 The National Broadcasting Company presents Joe McCrae in Tales of the Texas Rangers Tonight transcribed from Hollywood another authentic reenactment of a case from the files of the Texas Rangers This ranger starring Joe McCrae is Ranger Jayce Pearson Texas more than two hundred and sixty thousand square miles And fifty men who make up the most famous and oldest law enforcement body in North America Here's come these stories based on facts only names dates and places are fictitious for obvious reasons The events themselves are a matter of record a sport tonight soft touch It is 11 a.m. On a Sunday in August 1949 a Blue sedan comes to a stop in front of a ranch house 30 miles in the town of Salt Flats, Texas Come on kids this grandma's house. Well, let me sleep. We started so early. They're tired Well, we can't leave them in the car If we wake them up now, they'll never finish their naps. We'll bring them in in a few minutes Okay, getting up at 4 a.m. Was kind early even for them Hey, look pause painted the windmill Bill I love this place. I wish we didn't live so far away. Yeah, we don't get here often enough Hey wonder where the folks are They usually stand in the middle of the road waiting for us when they know we're bringing the kids for a visit Your mother's probably in the kitchen cooking enough food for a dozen. Yeah Don't smell anything cooking No, they're always back by 10 o'clock the garage door was closed too always leaves it open when he's got the car I have all then they must be in fact someplace. Yeah Hey, mom. Oh, where are you? I've never known your mother to be any place but in the kitchen though. Yeah, but she doesn't hear so well anymore. Let's take a look Nobody here Judy Bill what's that spilled on the floor at the door to the penetrate? Hey, Judy, it looks like blood The brutal murder of the rancher and his wife was reported Texas Ranger Jayce Pearson was notified by shortwave radio He reached the ranch house less than one hour after the bodies were discovered I'm sorry to have to ask questions at a time like this, mr. Ross. It's all right My My kids are sleeping the car though Might if my wife takes them in the town, I won't leave you here Bill. Please honey. I'll be all right I don't want the kids who come in here even know about this might be best ma'am. I Meet you at the hotel later Better tell me anything you know mr. Ross. Yeah Well We drove out from Fort Worth this morning. That's my home now. I'm a commercial artist This is the first time we've been here in five months Hello, Sheriff Your wife told us to come right in bill Sure. I'm sorry. Yeah, it's it might have known something was wrong when I didn't see your folks at services this morning They never did miss you better go on what you were telling me mr. Ross Nothing else to tell Judy noticed the blood in the kitchen by By the pantry door. Okay Better take a look at him sheriff. All right, just one thing more mr. Ross Your parents have any enemies, you know, I'm no jet Martha Ross never made an enemy in their whole lives Ranger say You don't you don't want me to go in there with you do he I won't be necessary. Just take it easy Kitchens there They took a pretty cruel beating Ranger Yeah No sign of a weapon though Help me move the old man's body a little bit Heavy welds but Beating to death and then put in here Blood comes mostly from hemorrhaging though not so much from cuts. You'd think a weapon would have cut them up more than that Unless it was wrapped in something only one other thing I can think of Bear fists Hey, what's this? Let me see Just a little hook of paper yeah crumpled to Piece of a larger sheet Rest of it must have been torn away. It feels like a good grade of letterhead paper Mean anything to you if you find the rest of the paper this came from no But if we don't it could mean plenty like what in the way This is crumpled might have been part of something the old man was hanging on to and somebody tried to get it away from him I'm gonna send this into our lab at Austin Looks like this happened sometime last night. That's something we'll know when we get an autopsy report We call to have the bodies and the piece of paper picked up then we checked around the outside of the house The gravel road wouldn't hold a car track, but behind the house We found marks where a horse had been tied. I got charcoal out of the trailer and the sheriff got a horse from the ranch barn You went right toward the southeast quarter Ross has two hundred acres and cotton down there. Yeah, I see it might have written over there yesterday On one of his own horses. No Horse that made this trail wasn't one of Ross's pony. We're following has a spread hook Look See the marks bar across the frog in the right forefoot Wondered why you were checking the shoes on the horses back there in the barn. Yeah, that's why Loans the adjoining place other side of the cotton big Chuck Whitaker Let's get moving. I want to have a talk with this big Chuck Whitaker. Come on Yeah, I was over there yesterday afternoon, but I didn't kill nobody That's very interesting. Mr. Whitaker because we didn't tell you anything about anybody being killed No, you didn't ranger My phone happens to be on the same party line as the Ross ranch I heard their son Bill called when he found him this morning. You make a habit of listening in I had a call to make I picked up The phone they heard couldn't help it Now you're through asking questions. I'd like to go back to men this honey that can wait Chuck You're not exactly broken up about losing your neighbors range. I got troubles enough moan Why did you go to Ross's yesterday? What time were you there in the evening? Just for sundown Ross was fixing to have some crop dust and done again. I want to talk to him about it About doing the job for him. No ranger the crop dust and plane comes down from salt flats Oh, I'll go ahead Whitaker and last time Ross dust this spray carried over on my place Some of my cattle watered down near that cotton made them sick Ross say he'd watch out for it. Yeah, that was all that was all and I come home All right Whitaker, come on sure. All right, Chuck Yeah, Chuck When I left Ross's place just for dark car drove up. I came around the house who's in it man That's all I know you didn't see his face. No only thing that makes me think of it was something to notice Car wasn't from around here. How do you know I had one of them fancy frames around the licensed place You know the things mean that got the name of the town stamped on it. Did you notice the stamp? Yeah Car was from San Anton San Anton Thanks. Let's go sheriff. Get up Good thing you notice that car and remembered it might be a big help. Yeah Might be a big lie too that man's hard He just acts hard ranger Kind of sour since his wife ran off with one of his cowhands a few years back But he don't need to harm maybe not He makes a bad impression He's liable to send more flowers to Ross funeral the most anybody around I've known killers to do that before too We checked other ranchers in the area, but we didn't get any information until next morning at the sheriff's office Morning, Jayce Very anything from your headquarters yet? No waiting for him to call me now. And what's that the autopsy report? Yeah Medical examiner seems to agree with your idea death might have been caused by a beating with fists Very thorough job of beating you read this yeah Old woman died of a broken neck Struck right at the base of the brain Rabbit punch. Yeah Old man Ross hemorrhage to death like you said Broken jaw broken nose rib smashed in under the heart Vessels ruptured from being beaten on the kidneys and in the solar plexus I'd like to get my hands on anybody who'd do that if you did get your hands on him You'd have your hands full whoever did it was big and he could hit plenty hard and in just the right spots You still got Chuck quittaker on your mind only because he fits the bill in a few ways Never hurt nobody before no, but he's a bitter man that kind Excuse me. Hello Yes, he's here. Yeah For you Jayce Captain Stinson calling long distance. Thanks Hello cap paper you said here special type The papers doc indicates the original sheet was a letter head printed in the government printing office in Washington Know which bureau I try and find out if any department there has had any correspondence with Jed Ross recently That's what we do. I won't buy James. Bye captain You find out where the paper come from. Yeah some government office in, Washington You've been checking on that car from San Antonio one Whitaker told us about yeah Nobody I found so I don't how about you nobody Seems like the only one did see it was Chuck Whitaker. I hate to admit it Jayce, but it's beginning to look that way Let's get our horses. I want to see Whitaker again When you've known a man all your life you hate to think he's a murderer The other hand you hate to see a neighbor get killed too Whitaker is telling the truth He's got nothing to worry about feel mighty sorry for young Bill Ross He was all busted up at the funeral parlor Tough for him to take it alone, but he made his wife and kids go back to Fort Worth. He's the only child Bill Yeah, only one living that is had a sister Jones. Nice a girl. You never see What happened to her? She was a Navy nurse got killed the Solomon Islands during a war Ross is sure had this share of trouble. All right Trouble somebody ought to pay for Hey look, there's what a canal on a pony coming toward us just wrote out of the gully. Yeah Coming back to see me, huh That's right Whitaker you think I've been lying to you. Don't you range. I take it easy Chuck get one thing straight Whitaker I got nothing against you or any man not personally But I do intend to find the man who killed your neighbors and then you can stop looking around my place Sheriff I wrote out to meet you cause your office call You both want it back in town. Why because I ain't blind. I ain't lying One of the sheriff's deputies has found somebody else who saw that car from San Antonio You are listening to tales of the Texas Rangers starring Joel McCrae as Ranger Jayce Pearson And now we continue with tonight's case soft touch We went back to town and from there to a roadside cafe about 15 miles out the state highway Yeah, I sure did see the car like I told the deputy it had that thing my jig on the license plate Noticed it when I give him some gas. Are you sure it was on Saturday? Yeah, sure was about five o'clock. I'd say I guess there's not much traffic from San Antonio comes through here Does it sheriff nope? We're off the main US highway Is anybody coming down here on a state road to have to have some business around here someplace? You remember the man in the car No, I sure do after I give him the gas he come in for some coffee Can you describe him? No, well three days ago, but He's better than six feet maybe 200 pounds. Then of course there was his face What was wrong with it? Well sheriff his face looked like he tried to bulldog the steer on rocky ground and lost it sure was scarred up He bleeding any place? Oh, no ranger. I didn't mean fresh scarred Reckon he looked that way for a long time and when he left here you drive on towards salt flats Sure did wasn't nobody else in here when he stopped nor when he left So I didn't have nothing much to do and I said watching when he drove off He was going in the direction of the Ross ranch. All right. Yeah, but who was he? That's what I'm going to find out if I can Bill Ross said he's a commercial artist, didn't he? Yeah, why? Because I want to bring him out here get a detailed description of that face and see if Ross can draw something that comes close to it We sent for Bill Ross before he joined us at the sheriff's office something else turned up a long-distance call from Captain Stinson We found out what that letter from Washington might have been Jase Good captain. Let's have it. Well, it might have been from the Veterans Administration Answered to a letter Jed Ross wrote asking if they had any record of a United States Marine named Herbert Walsh. What else? Well for some reason Ross wanted to know if there really had been a Herbert Walsh in the core and Especially if he'd been wounded and hospitalized in the Solomon Islands The piece of paper you send in might have come from the answer of the vets administration sent to Ross. What was the answer? There's no record of a Herbert Walsh Jase. Does it fit anything? I don't know captain, but the Ross has lost a daughter in the Solomon's a Navy nurse Bill Ross just came in with a sheriff. I'll get on it. Bye Ross does the name Herbert Walsh ring a bell with you Yes Yes ranger it does my father told me about him in a letter two months ago, you know who he is No, I never saw him folks wrote that he stopped by the ranch and told him my sister had taken care of him in the Solomon's before she got killed that all no According to my father's letter Walsh gave my folks the idea that well that he and my sister had been very close Had your sister ever mentioned him in letters to your folks when she was overseas they couldn't remember but We were awful found to my kid sister ranger Anybody who'd known her would have found an open door with my folks somebody found one. All right to open What do you mean? There isn't any Herbert Walsh. Well, but my father gave him some money when did you write to you about that? No, but I've just been going over my father's affairs in the past two months. He loaned Walsh several hundred dollars I have to cancel checks Where are the checks at the lawyer's office on the corner? I want to see the where those checks were cashed Come on Jason You figure this watch is a phony working the old war buddy racket. Of course. He is but with a new angle a dead girl What do you mean? I mean that families of servicemen and women open their hearts too easily to strangers They think might have been close to somebody they loved you mean Walsh killed my family your father must have suspected him He wrote to Washington and found out Walsh had never been in the Solomon's or the Marines When Walsh came the last time your father called his hand with the letter he'd gotten from the VA. Here's the building where the lawyer is Here the checks Ranger four of them total of six hundred dollars endorsed by Walsh Cashed for him by merchants in San Antonio that car came from San Antonio Jace that sure fits It sure does let's get out to that cafe and get that sketch drawn up No, it weren't quite like that around the eyes there was Marks around the eyebrows as she means scar tissue. Oh See eyes deeper set then Like this The nose didn't come out so far had the kind of a dent in the middle Yeah, like that Hey, that's real good If somebody knew the man would they recognize him from that they sure would that's almost a spitting image I'd say thanks a lot ma'am. You sure welcome. I'll take that bill. Thanks again. Uh-huh come back Well, you ain't the prettiest fella I ever saw I don't know my folks said that too But Walsh told him he'd been in the Jap prison camp and treated bad Walsh was lying if Walsh is his real name Must have got beat up someplace Jace. Yeah, and I've got a hunch. I know where what do you think in a prize ring The man who killed your folks was a professional fighter You figure that just because of his face and one other thing. Don't forget that autopsy report share That's right Well, you were marked right then that the fellow who threw those punches knew what he was doing I'd sure like to get my hands on him Two old people Getting at him through my kid sister. Don't think about your own revenge law. I'll take care of that. Yeah But no law can bring them back to life Drop you at the office bill you in the sheriff. I I'll be in touch with you later Where are you going jays out of your territory? San Antonio to faster faster. Come on roll with it. That's it Let me see you ranger Now I've seen that face before sure. Yeah Well, there's some time but you strain here. All right. Have your way. Wait a minute. Hey pop Come here pop as a world's oldest fight fan knows every fight in this racket will have passed 50 years Maybe you can tell you something You know what can I do for you? You know man who looks like this? Yeah, I've seen him before his name waltz waltz nothing. That's Eddie polar Never did him out to anything had a punch like a Bullock's put no science wide open for a left Look at 31 fights and that's fine. Hold on. Hold on range. You don't care about all that main thing I want to know is when did you see him last? Oh? Six seven years ago that long ago ain't long enough to suit me Pulling ever should have been allowed in the ring It wasn't the kind of fighter that loved the sport He'd like to hit men to ruin them. That's one and you have no idea where I might find it Well, thanks for your help. Yeah, you're welcome stranger watch your glad help right? Hey, hey, wait a minute wait a minute Yeah, I just remembered it was a girl polo used to hang out with name was Dolly Dolly Richards, she might know where he is. You know where I might find her Well, she used to work in the box office the Empire Theater. That's all I know. Thanks. I'll try it You were planning to arrest Eddie polar. That's my plan. All right. Why yeah, no surprise me none You understand, but let me give you some advice go ahead watch yourself in the clinches if you find him Ranger He's tougher nine miles on paved road. He's bad medicine and he won't be fighting by the rule books if he knows you want him Thanks, Bob. I'll be careful. Yeah, being careful ain't enough get off first Remember he's a sucker for a left hook if it he gets a chance to hit you good He won't stop till he killed you I checked the Empire Theater for Polo's girl Dolly Richards But she hadn't been seen for years. I put through a call to headquarters asking him to check auto registration for one in Polo's name It was late afternoon when captain Stinson got back to me by phone You checking for a criminal record on him. I'll have to wait a while in hey, I wait a minute captain I take one more crack at the license bureau in Austin. See if they have a car registered to Dolly Richards She was Let's hope the torch is still burning until the captain called back this time. He had something I weigh 73. It's a turnoff north of Tilden. That doesn't sound right to me captain Car I want had San and tone marked on the license plate frame. That's still all from a San Antone dealer Frame might have been on there. That's better Any out-of-state record on Polo? No, you can give me word by shortwave. I'm heading toward Tilden Unit 10 go ahead KTXA Report on subject any three years Leavenworth impersonating army officer and using males to defraud One year Oklahoma State Penitentiary for fraud 10 for unit 10 clear I took the turnoff north of Tilden headed for the sprawling country ribboned by farm highway 73 It was midnight when my headlights picked out the mailbox in the name D. Richard I left the car on the road and slipped up to the house. It was dark Tired kitty Polo isn't home, huh? Polo. I don't know anybody with that name. You can save the static lady Where was he last Saturday night? He was right here with me during the late afternoon and evening Eddie, I didn't know you was in he knocked and I thought you'd forgot your key All right, Dolly shut up like we said Ranger. I was here last Saturday I know somebody who says you weren't described you well enough for this to be drawn Good likeness to Polo. I was here What are you gonna prove with a drawing? I'm not gonna prove anything with a drawing But I'm gonna have an eyewitness prove that you were near salt flat Saturday when Jed and Martha Ross were murdered Shut up Dolly forget to tell her about that part of it. Hey Polo Maybe you forgot to tell her about the checks to Herbert Walsh the Marine the VA never heard of Where's that letter you ripped out of the old man's hand? All right, Ranger. I'll show you come in Yeah, it's over here Boy at San Antonio Jim told me you're open for a left hook Polo. I don't try that again Get on your feet and turn around You too miss why me so I can cuff you together What are you taking me for for harboring a murderer? And to give you a chance to decide whether you want to stick to your story or tell the truth All right move Dolly Richards turned states evidence against Eddie puller puller was tried convicted and sentenced to death in the electric chair Oh here again is the star of our show Joel McCrae many years ago A group of Texas Rangers had a showdown battle with a notorious band of killers Several days later the Rangers assigned to the case staggered back to their headquarters showing the marks of combat many of them badly wounded The captain of the company too impatient to wait for a written report went to the barracks where the men were cleaning up and tending to their wounds What happened the captain asked there was silence for a moment as the Rangers looked up at him Finally one of them said oh, nothing much cap. We had a little shoot match and they lost Good night, folks. See you again same time next week Joel McCrae is currently seen starring in the Universal International Technicolor production saddle tram Tonight's cast included Tony Barrett Paul freeze Mike Barrett Tom Tully Bill Johnstone Byron Kane and Virginia Gray This story was transcribed and adapted by Joel mercott and the program was produced and directed by Stacey peach This is how give me speaking Three chimes mean good times on NBC the chimes are really excited about a big show In fact, it's the big show an hour and a half every Sunday with Tallulah Bank head as fem C and Starring Jimmy Durratti Fred Allen Jack Carson Groucho Marx Jose Ferrer Meredith Wilson and many many more all this and Tallulah to no wonder It's the big show the premiere date is Sunday November 5th just one week from today Phil Harris reminding you that next its theater guild on NBC