Latest / Great Detectives of Old Time Radio Volume 2|Mystery Audio Dramas / Dragnet: The Big Knife (EP1580)
Transcript
- 0:28Welcome to the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio from Boise, Idaho. This
- 0:33is your host, Adam Graham. If you have a comment, email it
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- 1:44Detectives of Old Time Radio. Well, now it's time for today's episode of
- 1:49Dragnet. The original airdate May the eleventh of nineteen fifty and the title The
- 1:56Big knife. The story you are about to hear is true, only the
- 2:09names have been changed to protect the innocent. You're a detective sergeant. You're
- 2:25a signed the Juvenile Bureau. The potential killer roams the halls of one of
- 2:30the high schools in your city. Girls students are then brutally slashed by the
- 2:35criminal. Your job stop him the documented drama of an actual crime. While
- 2:52the next thirty minutes, in cooperation with the Los Angeles Police Department, you
- 2:55will travel step by step on the side of the law through an actual case
- 2:59from a police files, from beginning to end, from crime to punishment.
- 3:05Dragnet is the story of your police force in action. It was Thursday,
- 3:10November fourth. It was windy in Los Angeles. We were working the day
- 3:14watch out of Georgia Street Juvenile Bureau. My partner's Ben Romero. The boss
- 3:17is Captain Bowling, Commander Juvenile Division. My name is Friday. It was
- 3:22two forty five pm when we got to Charter High School main entrance. Which
- 3:30way is you? I don't know. We can ask this boy, hey
- 3:31son, Yeah, where's the Principal's office? Straight down the hall? Last
- 3:36during the last thank you, what's all the noise about football rally. We're
- 3:38playing Pemont today, probably lose. Can't lead confidence like that. It's just
- 3:45your clenty now there yeah, check that sign junior prom daughter twenty five per
- 3:53cup. Lets you feel old and when you never did go to those high
- 3:57school dances. I'll come. I couldn't dance after the still can yes,
- 4:05sir? Like say mister Chase Friday, Oh, yes, expecting you can
- 4:11go round? Thank you, mister Chase. Yeah, my name is Friday.
- 4:21I talked you on the phone. Yes, certainly, have a chair.
- 4:25Thank you. It's my partner, Ben Romo. How do you do
- 4:29sir? H I'm miss Jay. Sit down, sit down, certainly.
- 4:31Glad to see you, gentlemen. I'm at the end of my rope.
- 4:34Would you mind briefing? It is mister Chase. I'll always troubles start.
- 4:38I don't know how it's happened. I don't know why, but here's the
- 4:42results. I do this dress, bloodstains on it. Let's history. The
- 4:46woman Storm didn't hear and said her daughter came home from school, yes,
- 4:49to be wearing this dress, and she told her her mother she's a knife
- 4:54here at the school. How many cases like this have you had twenty one
- 4:58in the past three weeks. Why didn't you know to leave me? Sage?
- 5:00And I didn't know which way to turn. When I first learned about
- 5:03these knife things, I wanted to call in the police, but some of
- 5:05the girls who had been cut, the parents didn't want to reported the publicity.
- 5:11That not the rioting. They didn't want it. Don't realize, mister
- 5:14Jason, it's a pretty serious mind, Believe me, I did realize.
- 5:16What could I do? The knifings had to be stopped. These parents didn't
- 5:20want them reported. I've tried everything humanly possible to find out who's responsible.
- 5:26What have you tried, mister Chase Well, I called on some of the
- 5:29older students from the Boys' council. I placed them all over the grounds of
- 5:32the buildings and told them to keep an eye off. No results, and
- 5:34the knifings have gone right on this past week. They've even gotten worse.
- 5:39Or that reminds me of just a moment pleased it. Yes, mister Chase
- 5:42Darris, would you get Jim Travis please have them come to my office right
- 5:45away. Yes, mister Travis is head of the boys Council. He helped
- 5:48organize the system of guards. He might be able to give you some information.
- 5:53You said a minute ago that the situation has been worse this past week.
- 5:56I mean the NiFe things have gotten more frequent, more frequent, and
- 5:58more serious. One girl would cut very badly this morning. You have to
- 6:00be sent home. Most of these girls cut in pretty much the name man.
- 6:04The school nurse treated some of them, she says. It look to
- 6:08her as though that if the girls have been slashed with a very sharp knife,
- 6:11probably a razor. Is there any definite time patterns of these knife Is
- 6:15all of them happened between periods when the students change classes. The cards are
- 6:19pretty well crowded, and that's why it's so difficult to pin it down to
- 6:23any one person. I see. How about the victims themselves, mister Chase,
- 6:27Is there any set pattern there? And that's what has me frighten?
- 6:30What I mean, most of the victories a lot of pretty girls. Whoever's
- 6:33doing this seems to have a preference for them. It's frightening when you think
- 6:38of what kind of mind the person must have. It's a little more than
- 6:41frightening, mister Chase. Person with a knife must be a metal case,
- 6:45probably a dangerous one. I don't think he's going to be satisfied with just
- 6:47knife and the girls. Surely possible if we let it go much longer.
- 6:51You want to see me, Missus Jakes, come in, Jim for what
- 6:56have comes sooner? I'm tied up with a rally committee and Jim, missus
- 6:58Sergeant Friday and Sergeant for Meroral of police officers right, and they had to
- 7:01investigate the Knight things. I thought maybe you'd be able to help out with
- 7:04some information. Well, I still have the fellows on the council watching the
- 7:09cards. You haven't seen anything yet. We do you have any time after
- 7:12the rally gym? We'd like to have you show us around. Okay,
- 7:15soccer. He's the school nurse stt in your office. I like to go
- 7:16for her too, and I think so, Jid. When does miss Wesley
- 7:19go home three thirty on Thursday, mister Chase, I'll tell her to stay
- 7:24on a few answer. That's fine. We'll meet you outside the office here.
- 7:28Okay, I'll see you later then, right? The school out for
- 7:30the day, Yes, you do, I guess we'll have to wait the
- 7:33morning to interview the victims in the first class is at eight o'clock. I'll
- 7:36have the girls assemble in the classroom next to my office. All right,
- 7:40mister Chase, thank you. I'll be right back. Gus see you gentlemen.
- 7:48On it's like the rallies just breaking up. Ruh, three o'clock and
- 7:56the games are three things kids thirtainy exam up the carding let us oh my,
- 8:09the rest of you go about your business. Go on, now,
- 8:13what's the matter of young lady? What's the troll? Look at her dress?
- 8:22An ambulance was called and the injured girl was taken to Georgia Street Receiving
- 8:26Hospital, where she was treated for a cut on her right forearm and a
- 8:30deep slash across her hips. She was not the serious condition was the doctor's
- 8:35opinion that the wounds had been inflicted either by a very sharp knife or more
- 8:37probably a razor. A detail of plain clothesmen were dispensed to chart her high
- 8:43school, to keep the grounds and quarters under stick surveillance and so further notice.
- 8:46At seven point thirty the next morning, policewoman Lorraine Jensen Ben and I
- 8:50met at the high school with Principal Chase and Jim Travers, the head of
- 8:54the boys' council. By nine am, all of the twenty one knifing victims
- 8:58were assembled in one of the empty classrooms. Police women jents and outlined our
- 9:01plan of questions. May I have your attention? Please? This isn't going
- 9:07to take very long, girls, so I will have to ask you to
- 9:09co operate with us. Try to remember every detail of the time and the
- 9:13place that the not things occurred. We all have a report formed you,
- 9:18Rita. We'd like to have your ride. Three things. First, exactly
- 9:24where you were when you were injured. After that, rite the date and
- 9:28the time. Make that just as close as you can. Remember. The
- 9:33bottom of the page right the name of the person you suspect might have cut
- 9:37you. Your answer will be kept confidential. Please don't compare notes with the
- 9:41girl next to you. We watch your virsion, not to your neighbors.
- 9:46Yeah, five minute morning now, yeah, okay, all right, yeah,
- 9:50Joe, there's a recess coming up. We want to check the quarters
- 9:52and you make out alone for a little life. I'm sure you to go
- 9:54ahead. You can check the slips when you get back. Let's go.
- 9:58Yeah, the top of the stairs is best, sergeant. Okay, if
- 10:09you stand back a lope from the railing. No one down below me chelf
- 10:11of being watched either. Okay, I'm pretty much interested in police work,
- 10:16you know, the light detecting stuff. Keep one going here. One wrote
- 10:24a paper once on the lighter detective box. Was the onlogy grass tead?
- 10:26You liked it? So? Yeah, I've been reading how they take fingerprints
- 10:31off and prints and all that. Pretty interesting. Here we are. You
- 10:35can keep an eye on the whole car that here. Okay, what detail
- 10:41you lobsters work on a Judge street, you know Lee Jones or a great
- 10:45thinker. I've read a lot about the crime when once you come downtown,
- 10:50some left and then we'll show you wrong. I'll be swell. Okay.
- 10:52Must be interesting meeting all kinds of people watching out the behavior. Yeah.
- 11:00During the recess, while the students moved from classroom to classroom, we kept
- 11:03the main quarter on the close surveillance. The other men from Juvenile Bureau covered
- 11:07the rest of the quarters. We kept an eye on the main quarter during
- 11:11the third recess between periods. At eleven am, again no results. At
- 11:16eleven thirty, Travers went to check with the members of the Boys' Council to
- 11:20set up the noontime watch then and I went back to the classroom on the
- 11:22main Florida check with police woman Jensen. We helped your tally the results of
- 11:26the questioning of the girl victims that morning seventeen eighteen nineteen. Who who takes
- 11:35care of the lads? I see there? It is? Now, what's
- 11:39it mean? Or twelve? Say they were knifed on the main quarridor three
- 11:46knife outside the building or on the stairway, two in a classroom at times
- 11:52in this doesn't fact there's any pattern? Then how about the suspects that they
- 11:56looked out? That's even got me beat. You've got more of them than
- 11:58we have victims. Here there's four pages of names. Some of the girls
- 12:03wrote down as many as five. Sustay, that's help that our many all
- 12:07together. Let's see pretty four? Oh I missed? Kay? You find
- 12:13out anything well? Didn't turn out too well? Nothing? Definitely terrible morning.
- 12:18Parent's calling up the new status. Certainly out of my hands. Are
- 12:22there any assembly scheduled for this afternoon? Yes, after the fifth period?
- 12:26Why I think maybe a better cancel it. It seems like every time the
- 12:30kids are crowded together, we just ask the trouble. All right, I'll
- 12:33have a can signed something else of it in case the girls that we had
- 12:37in this room this morning, the victims. We'd like to have every one
- 12:39of them brought back here after the next class. All right, so I'll
- 12:43have a swift sent to each morning. Thank you gives are the child those
- 12:48kids getting cut up in broad daylight? Whoever it is, the guy's got
- 12:52a stomach for it. How do you know it's the guy? Just good
- 12:54a guess as any How about the school employees, the janitors them, check
- 13:00them all out, the tony. When we get the girls back here,
- 13:03we go through the same routine. One thing we missed the last time we
- 13:07talked to him. Yeah, we asked him to pick suspects. We might
- 13:09have more lucky if we have a bigger choice. Well, how do you
- 13:13mean, well, instead of asking him to pick out somebody, we'll tell
- 13:16him the list of names of every person who was around them or near them
- 13:20when they were cut and might work if we just bought a couple of repeats
- 13:22on the last they would you downstairs? Honey? Come on, man,
- 13:26what's the matter? I found her? To found who? They probably square
- 13:30downstairs? Unconscious? I'm afraid. What do you mean you're afraid. I'm
- 13:33not sure she's alive. We located the unconscious girl in the corner of the
- 13:39basement near the rear entrance to the girl's locker room. She had been tout
- 13:43severely about the face and arms at Georgia's Great Receiving Hospitals who have given an
- 13:46immediate blood transfusion. In additions were wounds. She was also fitted for shot.
- 13:52We questioned the victims. She stated that she did not see the person
- 13:54who attacked her. Later that afternoon, she was removed to her own home
- 13:58upon to her family position one five pm. Then I got back to the
- 14:03high school and checked in with a policewoman, Lorraine Jensen. I'm the last
- 14:09station. Turned out ray a lot at it. It was a good idea,
- 14:13Jim, Yeah, how would come out pretty good? You have a
- 14:16listen made twenty one of them. Each girl listed an average of eight persons
- 14:22around at the time. She was nice. Yeah, it's one name that
- 14:24occurs on nineteen twenty one. There they Joe Jim Travers. You are listening
- 14:43to Dragnet. The case history of a police investigation presented in the Public Interest
- 14:54Friday, November fifth PM. Then and I started checking on Jim Travers in
- 15:00the registrar's files. He was listed as James Kirkland Travers, seventeen years old.
- 15:05He was a well known, popular student. It was a fine athlete.
- 15:09He was from a well to do family. His father was the head
- 15:11of an engineering firm. His mother was from one of the oldest families in
- 15:15the city. During his three and a half years at Chiter High, Tim
- 15:18Travers had maintained close to an A average in his studies. He'd been president
- 15:22of his class in his freshman year, and he had held numerous other class
- 15:24offices. We interviewed his teachers. They had nothing but praise for Travers.
- 15:30They tabbed him as a brilliant young man with an excellent future. We asked
- 15:33about Traver's friends, who we powered around with. He picked up a small
- 15:37lead. We were told that he had very few, if any, close
- 15:41personal friends among the students, but he did have one girl of the high
- 15:46school he was especially fond of. Her name was Barbara Ferris, a tall,
- 15:50dark haired girl, exceptionally pritty. Her scholastic record was almost as high
- 15:54as Travers. Two PM policewoman Lorraine Jensen and I interviewed the girl in the
- 16:00off the principal's office. We're not singing you out, Barbara, we're interviewing
- 16:06most of the girls in the upper classes. You mean about what's been happening
- 16:08around school. Yes, that's right. Well, I don't know much about
- 16:11it. I was talking to Jim Travis last night. He's a friend of
- 16:15mine. He told me while you were here, as long as you known
- 16:17Jim Travis, baba, oh, since freshman year. I guess you go
- 16:21study with him. Well, you don't like to call it that, but
- 16:23I guess. So we go to the dances together. Sometimes we go to
- 16:26the show on weekends. Do you go out with him very often? No,
- 16:30not very often. Jim's usually pretty busy. He studies a lot.
- 16:33Does he go out with other girls? You know? Well, no,
- 16:36I don't. Once he went out with Betty Fisher. He said he didn't
- 16:38like her much. Betty's kind of a party girl. Jim likes to talk
- 16:42about things, you know, physiology, books, stuff like that. Do
- 16:45you get along with him pretty well? You get along fine. Sometimes he's
- 16:48moody, but I guess I am too. Could you tell us a little
- 16:52more about Jim. What's he like? Well, what do you want to
- 16:55know, that fool? Is there anything wrong? No, it's just a
- 16:56routine questioning. But I mean, we have to check on everybody I see.
- 17:00Well, Jim's certainly all right. He's like the rest of the fellow
- 17:03as a school I guess, only he's smarter than most of them. Well,
- 17:07is there anything Maybe it's odd about him that you noticed anything very different?
- 17:11Mmm? No, not that I've noticed. He's always been pretty bashful
- 17:15up until this last year. Anyway, he's still that way sometimes when we
- 17:19go out on dates. What do you mean how is he bashful? You
- 17:22know about girls and things. He's always nice, though he's not always thinking
- 17:26about necking and stuff like most of them. You mean he's not the romantic
- 17:30type. Well, he can be romantic when he wants to. Once we
- 17:33parked outside my house after a dance. He's always nice. It was just
- 17:37this one time, but was none. Well, he kissed me and then
- 17:41he twisted my arm behind my back. He kept twisting it for no reason.
- 17:45L I told him it hurt me, but he wouldn't let go.
- 17:48He kept twisting my arm. What do you say? That's what was so
- 17:52funny? He said, I like you better than any girl I know.
- 17:56Then he said, that's why I'm hurting you. After talking with Barbara Ferris,
- 18:03we had a pretty good idea that Jim Travers was a suspect we wanted,
- 18:07but because of his fine background and his record, we realized that we'd
- 18:11have to prove beyond any question of a doubt that he was the guilty person.
- 18:15We had only one thing to go on besides the information Barbara Ferris had
- 18:18given us during the morning recesses, when Travers was with Ben and I was
- 18:22watching the corridors. Not one knifing took place. When we had left Travers
- 18:26and gone downstairs to check the policewoman Jensen. The girl had been found slugged
- 18:30and cut at the rear of the girl's locker room. Two thirty pm.
- 18:33Then and I met with a suspect. How's it going? Sorry? Any
- 18:38lucked? Not much? Jim? What's that rally? No band practice?
- 18:42Junior proms tonight? Didn't? Yeah? You talk to a girl who was
- 18:48knife downstairs? Find out anything? No? Not much? You want to
- 18:52stick with us this afternoon? I think you might be able to help us
- 18:55out. Sure, I've got the fellas on the council standing by. You
- 18:57want him on bline? Let's go outside, Huh, I got time to
- 19:00tell you? Sure, Okay, we can go out this way. Can
- 19:10I certainly appreciate your letting me time along, hoping you're helping. I think
- 19:14you can, Jim. So, when we talked to those girls this morning,
- 19:18we drew up a new list of possible suspect. Yeah, funny thing.
- 19:22One of the names on the list was yours. Well, I've got
- 19:26nothing to hide. Well, we'll make a systematic check of each name on
- 19:29the list and prop of joy. Well, where we have to go on
- 19:33the line detector. I'd like to try that. I have a sew one
- 19:36only pictures. No, no, you won't have to go through that.
- 19:37It'll just be a couple of questions, and then we're gonna check your locker
- 19:41Okay, i'd be glad to show you. Does this take us to the
- 19:44locker room? Yeah, we can cut through here. Say, when we
- 19:48were questioning those girls this morning, someone said that they saw you in different
- 19:52parts of the building of the Night and the sixth Place. What do you
- 19:56mean, Well, your location didn't exactly jibe with your classroom schedule. In
- 20:00other words, your class was on the third floor. But you were sitting
- 20:03down on the main cord. And how do you count for that? Well,
- 20:07you see, I usually take walks between periods. Sitting in classrooms make
- 20:11me nervous sometimes. You know here, I'll get the door from there.
- 20:18Any other questions I can answered, sergeant, No, that's all. How'd
- 20:22you happen to get interested in police work? Jim and said your father was
- 20:25an engineer, didn't you? Yeah, that's right. I don't know how
- 20:29I got into that. I just took to I guess I always like to
- 20:32watch people's reactions and every behavior fasinating the locker rooms down this day. Okay,
- 20:40what are you funding on doing when you graduate? Golly, yeah,
- 20:42I guess so Dad wants to send to the MIT. It's good school.
- 20:47Yeah, say, if you ever had the time, I'm sure like to
- 20:52see some of the ballistics equipment down at the police crime lab. I've read
- 20:56up on the ballistics put that too. Oh that's so. Yeah, they
- 20:59probably have light attacker. That's my favorite wonderfulness. Imagine charging positive and negative
- 21:06reactions like that's marvelous. Yeah, say you have either one of you ever
- 21:11read Dawson was treated. I think it's called the Psychology of the Criminal Mind.
- 21:15You ever read it? I think we had it in training, didn't
- 21:18we? Then feeling like, how about criminal behavior in this basis Maxwell's book?
- 21:25Do you ever read that one? Mm? No, I don't think
- 21:26I did. That's a great book. I've got quite a few textbooks on
- 21:30crime, the one on sex crimes. It just gos very good. This
- 21:34locker room almost went past it. My lock is down this way. How
- 21:42do you shave? Jim? Use an electric razor or? Safety razor?
- 21:45Me electric razor. They had the best. Yeah, a lot easier to
- 21:49use here and it's all opened for you. Yeah, Ben, you guess
- 21:56there envelopes? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, they're okay. Would you
- 22:00step aside there, Jim. We get some dust scrapings from the shelf.
- 22:07M all right there you are, BENU want to market from uh Sam drivers?
- 22:15Just scraping locker? All right, let's see here. Here's some more
- 22:21scrapings from the bottom of the locker this time. Okay, I'll see these
- 22:23envelopes. Oh, here's a nail file. Okay, Jim. Now when
- 22:30you hold out your right hand, oh yeah, holding en blo up under
- 22:33his hand. What have you been? That's the nail scraping here, I
- 22:38say, what's all this for, sergeant, It's just routine and everybody,
- 22:42Jim, I'm just gonna take some sample specimens to run through the spectrograph spector.
- 22:51Yeah, let me sprap that middle finger nail little Okay, that's it
- 22:56now the index finger. What about the spec today we used all the time.
- 23:02Well, it won't work in a case like this, will it.
- 23:06That's all for the right hand man, don't forget to mark the envelope.
- 23:07Yeah, Jim travers screepings, angry nails, all right? An oh we
- 23:21know right, No the left hand Jim M yeah, no, we don't
- 23:26know if this is gonna work or not. It's worth a try. We'll
- 23:29know this afternoon. This afternoon, Yeah, we'll have to run you through
- 23:33on the machine. Holding book a little closer there. Yeah, well,
- 23:37how's it going to help him? Might tell us what you had for breakfast
- 23:41a week ago. Might tell us what kind of clothes you wore three days
- 23:45ago, kind of objects she came in contact with. Oh, well,
- 23:51what kind of principles does it operate on? Oh? I don't know.
- 23:52We can ask Lee Jones. Here. Let me get the scrapings from your
- 23:56plumb All right, there it is, and I see what the market ben.
- 24:00Uh you want to call the office and tell him all our way in?
- 24:03Yeah, I'll be in that that room right next to the prince was
- 24:06Okay, you can close your locker, Jim, that's all. Yeah,
- 24:12we'll check the things in your pockets and we get to the crime. Right,
- 24:15let's go. That spectrograph must be a marvelous machine. Well, it's
- 24:22worked for us a lot of times. We've got evidence on the suspected,
- 24:26either convicts them or clears them. You'll probably get a kick out of it.
- 24:30I'd like to see it. You say. It tells you everything a
- 24:34person's coming in contact, isn't it. Yeah, that's right. Could I
- 24:38tell you how I shaved? Well, what do you mean? I mean?
- 24:42Where an electric razor or safety raiser? Sure, that's one of the
- 24:47primary things. I don't know exactly how it works, but it does the
- 24:51job. We'll get Lee Jones to explain it to us. Out the store,
- 24:53we can cut across the courtyard. These are sure nice grounds. Will
- 25:00they keep me long downtown? Sergeant? Will you think, Jim, you
- 25:04know the strange part about these knifings? Out of here? What's that.
- 25:10Whoever's responsible probably doesn't even realize what he's doing. Mandoline is sick. He's
- 25:15very sick. Best thing for him to be a doctor, just like any
- 25:19other sickness. It's not going to get better by itself. Yeah. The
- 25:25only trouble is is just getting his appetite up with these knifings that he goes
- 25:30much longer. And how about that spectrograph sergeant say, for instance, well,
- 25:34if I happen to hold a knife in my hand or maybe a raiser,
- 25:37well, yeah, that was showing the machine we're going here. Yeah,
- 25:49terrible thing. Whoever it is, terrible thing, Yes, it is,
- 26:17has him going. I think he's ready to tell us, hope,
- 26:19So back into that phone, all right, son, you want to tell
- 26:27us about it now. I couldn't know myself. I had to do what
- 26:33I had to sleep, my goodness study. Unless I did, I couldn't
- 26:40know myself. You're responsible for all the nine things you know you're telling us,
- 26:55Dude, I'm glad you caught me. It's getting worse. Might have
- 26:59been wit I'm glad you caught me. Barbara after the prompt tonight, yeah,
- 27:06I was going to kill her. The story you have just heard was
- 27:15true, only the names were changed to protect the innocent. On December fifteenth,
- 27:22the hearing was held in Juvenile Court Department thirty eighth City and County of
- 27:25Los Angeles, State of California. In a moment the results of that trial,
- 27:29It's amazing how many long cigarette smokers are changing to extra mild Fatima.
- 27:33Here is the actual report from coast to coast. Extra mild Fatima has more
- 27:38than doubled its smokers. Yes, more and more smokers every day are discovering
- 27:44that Fatima is the king size cigarette that is extra mild, extra mild because
- 27:49it contains the finest Turkish and domestic tobaccos, superbly blended to make it extra
- 27:56mild. Give it a much different, much better flavor and the roma.
- 28:00Enjoy extra mild Fatima yourself, best of all long cigarettes. It's wise to
- 28:07smoke extra mild Fatima. It's wise to smoke extra mild Fatima. Seventeen year
- 28:22old James Travers was examined by court psychiatrists, who found him to be one
- 28:26of the most dangerous mental cases they had ever examined. The boy's parents,
- 28:30who cooperated to the fullest with the police officers, and with the court made
- 28:33only one request that the boy be committed to a private sanitarium. James Travers
- 28:38is now under confinement at that sanitarium for an indefinite period of time. You
- 28:48have just heard Dragnet, a series of authentic cases from official files. Technical
- 28:52advice for Dragnet comes from the Office of Chief of Police W. A.
- 28:56Wharton, Los Angeles Police Depires. Green Director's Playhouse presents a Damon Runyon story
- 29:03tomorrow on NBC Welcome Back. This episode ended up on my list of the
- 29:22twenty five best Dragnett stories ever going from the radio program into the nineteen sixties.
- 29:30And I think you got a good idea why it was such an unusual
- 29:34case. It's one where there had been limited actual damage, but certainly a
- 29:45threat of something very bad unfurling here. And the way that it was revealed
- 29:52by Friday, I think was just a masterful Now, oftentimes in fiction,
- 29:59when you want to wow somebody, you just make up something that's uh,
- 30:03you know, that's a totally fake, invented thing. But it takes a
- 30:08respect to graph which is a powerful tool for police, though not quite the
- 30:17wonder tool that Sergeant Friday makes out. It's handy, particularly in the analysis
- 30:22of drugs, and there are a wide variety of different sorts of spectographers that
- 30:29are spectra spectrographs that have sprung up over the years. But there was just
- 30:33I think something very perfect psychologically about the way that he played. It really
- 30:41gave him the sense that he'd been trapped and he was very crucial to do
- 30:47this because, as he said, you know, he was going to kill
- 30:56that girl that night. So it was a sad but very well told tale.
- 31:03Well, now we turn to listener comments and feedback, and we start
- 31:10with an email we have from Christine in Jamaica. She writes, Hi,
- 31:15Adam, I've just got a chance to listen to the Big Trial. I
- 31:18loved it. I find I get really excited by the Dragnet episodes that are
- 31:23super procedural. You think I'd find these more boring, but I don't.
- 31:27These are actually my favorite. Not sure what that says about me. Maybe
- 31:33I'm the most boring person in the world. In any case, Thanks for
- 31:36giving me the opportunity to be excited from the comfort of my living room.
- 31:40Excellent as always, Well, thanks so much, Christine, And definitely different
- 31:47episodes strike or scratch, different people'shitches. I tend to enjoy the really exciting,
- 31:52interesting episodes and the ones that feature procedural last we don't usually think about,
- 32:00as well as some of the great character pieces that Dragnet has done.
- 32:07Okay, we also do have a tweet, and this one comes from Paul,
- 32:12who writes in love Dragnett and all your shows Adam, Johnny Dollar and
- 32:16let George do it. Also my faves Bob Bailey is very good. Well,
- 32:22thanks so much, Paul, and appreciate your comments. And that will
- 32:25actually do it for today. Coming up on Sunday, we'll be bringing you
- 32:30on video theater the Mandarin Mystery. It's the very first Ellery Queen movie.
- 32:37And then next Tuesday, Ellery Queen comes to us on the radio and more.
- 32:43Immediately on Monday, join me for the Saint with Vincent Price, and
- 32:47then next Saturday another episode of Dragnet. In the meanwhile, send your comments
- 32:52to Box thirteen at Great Detectives dot net, follow us on Twitter at Radio
- 32:59Detective, and become one of our friends on Facebook, Facebook dot com.
- 33:04Slash Radio Detectives from Boiseidaho. This is your host, Adam Grahamson and off