 The Equitable Life Assurance Society presents This Is Your F.B.I. This Is Your F.B.I. The official broadcast from the files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation presented transcribed as a public service by the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States and the Equitable Society's representative in your community. Now a question for fathers and mothers from the Equitable Life Assurance Society. Would you like your boy or girl to go to college regardless of what happens to you? Then you'll be interested in an Equitable Education Fund and it's the most painless way ever invented to pay the cost of those years in college. So listen carefully in about 12 minutes for the full story of an Equitable Education Fund and what it can do for you. Tonight the subject of our F.B.I. file armed robbery. It's titled The Harvest. Tonight's case from the files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation tells the story of a vicious crime. Why are such crimes committed? According to one authority many of them are a direct result of a growing national lack of respect for law and order. Maybe it is too late to teach that respect to those men and women who are already our adult criminals. It is not too late however to breed a just regard for decency in the millions upon millions of Americans now growing up. The very future of the nation, of all of us, depends on that lesson being learned by the generation now approaching maturity. For it is a fact beyond any denial that in those places where a disregard for law and order attain definite proportions the state itself has deteriorated. Apprehending criminals is largely the job of law enforcement agencies. Preventing crime is largely the job of you, the people. Tonight's F.B.I. file opens on the outskirts of a vineyard in a western state. It is early evening and an open fire is blazing in the center of a large cluster of tents. A leather-faced middle-aged man sits before the fire strumming an ancient weather-beaten guitar. Beside him, a young man lies on the ground reading a paper-covered book. Looks up as he hears the squeak of a wash line fully from between two of the tents. Ain't she done yet? Can you see the notice in front of the office? No. Say something special? The Paradise Ranch called up. I got two weeks' work for 50 pickers and 10 sugars. Work? Rose, are you and your father going there next? I guess that's where I'll go to. Well, ain't that a surprise? You keep quiet. Yeah! Uh-oh. Carl must have got up. Okay, I knew bunk with him. Come on, come on. Oh, shucks. Ain't nothing wrong with Carl. He's easy to get along with. He just got to give him his own way. Isn't it wonderful about him saving that baby? What baby? Before last he was driving into town and he saw a house on fire. He ran in and got a baby out of what got burned. Who told you that? He did. Rose, are you still listening to him talk about himself? Here it comes through the line! Another touchdown. Carl, what are you doing with the football? Practicing. See, Rose, you hold the football this way. Then you lift it up like your gun throw pass. Then you stick it under your arm and off you go! I suppose you played football, too. Yeah. Well, state scoring record. 37 touchdowns in one season. And if you want to know something else, these are the shoes of war when I did it. Yeah. I remember one time I was stopped on the two-yard line. It was the last minute of play. Well, I kept shoving and driving like this from the knees high. And then I felt the cleats bud in. I was over the goal line. That's why the pros want me. What pros? The football pros. I'm waiting right now for a job. That's why I've got to keep in such good shape. Rose, Rose. I forgot to fix Papa's medicine. Crom and Papa. Carl, you hear about paradise range? No. Two weeks' work for 50 pickers. Starting Monday. Well, maybe by Monday they can keep their grades. I told the pros how much I want. They're smart. They'll pay me. I sure like to be going east myself. Kinda like to see Oklahoma again. Hey, Carl. Carl. Hey, yes, Milly. What'd you find out? A messenger from the bank's ready to start back to town. Come on. Hey, where are you going? Uh, Milly just brought me a word that the pros are paying my price along. Later that night, at a nearby FBI field office, Special Agent Jim Taylor is typing a report when Agent Ira Douglas approaches. Hmm? Oh, hello, Ira. I didn't know you were on duty tonight. Well, I wasn't supposed to be, but a bank messenger was way late at the Everstone Vineyard. Where's that? Up in the valley, near Morgando. Have you got any details? Yeah, police report. The messenger was way late on a private road that leads to the vineyard office. You've spoken to him? Not yet. They took him to a hospital. He was still unconscious an hour ago. How much was stolen? I don't know. Well, I don't suppose you can locate anybody on the bank tonight. No, but the switchboard's going to keep trying. Oh, Ira, if they find any of the officials, will you get the information for me? Where are you going? Morganville. We're stopping here. What for? Open that bag. Ain't no use. I had to lock with a wrench for an hour. Okay, throw it out here. What? Throw the bag on the road. How you going to get it over? With this. Here. More checks. Bank book. Well, keep digging. I can't. That's all. Two 20s and a 10. A measly 50 bucks. Well, we can cash a check. Sure. Tell the cops we did it. Come on. Let's get back in the car. Where are we going? Paradise Ranch. The rest of the crew won't be there. I know. If we got a real door, they'd be worth running. This way it ain't. So we show up tomorrow and get jobs like nothing happened. Special Agent Douglas. Hi, Jim Taylor. Are you in Morganville? Yes, the hospital. I've been here most of the night. The messenger came too for a few minutes and passed out again. Could he tell you anything? The band had only got $50 in cash. The rest of the money was in checks all made out to the Everstone Vineyard. How'd they get him, Jim? There was glass smashed in the road. He got a flat. He stopped to fix it and was hit from behind. Any descriptions? No. I went over the area with the police. We couldn't find any sign of a weapon. What was the weapon? Well, we don't know. There are three wounds in the messenger's skull. It's spaced about an inch apart. The doctor won't even make a guess what was used. I'm going over to the vineyard now, Ira, and talk to the foreman. Anything I can do down here? No, not now. I'll see you in the office first thing tomorrow morning. Did you sign in? For both of us. And you know what? $1.20 an hour. Oh, swell. Miss Slovakia, you need some help with your tent. No, Larry. You want to work? You can help me carry some bundles back in the store. Come on. I'll see you in the tent. Let's cut through here and across the road. All right. Hi, kids. Hi, OK. Hey, going to the store? Mm-hmm. Well, might as well walk over with you. I don't want my bones to get stiff. Ain't used to having days off. Carl. She was afraid we weren't coming. Where's your tent, Rose? I'll put ours next door. But Carl, you weren't used to playing football. Huh? Me? I'm a great picker. Who said anything about playing football? Oh, Larry did. Oh, you'll go crazy. You listen to him. OK, you were there. Didn't he say he was leaving to go play pro football? I wouldn't know. Where you going, Rose? To the store. Ha! I'll drive you over. Come on. Just get back. About a half an hour ago, I've been in with the SAC. He's assigned you to this bank messenger case, too. But I got to be in court in the morning. Yeah, I know. But you're to join me after you leave court. Where? Central City. I thought the messenger was held up near Morgander. That's right. It was, but most of the migratory workers have left there to work at a place called Paradise Ranch. That's near Central City. I've got to interview them. Did you get anything more from the messenger? No, he died without regaining consciousness. Oh. When are you going to Central City? I'm leaving now. Well, give me the details on how to find that ranch and I'll see you there tomorrow. For what? Some slob can walk in a storm, buy him by the pound. Slabs can't walk in and buy him. Trouble. Let him drop dead. Jobs in the world. What's he eating you? I hate this lousy job. I hate grapes. Thought after the other night I'd never pick another one. Here I am, breaking my back again. Well, maybe it wasn't born to be lucky. I wasn't born for this job, neither. Hey, Carl. Yeah? I got to talk to you. Come here. What do you want? The office just got a call. Bank messenger died. Huh? Why'd they call here? Well, the cops are getting a list of the workers who come down here in Everstone. Good thing they came here. Why? Well, the cops want to know which guys didn't show up. Those are the guys who got trouble. But they're going to ask everybody a lot of questions. Let them. Larry and Rose know about us taking off before the rest. I can handle Rose. You can't handle Larry. He'll tell the cops the first chance he gets. Well, I'm going to believe him. Why not? Because before he gets to talk, we'll pin the whole job on him. We will return in just a moment to tonight's exciting case from the official files of your FBI. Now let's listen in on a conversation about the future of a six-month-old boy named Joe Phillips. Joe's father is talking to Fred Barton, his equitable society representative. My father remembers the scraping and shrimping he did when I went to college and said, I ought to look into college education insurance for my boy. Well, he's got something there, Mr. Phillips. Just think what a satisfaction will be to know that your boy's college expenses are all paid for before he starts. That's what will happen if you begin an equitable education fund for him. An equitable education fund, you call it? Yes. And it works on pretty much the same principle as buying an automobile or a radio set on an installment plan. Only in this case, you don't go into debt. You save up money in advance for an installment life insurance policy that's all paid up when your boy's ready to enter college. Interesting if true. Well, it really is. It's the painless way to pay for a college education, spreading the cost over 12 to 15 years instead of taking a beating in four. Furthermore, if you should die during the period, no more premiums need be paid. The policy is paid up in full. Equitable holds the money and pays interest in the full amount until your boy's ready to start his freshman year in college. He's just six months old now. Well, the earlier you start, the lower your yearly costs. Figure out how much you can afford to put into a plan like this. It's amazing how fast small payments build up when you keep them up for 15 years. Let's see, at your age, an equitable education fund... If you have children, get the cost of an equitable education fund from your equitable representative. These equitable men give you the information and let you make up your own mind. Get in touch with your equitable representative soon or write care of the station to the Equitable Society. That's E-Q-U-I-T-A-B-L-E. The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States. And now back to the FBI file. The Harvest. In this case, from the files of your FBI, you have seen a crime committed by two men. The leader, the one who conceived the crime, the one who wielded the murder weapon, is 26 years old. This case is brought to you tonight because it illustrates perfectly the crime problem resulting from our great national lack of juvenile rehabilitation centers. Carl Boyd was arrested twice as a youngster, once when he was 11, and again at 15. Crime exists today because of failures. Failure to prevent delinquency and failure to correct delinquency. Those things combine to result in a failure to prevent crime. The delinquent of today is the public enemy of tomorrow. Is your city equipped to salvage the youth who get into trouble? Or are they merely gotten out of the way at some poorly run reformatory? As a citizen, you should be able to answer that question. The information is available. Study it. Find out what your local government is doing with the delinquency problem. Do what you can to help. For the person your community needs to help solve that problem is you. Tonight's FBI file continues at the Paradise Ranch later that afternoon. Special Agent Ira Douglas has just arrived. Jim, I got here as soon as I could. Well, Larry, you're just in time for work. Okay, what's the job? Well, here's a list of the migratory workers they used at Everstone Vineyard last week. This is a list of workers who showed up here. All present and accounted for? All but six. I called our office. They're following through on those people now. Have you interviewed anybody here yet? No, I just finished cross-checking the lists. How many workers are on both? 60, 50 pickers and 10 checkers. Do you remember the tent village you passed through coming in the main gate? Well, that's where they live. Okay. How do you want to handle the interviews? Well, the checkers were in the field office at the Everstone Vineyard when the bank messenger was there, so it seems to me we should interview them first. Hand one hand. You don't catch a football that way. And don't kick it from there. Run back halfway. You're a kid. Get back. Way back. Okay, let's have the ball now. Get further back. There it comes. Well, Oakies, you see that one? Yeah, it couldn't hardly miss it. 60 yards and a spiral all the way. Brother, if I could only go on to college. I'd have made every all-American team there was. Yeah, but it could be, bitch. You're better off now. You crazy? No. You'd be in training all the time. Couldn't go out with a girl. You got any idea how mad that make you? Call. Yeah, I'll smite him. Come here. Okay, kids, rest up a minute. What do you want? Look, if you're going to frame Larry, you better do it quick. He just told an FBI guy you left Saturday night with us. You said you were going to play football. Well, that's fine. But one of the FBI guys coming over to see you. Okay. What are you going to do? Go back to the tent. Howard? Sure. Well, that's the first place they're going to look. I know. I'll see you later. I got something I got to do. Uh-huh. I'm a special agent of the FBI. You're my credentials. Okay. I'd like to ask you a few questions. Go ahead. Well, before I do, I want to tell you that you don't have to answer them, but if you do anything you say can be used against you. Against me for what? I got nothing to hide. Go ahead. Ask me anything. Well, I understand you worked last week at Everstone Vineyard near Morgansville. Yeah, I did. Well, there was a bank messenger held up and killed Saturday evening on the dirt road leading from the main house of the vineyard. You know anything about that? Yeah, I heard about it. Oh, where? One of the other pickers told me. Why are you asking me about that? Well, you and your friends were the only ones to leave that night. The others waited till the next day. Well, we got paid off and we left. We went and got drunk. Well, I don't remember someplace on the road. You told Larry Castro you were going east to play professional football? I did not. Oh, well, that's what he told us. That's how he's trying to get even. Even for what? His girls stopped liking him and started liking me so it makes it look like I stole that money. Well, his story does throw suspicion on you. Look, go ask him something. Ask him what he was burying before. Ask Castro? Yeah, in back of his tin. Come on, it's three-tenths down. I'll show you. All right. This way. Why don't you see him doing this burying? This morning. Just before we went out to work at West. Yeah, right after we heard you was coming. I suppose he didn't tell you nothing about that, did he? No, he didn't. Around him back of his tin. This Castro's? Yeah. Well, look, you can see for yourself. That's been dug up. Yeah. And there's the shovel by his tin. Yeah, there's fresh dirt here. You going to see what he buried? All I'm going to try. Hey, papers. Yeah. Boy, do you go to your tin. Will you and wait there? You going to arrest Castro? If he can't explain these checks, I'll have to. Look, I don't know anything about any checks. Castro, we aren't trying to prove you committed this murder. We're just trying to get the truth. I told you the truth. Carl Bord's a liar if he says I buried him. Come in. Rose, what you doing here? Somebody sent it for me. Are you Rose Lavica? Yes. Oh, please come in. Rose, they think I robbed that man at Everstone. What? Well, Carl told him a story about me. They're from the FBI. Pardon me, Castro. Miss Lavica, may we ask you a few questions? He didn't do that. He couldn't. He's not a man who killed somebody. Were you sitting at the fire in front of Carl Boyd's tin Saturday night? Yes. And were you there when Boyd told Castro and this man, Oki, that he was going east to play professional football? No, I had to go fix Papa's medicine. Larry told me when I came back. Boyd denies saying it. Why would I make it up? Castro, it's not our job to say if you're innocent or guilty. We're investigators. There's been a murder and a bank robbery committed, and if you did it, that story would throw suspicion on Boyd. I'm afraid that for now anyway, the evidence is all against you. I interviewed Boyd's friend, Oki. No, won't you get anything? No. He says he doesn't remember anything Boyd says for more than a minute. A checker who wrote down here with Boyd, the one named Smitty, he said he doesn't remember Boyd saying anything at all about football. Did you see Boyd again? Yeah, he was kicking a football around with some kids, telling them how good he was. He told me too. Jim, I'm willing to nominate him. Yeah, I am too, but you can't ignore those checks, Larry. After all, they were found behind Castro's tin. You know, some place has a link that will definitely tie one of them to the crime. Well, the girl, isn't it? The checks aren't it? Well, the link is the weapon, that's it. Where do we find it? Well, maybe we'd come up with it if we knew what it was. Yeah. Three small rectangular wounds about half inch thick, almost an inch apart. What could leave that kind of a pattern? Could they have been made by three separate blows? No, I doubt it, Ira. The autopsies showed each wound was exactly the same depth, and they were all perfectly spaced. A man struck from behind would be falling or dodging. Well, they don't use spike clubs for picking grapes. No, and it had to be something with... Ira, come on. Where we going? Back to see Carl Boyd. Give me a cigarette. How about your training? Give me a cigarette. All right. Better give your eyes some training. Huh? There's Rose. Hey, I was looking for you. Where'd you go? Did you see Larry? Oh, that crook. He's no crook. Were the cops with him? Yes. They threw with my bag? Well, I didn't know they had it. Well, they're doing with your bag. Well, at first they thought maybe I'd done the killing. They said if I put them checks in my bag, the ink could come off on my clothes. They wanted to look at all my stuff, so I'd give it to them. You'd get the bag back, huh? Hey, Larry. I thought the cops had you. Hey, let me go. Why? Because Carl here is such a big football player. What are you talking about? Well, we'll explain that to you, Boyd. Agent Douglas Knight took your suitcase in and had our laboratory examine the contents. You didn't find no ink from those checks on my stuff. No. But the laboratory found blood on the cleats of one of your football shoes. No. Blood that matches the dead man's. They couldn't. Come on, Boyd. You and your friend are going with us. Carl Boyd and Ray Smith, Alias Smitty, were convicted in federal court for bank robbery and in view of the bank messenger's death, each received a 40-year sentence. In tonight's case, you saw the Federal Bureau of Investigation start on a new file with almost no information except that a crime had been committed. However, the painstaking attention of FBI agents to every detail, to every possible clue, which is the subject of an illustrated story in this month's radio-TV mirror, is, you will also note, well illustrated by the file dramatized this evening. Even more important than the apprehension of the two criminals, of course, was the exoneration of Larry Castro. That kind of care in the protection of falsely accused people represents one of the finest attributes of the American way of life. In the protection of your personal rights, your civil liberties. Now a quick review of the advantages of an equitable education fund. First, it's the painless way to pay for a college education. You spread the cost over many years instead of taking a beating in four. Second, it's sure. From the moment you start, you're certain your children will get the kind of education you want them to have regardless of what happens to you. So why delay? Ask your equitable representative for full information on an equitable education fund. Or write care of this station to the Equitable Life Assurance Society. Next week we will dramatize another case from the files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Its subject, bank robbery. Its title, the hostage. The incidents used in tonight's Equitable Life Assurance Society's broadcast are adapted from the files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. However, all names used are fictitious. And any similarity thereof to the names of places or persons living or dead is accidental. Tonight, the music was composed and conducted by Frederick Steiner. The author was Jerry D. Lewis. Your narrator was William Woodson and special agent Taylor was played by Stacey Harris. Others in the cast were Alice Bacchus, Anthony Barrett, Ted DeCorsia, Sam Edwards, Wally Mayer, Victor Rodman and Harry Rosenthal. This is Your FBI is a Jerry Divine production. This is Larry Keating speaking for the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States and the Equitable Society's representative in your community. And inviting you to tune in again next week at the same time, when the Equitable Life Assurance Society will bring you another thrilling transcribe story from the files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The hostage on this is your FBI. Stay tuned for the adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. There's fun for the whole family when Ozzie and Harriet come your way next. This program came to you from Hollywood.