 The story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. Fatima cigarettes, best of all long cigarettes, brings you dragnet. Detective Sergeant, you're assigned to homicide detail. A young woman has been murdered. The body was discovered behind locked doors. The assassin is still at large. Your job, find him. If you want a long cigarette, smoke the best of long cigarettes. Smoke Fatima. Fatima is the long cigarette which contains the finest Turkish and domestic tobaccos superbly blended to make Fatima extra mild. And that's why Fatima has a much different, much better flavor and aroma than any other long cigarette. That's why Fatima is doubling and redoubling its smokers. So if you want a long cigarette, smoke the best of all long cigarettes. Smoke Fatima. The documented drama of an actual crime. For the next 30 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 from official police files. From beginning to end, from crime to punishment, dragnet is the story of your police force in action. It was Tuesday, January 9th, the stormy in Los Angeles. We were working a day watch out of homicide detail. My partner's Ben Romero. My name's Friday. I was on the way to work and it was 6.45 a.m. when I got to the steps of the city hall, the main street entrance. Hey Joe, wait up. Morning, Ben. When did they call you? 5 a.m. Donahoe called you here. Measurable outing. Pretty wet. See the transfer there? Yeah. New chief of detect? Wait a minute. I want to get some gum. Pack of spare men. Well, I don't mind the new chief. Bad brown. Good man. Peace gum. Okay. Now, we said make up some minds, but our shift. Work days, they call you back night. Work nights, they call you back days. Why don't you put in for a desk job? We'll never have to call you back. You're here all the time. Now, you just hide the police. Here we are. Thanks again. It's a great way to start off as your new chief. Call you back on a rotten morning like this. I'm glad you got the job then. Yeah, congratulations, chief. It's hard to follow men like Ed Backstran. I'm going to need your help. You got it. Here's why I called you back. Laura Barclay, with the dead body, report nightclub entertainer. Landlady found the body an hour ago. Who's covering? Burton and Anderson. They're out there now. Strangled, huh? Well, the lamp cored. Still trying to figure out how the guy got in the house. Stores and windows all locked. Yeah. The tact. Is that the motive? For now, yeah. I just came from there. I think there's more. Any reason? A room wasn't proud. Yeah? Just a hunch. Play it for me. Ben and I left that Brown's office, picked up Lieutenant Lee Jones at the crime lab and drove to the West Adams District, number 16 Imperial Place, where the body of Laura Barclay had been found. It was an ornate frame structure done in Victorian style at least 30 to 40 years old. Number 16 was on the ground floor. We went in. A narrow hallway led to the bedroom in the rear of the house. Two gas jet fixtures, which had been converted to electricity were the only illumination. This place has seen better day. Anybody else coming out, Lee? I see flash bulbs down there. They must be here already. Lieutenant. Righty. Down this way. Hi, Burton. Hi. The target was covering the body position. Peterson's dusting for Prince. Fred, shoot a couple of overheads. Don't make them all angle shots. Get up high, then move in close. That cheap was right. Room's in pretty good order. Did you talk to anybody, Burton? Landlady lives upstairs. Only two people living in the building. Mm-hmm. Does she tell you anything? Said the Barclay girl paid her rent on time. Good tenant. Plays the organ at the Blue Fox cocktail lounge. Any idea how the murderer got in here? Not yet. Every door and window in the place is locked. Anything else? That's it so far. We'll give you 15.7 on what we got. Okay, Lord. You and Anderson have another detail? Yeah, I'm working on that Westwood thing. Two uniform men outside if you want anything. Right, thanks. Looks like a tough one, Joe. Whoever did it must have come in through the keyhole. See you later. Slowly. Andy. Peterson's dusting for Prince. Nothing yet. The only piece of physical evidence so far, the lamp cord she was strangled with. I'll run it through downtown. Not a sign of a struggle. Maybe she wanted to die. Check the bathroom, will you, Ben? I'll look around the kitchen. Pete, have you dusted the lamp? Not yet. Ben, come here a minute, will you? Ben. Yeah? Come in the kitchen, will you? You got a pencil? Oh, yeah. Yeah, here you are. Take a look at this garbage shoot here. Let me see. About eight feet to the ground. Yeah, big enough for a man to get through. No problem. Lee. I'll be right there. It could be the answer, Joe. He either got in this way or he was in the house when she came home. What do you got? A garbage shoot here. What do you think? Could be. Let me grab a kit. Let's see. A little bit of powder. Got it. Nothing on the outside of the lid. Look pretty clean. My suggestion's been scrubbed. Abrasion's here. Got a pencil? Yeah, yeah, okay. Hold it up there, will you? Yeah. There we go. Large prints. Unusually large. Big hands. Can I look inside the shoot a minute, Lee? Go ahead. Watch out the lid. Looks like it's blocked off upstairs. This thing hasn't been used for garbage for some time. Most of them were condemned a few years back. I'll get Fred to shoot these. Let's go in the living room. That desk been dusted, Lee? Yeah, it's clean. Go ahead. Take a look, Joe. Photographs. Hmm. Wonders of all men. Yeah, all different. Lee Jones and the crime lab grew finished up and went back to Central Division. Two uniformed officers remained on duty at the scene of the crime. Thad Brown had men sent out to canvas the neighborhood. Ben and I went upstairs and talked with a landlady, a Mrs. Emma Smith. Yes? Police officers. You Miss Smith? Yes. You're not the same officers I talked with before. No, ma'am. I wonder if we could ask you a few questions. I told the other officers everything I knew. We have to double check, Miss Smith. Who was the girl who lived in the apartment below, number 16? Laura Barclay. Is that the name she used? A mail she received. Was it addressed that way? Yes, it was. She was a very good tenant, Laura. No trouble with her at all. When did she move here? Oh, about four or five years ago. I have the rent receipts. I always save receipts. Did she always live by herself? Oh, yes. That apartment rents to one person only. Did she have many visitors, friends dropping in? None that I ever saw. Pretty much to herself, Laura. The men came yesterday and took it away. What's that, ma'am? The organ. Electric one. Laura rented it from a big downtown firm. Used to practice all the time. My night was beautiful. Yeah. In the glowing. She used to play that for me. Mrs. Smith, when did the men come and take the organ away? Yesterday, in the afternoon, about 4.30. Was Miss Barclay at home when they came? No, she wasn't. She left me a note to let the men, so I let the men. I never allow anyone in the apartment without a note. You know the name of the company where she went to the organ? Braziers. It was called down on South Spree. Didn't you think it was unusual that Miss Barclay didn't have any friends? Now, officer, I didn't say Laura didn't have any friends. What I said was that she didn't have any friends who came to see her here. She moved here from a hotel for women. That's the reference she gave me. I see. I wonder if you could give us the address of that hotel, please. I'll write it down for you. Thank you. Miss Smith, did you hear any unusual sounds in Miss Barclay's flat last night? Anything out of the ordinary? If I had, I would have called the police and we'd have saved a girl's life. Well, thank you very much, Miss Smith. Here's a corn. If there's anything you think of after we've gone, don't hesitate to call us. Thank you, I will. I hope you get the dirty men who killed Laura. We didn't say it was a man, Miss Smith. Well, isn't it always a man? Before we met Mrs. Emma Smith, we asked her about the garbage shoot. She said it had not been in use for the last four years. We showed her the stack of photos. She could identify none of them. We drove back to Central Division. We checked Brazier's music store. The two men who moved to Oregon were checked out and cleared. We went to the Wynn Hotel for young ladies. They could tell us nothing. Laura Barclay's references were all good. We went back to the office and met with Chief of Detective Stad Brown. You think he got into the garbage shoot? Into where it looks, Chief. We went all over the apartment. If there's another way, we haven't found it. All right, you know, he got in. Who is he? We got out on APB and his MO. Late in fingerprints and making a run on those prints we found. We've got an idea about these pictures here. Most of them theatrical still, show people. Frank Lattour and his Canine Circus. To Laura, all my love, Frank. Tell me what you do. Here's a guy I checked with this morning. Bernard Carubian. Theatrical Booking Agent, huh? Yeah, Barney's office is down in the Orpheum building, 8th and Hill. He booked her into the Blue Fox. See what he can tell you. All right, I'll grab the pictures. Well, you got more than you started with. Those fingerprints. We'll get a make on them. We'll be close to the guy. So was the Barclay girl, but he got away. I wonder if we could see Mr. Carubian. Who's calling, please? Sergeant Romero and Sergeant Friday, police officers. One moment, please. Two police officers to see Mr. Carubian. Sergeant Friday and Sergeant Romero. Is that right? Yes, ma'am. Seven minutes. Go right in. Thank you. I help you. I understand that you booked Laura Barclay. Yeah, that's right. I spoke with her. Got his name right here. Chief Stathbrown? That's right. He asked me about Laura. Too bad about that. Any clues? We're working on it, Mr. Carubian. What makes a person pull a stunt like that? Laura didn't have no enemies. She had one. Well, I don't know much about her, except I've been booking her for about four years. Good organist. Pretty far boys, too. Got some pictures here. I wonder if you could take a look at them. Yeah, sure. Quite a stack. Yeah, old Frankie Latour and them dogs. Great act. I book them. Ricky Rogan, King of the Tap. Gus Sorinoco, and that same seal of his. Well, yeah, I know all these people. I book them all. Did Laura Barclay work with all these people? One time or another, yeah. During the war, USO camp shows, you know. Do you know whether she was close to any of them? Well, come to think of it, she was. That Frankie Latour, crazy about them dogs of his. No, I mean the men themselves. Anybody that she seemed particularly interested in. Never heard of mention anybody. Pretty girl. Did you know her very well, Mr. Carubian? Only when she came in and out of town on an engagement. I'm a married man. Well, when you don't think there's anything to these pictures here of hers, huh? Well, I wouldn't say so. When you're on the road, you always collect photos of the people you work with. Souvenirs. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Carubian. Here's our card. You betcha. I sure hope you catch the guy. I wonder why he picked on Laura. Sometimes they don't have a reason. When we left Bernard Carubian's office, we checked by the Blue Fox cocktail lounge. It was still early. The sign said open 5 p.m. It was 3.15. We went to the morgue in the basement of the Hall of Justice and looked at the coroner's report. The autopsy report stated that the cause of death for Laura Barclay was strangulation. We went to the second floor of the Old City Jail Building, the crime lab. Nothing on the lamp con. Standard URL, 110 line, about anywhere. No prints. How about the shoot link? We went back there and rechecked. You were right. The guy got in through the garbage shoot. Found more of the same prints along with some clothed impressions in the dust. Tell you anything? The guy was wearing some kind of tweed, Donegal, 15 to the inch. How about the size of a man, Lee? How big could he be to clear that shoot? It had a 20-inch diameter. Almost any man could squeeze through that. Checked the ground level of the shoot. Cement. No footprints. You don't have too much for it. I got one thing for you. What's that? I think I found your motive. It's listed on the report. Here are the blow-ups of the body. It's 36 by 54 here. Hold that in, will you, man? No, I haven't. Look through this magnifying glass here. The right hand. See where I'm pointing? Ring finger, yeah. Looks like ring marks. That's right. Pretty wide. Must have been good side rings. I might still be in that room. I called that brown. He had the room rechecked. No sign. We got a burglary body on our hand. That's my guess. Dad had the boys checked with the landlady. She didn't know anything about any rings the Barclay girl might have had. That doesn't help. I think I got something else here. A library book, Harry. The cards in one of the pockets inside checked out from the L.A. Public Library main branch. I think these might be your lead on the missing rings. A librarian sees a person's hands every time they check out a book. That makes sense, Lee. We'll play it that way. What department where the books checked out a music room? Well, that's it. I think you've got your motive now and a good set of prints. You're closed. Thanks a lot, Lee. Let's go to the library, Ben. I'll get it. Crime lab. No, this is Friday. Oh. Thanks, Frank. Well, we got some motive. How do you mean? No make on those fingerprints. Nothing. You are listening to Dragnet for the solution to an actual case from official police files. Now here is a real solution to many of your Christmas shopping problems. If your friends smoke a long cigarette, give the best of all long cigarettes. Fatima. Give Fatima for quality. The name Fatima has always stood for the best in cigarette quality. Give Fatima for flavor. Fatima has a much different, much better flavor and aroma than any other long cigarette. Give Fatima their extra mild. Yes, Fatima is the long cigarette which contains the finest Turkish and domestic tobaccos superbly blended to make Fatima extra mild. Yes, extra mild. So give Fatima for Christmas in the attractive golden yellow carton. It's the long cigarette that has doubled and redoubled its smokers. Yes, more and more smokers every day agree, Fatima is the best of all long cigarettes. 4.30 p.m. Tuesday, January 9th. Heavy rain. Laura Barclay's murderer was still a free man. Ben and I were sure that whoever left their fingerprints on the inside of that garbage chute was the same man who murdered the Barclay girl. He had no previous record. His first crime, as far as we knew, was a killing and the odds were all in his favor. The fingerprints gave us nothing. All we had left to lead us to the killer were three library books and a stack of old theatrical photos. The solution of most crimes for the working detectives is method and persistence. When you have clues, you work with them. When you don't, you work your way to a logical conclusion as best you can. We went to the Los Angeles Public Library, the main branch. The librarians in the music room handled thousands of readers every week. None of them remembered Laura Barclay. We drove over to the Blue Fox cocktail lounge. We interviewed the manager and he knew nothing of her personal life. We talked to Harry Schumann, about Laura Barclay's place. What would you like to hear, fellas? Police officers, I'd like to talk to you a minute. About Laura, huh? Yeah, try it. All right, if I keep on playing, the manager wants full 15-minute sets. Go ahead, that's all right. What can I tell you? How long have you known Miss Barclay? Oh, four or five years. It's a terrible thing. You gotta get whoever did it. Do you think of anybody that might have killed her? I know you ask that question of everybody. I don't know. Does anybody ever know for sure? Sometimes. Well, I don't know. When you think of a person, you never think who might murder him. Maybe you might know a few things about her that you could fill us in on. I'll try. She went for jewelry much, rings, things like that. Funny you should ask that. She was nuts for it. Good things. Rings? Diamonds, they were big stones. It cost 4,000. I know she used to put most of her money into those rings. She'd buy them on time? Yeah. I remember one night she was overjoyed. The night she paid them off, it cost a lot of dough. Can you describe those rings for us? Not too good. I can give you the name of the jeweler she bought them from. That'll do. Do you know anybody else that we might talk to? I don't know any of her friends. No living relatives that I know of. How about her landlady? I guess that's it, Harry. Thank you. For what? I wish I could help more. If everybody had your attitude, we'd be out of a job. Before we left the blue box, Harry Schumann gave us the address of Laura Barclay's jeweler. The next morning we checked with the manager of the store and he gave us a complete description of the two diamond rings which the dead girl had purchased. They were valued at $4,000. He gave us detailed drawings of the rings. We went back to the office, gave the information to Burgary detail and all points bulletin was put out describing them. Pawn shops throughout the city and state were alerted to watch for the stolen rings. We had lunch with Chief Thad Brown at Costas Cafe. Never mind, O'Mara. I'll get it. Thank you, Chief. I'll get to the tip. The stew was good. We'll have some change with the cigarette machine. Need any cigarettes, Joe? No, no thanks, then. Let's go. What do you think, Thad? The description of the rings and the emotion helped. They hadn't turned up. Good chance he's holding on to him. Could be his first job. Probably scared. Anybody check back over the neighborhood there? This is the afternoon and this morning. A lot of door-to-door salesmen's with that district. All been checked out. Is it dead end? Nowhere. Only those prints are checked out. Well, they didn't. Got a kickback from Brerich and Sacramento on his MO. No make. We'll have to get him with what we've got. Here's the car. Sure you picked up all the loose ends? We've been back over the course three times. Go over it again. Keep going over it until something breaks. For the next ten days we retraced our steps from the room where the crime was committed throughout the neighborhood to the place where she worked, back to the same dead end. Ben and I checked and double-checked each other to make certain that neither of us had overlooked even the smallest detail of the investigation. We've got no place. It was 8 a.m. January 19th. Homicide Friday. This is Robles and Berglary, Joe. How do we figure in it? His MO? Yeah. Besides fingerprints and photographs, one other mark by which the unknown criminal is identified is by his method of operation, his MO. Once a thief finds a successful means of operation, he seldom changes it. In our search for Laura Barclay's murderer, we had checked our files and found no criminals at large whose practice it was to gain entrance through a garbage chute. It was reasonably safe to assume that this was the same man. It was 2 p.m. January 23rd. I found my way back from the record bureau. Just out of call, Joe. Elmer Radcliffe. Informant? Yeah. It says two days ago he heard about some guy who was making the rounds trying to peddle a couple of diamond rings. Same ones? He's not sure. Doesn't know what the guy looked like. Any idea where the guy is now? Hasn't been around since. Told Elmer to keep his eyes open. That's good. Come in here, you two. What do you got, then? The port just came down from Berglary. Pawn shop down in North Main took in a watch and strand of pearls last night. Yeah. That's what Rubles called you about. Yeah, I remember. Where's it dying? Same guy tried to peddle a couple of diamond rings. 10 a.m. January 25th. Thad Brown arranged to have all Pawn shop detail calls concerning the suspect put through to us on extension 2521, homicide. Five days passed. No further word. Homicide Friday. This is George Ropes. Maine? Yeah, what's the matter? Man's up now. Stalem will be right down. There goes the valley. Can you hit him? He didn't stop him. Watch it. He's turning on the spring. He ran into that cafeteria. Come on, let's run. He's not stopping. Stay clear. All right, come on. All right, get his guns. Yeah. You got him in the leg, Joe. Hit his head when you fail. All right, snap him on. Huh. Look on the little finger of his right hand. Two diamond rings. It doesn't make sense, does it? What's that? $4,000 worth of diamonds and he's lying on a pile of garbage. That's true. Only the names were changed to protect the innocent. On April 2nd, 1947, trial was held in Superior Court, Department 81, city and county of Los Angeles, state of California, in a moment the results of that trial. Now, here are authentic reports from all over the country that tell the story of Fatima's sensational increase in popularity. New Orleans Division. What's that? Detroit Division. What's that? Los Angeles Division. What's that? More and more smokers agree, Fatima is the best of long cigarettes. So enjoy Fatima yourself and give extra mild Fatimas for Christmas in the attractive golden yellow carton. Everyone who smokes Fatima says that this great new long cigarette is the best of all long cigarettes. Lola Barclay's murderer was identified as Martin Eric Swanson. He was tried and convicted of murder at his first degree. His case was fought through the Supreme Court of California and in the United States Supreme Court. In both instances, his conviction was upheld. Last Friday morning, after a delay of five years, Martin Eric Swanson was executed in the lethal gas chamber at the state penitentiary. You have just heard Dragnet, a new series of authentic cases from official files. Technical advice for Dragnet comes from the office of Acting Chief of Police W. A. Wharton, Los Angeles Police Department. Dragnet honors the city of Youngstown, state of Ohio, and the men who make up the Youngstown Police Department, another of America's great law enforcement agencies. One of these men, Chief of Police Edward J. Allen, honored as policeman of the year, who dedicates his life so that yours might be more secure. Fatima cigarettes. Best of all, long cigarettes has brought you Dragnet from Los Angeles. This Christmas, give the gift that makes every pipe smoker happy. A Christmas humidor of Mellow Granger. Granger is made just for pipes by the tried-and-true Wellman method. Rough cut to smoke mild and cool, and humidor packed to stay ever fresh. Yes, make this Christmas a merry Christmas for all the pipe smokers on your list. Give them each a Christmas humidor of Mellow Granger. Listen to Dragnet next week, and be sure to hear Morton Downey tonight on NBC.