Speaker 1: Welcome back well. In this episode, in addition to mcallian,
we heard Martin Wolfson, Santos Ortega, who was really in
everything in New York Radio. Then you had Jackie Grimes
and Grant Richards to Joe Webb's Great Resource Story. The
Stories behind the Big Story actually has details on where
this story originated from, and it was actually from US
an incident that occurred in November of nineteen o nine
when there was a daytime robbery of the Merchant's National
Bank and four people were killed in the pross and
that is really the extent to which the story has
truth in it, and a chauffeur was among those killed
as well as bank employees. I often say The Big
Story is a true Ish crime series, and this episode
illustrates why there is a basic crime and circumstances that
are involved, but the embellishments really take it to being
very fictitious. Of course, there's the issue of narrative framing,
and we've talked about this in another episode, where the
way the case was presented was changed to tie into
a cultural narrative of the time about the problem of
juvenile delinquency. That ending question, how could this happen in
nineteen forty nine, Well it didn't. It happened in nineteen
o nine. There were two world wars and a depression
in between this story and this episode, and I don't
think that the episode really showed that he killed out
of fear or even much that he was a misfit,
But it was trying to go for the narrative. Of course,
out of context, it could be read, what is the
postal service in this country doing that people are shipping
themselves around in nineteen forty nine and able to carry
all of the stuff with them. That would be worse
because that was not actually part of the story of
the young killer Thomas Jefferson Hole where according to doctor
Joe Webb, that police caught him as he tried to
cross the Ohio River to the Kentucky side on a skiff.
So the whole idea of this crate is an invention
for the radio show. Now, I should say that even
though it didn't actually happen, it is plausible because people
did ship themselves around, and piano crates were huge, and
they were built from very sturdy wood, and so you
could kind of curl up in there, and nothing that
he did was impossible. It's a bit implausible that this
seventeen year old juvenile delinquent is going to have the
sort of mad carpentry skills, a mechanical genius, and also
a knowledge of how the freight companies work, and this
sort of like z then master sort of physical discipline
to stay still the whole time. That plus, just as
a practical matter, nobody saw him particular radio take, and
so he didn't need to go to all this trouble.
I mean, I guess if you'd already prepared the create
in advance as your escape plan, you wouldn't think about
whether it was necessary or not, or you think, you know,
I don't technically need to do it this way, but
I've already built out this really cool box with hinges
and secret compartments and secret and a full down bed,
and I've got the money for the shipping, and I've
just got to it. I mean, that is the best reason.
If I've been planning on making a secret escape in
a piano cright, then you gotta do it. It doesn't
matter if you don't need to, You've got to do
it now. One thing that's really interesting is that I
do have access to the performance scripts for each episode,
and this episode was had a couple of funny changes.
The funniest to me was that the original script as
type had him being shipped to a po box, which
just raises so many questions, well, listener comments and feedback now,
and we start on Patreon where Joel comments great cast,
and then Harrison like me for the follow up on
the previous episode and said the said regarding episode the
lottery the minute the cop otis mac, I knew I'd
heard that somewhere before, but couldn't recall where. Thanks for
mentioning Casey crime photographer, Otherwise it would have driven me
a bit crazy. And yeah, there are those cases where
you just hear a case and it sounds familiar, like
I've heard that before, and it sets me down a
rabbit hole trying to figure out where did I hear
that before? And if I don't solve it, yeah, it's
it's going to bother me. So appreciate your comment. And
then I have a comment over from YouTube where James
Rise's very interesting story and well acted well. Thanks so much, James.
And now it is time to thank or Patreon supporter
of the day, and I want to thank Jennifer, Patreon
supporter since November twenty nineteen, currently supporting the podcast at
the rookie level of two dollars more per month. Thanks
so much for your support, jenn 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 Tuesday with another episode of the
Big Story. But join us back here tomorrow for Broadways
my beat where.
Speaker 3: A nervous twitch, Danny to juggle things in my right hand.
Speaker 4: Maybe I'll be remembered for it.
Speaker 7: What have we got, doctor Sinsky?
Speaker 11: The man lying there, They found him in his bed
last night, murdered these that murdered him, two.
Speaker 7: Bullets, twenty two and a thirty two. Wouldn't you say so, doctor.
Speaker 9: That I wouldn't know.
Speaker 11: What I know is only one of these was needed
to kill him, either one. The man was wanted dead twice, Danny.
He was killed twice, two bullets, different size, twice dead.
Speaker 7: You know who he was.
Speaker 6: And they brought him to me last night.
Speaker 11: There was a tag on him, a name Tom keeler
An addressed to Nixon Hotel.
Speaker 4: Nothing else, no other words. Is living about? Why such things?
You're sure, doctor?
Speaker 11: You're sure that each wound was a mortal wound, Danny,
each wound couldn't.
Speaker 1: You'll be with us then in the meantime, sends your
comments to Box thirteen at Great Detectives dot yet, follow
us on Twitter at Radio Detectives, and check us out
on Instagram, Instagram dot com slash Great Detective from Boise Altohol.
This is your host, Adam Graham, signing off.