 The story you are about to hear is true. Only the names and locations have been changed to protect the innocent. Fatima Cigarettes. Best of all, long cigarettes bring you dragnet. You're a detective sergeant. You're assigned a homicide detail. You answer an early morning call. A police officer on patrol duty disappears. Any attempt to contact him by car radio fails. Your job. Find him. If you want a long cigarette, smoke the best of all long cigarettes. Smoke extra mild Fatima. Yes, Fatima is the king-size cigarette which contains the finest Turkish and domestic tobaccos superbly blended to make it extra mild. To give Fatima a much different, much better flavor and aroma than any other long cigarette. That's why Fatima has more than doubled its smokers coast to coast. Enjoy extra mild Fatima yourself. Best of all, long cigarettes. It's wise to smoke extra mild Fatima. It's wise to smoke extra mild Fatima. Dragnet. The documented drama of an actual crime. For the next 30 minutes in cooperation with the Los Angeles Police Department we'll 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 Monday, June 4th. It was sultry in Los Angeles. We were working the early morning watch out of homicide. My partner's Ben Romero. The boss is Chief Detective Stad Brown. My name's Friday. It was 6.45 a.m. when we got to the Imperial Highway. San Pedro Cut-Off. Hi. Friday and Romero? That's right. Pete Sutton, Sheriff's Department. We got here as soon as we could. Inspector Bowers, fill you in? Ed Baxter in Central Homicide told us to check with Bowers at the Sheriff's Office. Bowers, directors, come out here and lend you a hand. This thing happens close to the county line. They figure both departments ought to go to work on it. Sure. Glad to have you. Looks like a tough one. Is this the highway patrol car the missing officer was assigned to? Yeah. This is just the way we found it. We turned off the ignition. Motor was running, lights were on. It's been idling quite a while. The temperature was up pretty high. When did you find it this way? 45 minutes ago. Missing patrolman's name is Eugene Brewer. State Highway Patrol called the Sheriff's Department a little before 6 a.m. Told us the missing officer wasn't acknowledging his radio called. I talked to Mark Benson. His radio or what? We checked it. In fact, it was operating normal when we found the car. Mike was out of the bracket laying on the seat there. Any ideas? No signs of struggle. No blood stain. This asshole here. No footprints anywhere. Nothing on the shoulder of the road. You said the car was running. That's right. And eliminates any engine trouble. Yeah. Now there's more to it than that. Gotta be. Nobody has any idea why or when he left his car. You've got it all. You know as much as we do. What was the check on Brewer? Mark Benson says he's one of their top men and been with Highway Patrol for eight years. Good record all the way. Have you talked to anybody around here? Pretty remote spot out here. A lot of truck gardens. That's about all. My partner Dave Terry turned up one man. Maybe he's got something. That's him over by our car. Hey Dave, would you send him over here please? Who is the fella? One of the farmers works at Truck Garden out here. Name's Henry Tenaguchi. Tenaguchi? Yes, sir. Mr. Tenaguchi, this is Sergeant Friday in Romero. Yes, sir. I know you filled my partner in, but would you mind going over it again for us? All right. I can tell you very little. You know we start work early in the garden. Yes, sir. Conrad, a fellow I work with, Conrad Ishikawa. We started in the string beans about five o'clock this morning, a bean patch near Imperial Highway. Yeah. We noticed a headlight stop off the side of the road. This happened all the time around the highway, but this stayed very long. By what time did you notice this, Mr. Tenaguchi? Must have been 10 minutes past five. I remember I asked Charlie Fujikuni, our cultivator man, what time was. I see. Did you see or hear anything out of the ordinary? No, sir. We waited a while, and a headlight do not move. Conrad and I decided maybe somebody was in trouble. This highway quite deserted early morning hour. What did you do then? We walked up to see what was wrong. When we get close, we could see what stayed highway car, so we know everything all right. Did you see the officer in the car? No. The door was open on the other side. We thought maybe officer investigate something down in the brush. Did you see him down there? Oh, no. We just think he was a check up something. So we go back to work. You saw nothing out of the ordinary, nothing unusual? No, we don't. We hear radio play. We know everything okay. Check, sir. The radio was functioning when we got here. You didn't notice any other cars around anywhere, did you? No, sir. Thank you very much, Mr. Tenaguchi. Here's my car. I'd appreciate it. If you think of anything else, please let us know. Yes, I will. What happened to officer in this car? We don't know. He's all right. Probably look for somebody. It makes us even. We're looking for him. Monday, June 4th, 8 a.m. According to our instructions, we headed back to the Hall of Justice to check in with Inspector Gordon Bowers and Captain Garner Brown of the Sheriff's Department. They were coordinating a search for the missing highway patrolman Eugene Brewer. Inspector Ed Baxter and Central Homicide was helping out. To the peace officer, cooperation with all branches of the various law enforcement agencies is essential. Each man on the force knows the value of a coordinated effort. He knows that without the aid of the many divisions of law-enforcing bodies in his city and county, the task of maintaining law and order would be a total failure. The local officer depends on the men in the federal, state, and county departments as they depend on him. Without this coordination, no one department could survive. 8.25 a.m., we met with Inspector Bowers and Ed Baxter into the Sheriff's office. Nothing, huh? Nobody saw him. If somebody did, we haven't found him, Inspector Bower. We both figured the only thing to do was to ask for cooperation of the newspapers. We got it. Pretty good layout, huh? The stories in every morning edition in town. They're running a picture in full description of the missing patrolman. We talked to everybody we could find in a general area out there. We worked two hours at it. The spot where the patrol car was found was pretty remote. A couple of gas stations and vegetable gardens. We told you about the town of Gucci, fella. Checked all his friends that worked with him. They couldn't add anything. Maybe the newspaper will turn up something. I sent a special detail out there to fan out and search the entire area. Five square miles. Yeah, it'll take time. There's nothing else we can do. No, there's nothing more we can do. There's nothing anybody can do until we can show them the patrol cars how to carry two men. Nobody seems to be able to do anything about it. Maybe they will now, sending one officer out in the patrol cars like trying to run a trolley line with one man. How many cases can you remember in our department? Ed Dudman pulled the car over and dug down at 3 o'clock one morning. Driver turned out to be a guy with a record. Dudman couldn't know that. While he was making out the traffic ticket, the guy shot him down on the street. Dudman died before he could get help. Yeah, we do a lot of griping in the detective division, but most men in the patrol cars and the motorcycle boys, they get the dirty end of the deal for sure. You bet they do. When a detective is sent out on a job, he knows who he's after, what he looks like, what he can expect when he finds him. The boys in the patrol cars answer a call at 390 or 415 or 507. Sure, we know what they're supposed to be, but how often do they turn out that way? Prowler or peeping Tom? How many times do they have a gun in their pocket? How many cops do they kill every year? We've all been through it. We know what it is. Yeah, but how often do we think about it when we're griping on steakhouse? Let me tell you something. This goes for me as well as you. Let's not forget who the real cream of the force is, the backbone of any police department. Men on wheels. No question asked, ever. Sorry, I didn't mean to make a speech, but when something like this happens, it gets to me. They're running on short odds as it is. There ought to be two men in every patrol car. Well, we should have been somebody else with Brewer. The guy on the job just doesn't disappear without a trace. It's just what he's done. We've checked everywhere, everything. Excuse me. Flowers. Who? Yeah, send them right in. This might help. Truck driver by the name of Matt Wolfe says he's got something for us. Come in. Mr. Wolfe. Yes, sir? Come in. Mr. Wolfe, Inspector Backstrand, Sergeant Friday, and Romero. How do you do, sir? I saw the story in this morning's time, sir. I don't know what I got's worth anything, but I figured I'd better pass along to you guys. Something on the missing highway patrolman? Well, I don't know. The reason I'm here, maybe it's just a coincidence, but I gave a fellow hander this morning from Imperial Highway, not far from where the paper here says the empty patrol car was found. About what time was that, Mr. Wolfe? All around 4.30 this morning. You want to tell us about it? Yeah, yeah. I'm an independent trucker. I haul topsoil for different nurseries. Stuff out there in Imperial's good rich stuff. We dig it right out of the side of the hill. Yes, sir. Well, I just loaded up, and as I'm away back to town, this fellow flags me down. Said he'd had a flat, pulled out on the shore of the road to fix it. Said he didn't know it was sand. He found out he stuck it, couldn't get his car. You gave him a hand, huh? No, not with a flat. He already had that fixed, but I tore him out. That's how it became suspicious of this fellow. How do you mean? Well, I offered to get out, hook up the tow chain. He said, no, no, just stay in the cab. I figured if he could do it alone, though, I would make. Well, I pulled him out. Here's the funny part. Yes, sir. The chain got a kink in it from the way to the pole. No mean job to handle that alone. He says, no, he didn't do it himself. It seemed to me like he didn't want me to get a good look at him or his car. I could be wrong, but, well, that's the way it struck me. Did you notice anything? Yes, I did. For one thing, I got a look at him when I threw on my backup lights and his car. That's a real funny one. What do you mean? It was a fairly new car. I'd seen older than last year's model, Plymouth. Well, at the risk of sounding completely nuts, I'm going to tell you that car looked like it'd just been painted. There's nothing wrong in that, is there? Well, there is. If you're off on the side of the road that time of the morning, throwing cheap black paint all over a fairly new car, if you're using a spray gun, I could understand part of it. What's that? It's his license plate. The front one. It was all painted over here. You couldn't read any of the numbers. What led you to believe he just finished painting his car? Always hands and arms. It was always clothes. Oh, I see. It's that kind of paint you put on the ride. Oh, yeah. Well, I don't know. Was it worth bothering you guys about? You really was, Mr. Wolf. I can't tell you just what it means now. Maybe it doesn't mean anything, but certainly it's out of the ordinary and worth reporting to the police. Well, I hope so. I'd like to see your boys find that missing officer. Something's pretty rotten in Denmark about that one, huh? Maybe we found a hole. Maybe? Friday, I'd like to have you and me Mary all help out in the next step. What's that? Throw up a roadblock. 10.30 a.m. Before we left the sheriff's office, the truck driver, Nat Wolf, gave Inspector Bauer's a description of the man on the Plymouth sedan. Together with Lieutenant Pete Sutton and Dave Terry, we drove to the Imperial Highway. Nat Wolf showed us the spot beside the road where he towed the man. The area was checked and sample scrapings of the black paint were taken. There was no chance of taking a tire impression because of the loose sand in the area. All physical evidence was taken back to the crime lab for analysis. Nat Wolf returned to the office to check through mug books for possible identification of the man he helped out. Meantime, a special detail of men had to search the area where the missing patrolman had disappeared. 3 a.m. According to instructions, the roadblock was established at the spot where the abandoned patrol car had been found. Imperial Highway, San Pedro Cut-Off. This will be our last time, sir. You'll have an A. It takes time for you in one minute. Police business? Yes, sir. I wonder if you could help us out? Certainly. You travel this highway every night, ma'am? Yes, I do. I'm in the vegetable business. Did you come this way last night about this time? I run pretty much on schedule. Yes, I did. Did you notice anything unusual along the highway? I bet I know what this is about, that missing highway patrolman. Yes, ma'am. We're stopping everybody to see if they can give us any information that might help us out. Well, I wish I could, but I didn't see a thing. That poor fellow. Do you think you'll find him? We're trying all the hard. Sorry, I can't help you. Can I go now? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. How'd you do? Nothing. What time you got, Joe? Almost four. Got a little more hot coffee in that jug, you know what I'm saying? It's fine with me, you know. Here we are. Cups in the lid here. Ben, Joe, come on. Thanks a lot. Watch your fingers. It's hot. Yeah. I'll take this one. I want to put my coffee on the fender here. Don't knock it off, huh? All right. Thank you. Hey! Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Call up! Can you see my light? I haven't even got a cigarette. I mean my flashlight. My cigarette lighter, if that'll do you any good. You've been drinking, haven't you? Yes, I have. I never get drunk, but I've had a little drink. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to pull over to the side of the road. Okay. What happened to my car? It was broke. You better let me do it, huh? You want to slide over a little bit there? I'll never pick up hitchhikers. I'm just going to move your car off the side of the highway now. Many troubles, Joe? No. It's 502. We'll have to hold them a while. We'll tell your friend to get in, too. It's a sedan. We're not going far. Where are we going? Right here. Is this the road to Pismo Beach? No, sir, not this one. Well, that dirty little Ernie, he lied again. He hates clams. What's that? I've been trying for five months to get to Pismo Beach for a bowl of clam chowder. I haven't made it yet. All right, you just sit here a while and sober up with him. I'm going to hold on to your keys. I'll give them back to you. You haven't got a bottle in the car, have you? No, I never drink and drive. Alcohol and gasoline do not mix. Do you drive this road every night? Every night. Ernie keeps telling me to take me to Pismo Beach. I love clams. You just sit here and sober up. Happy drunk? Yeah, he's too drunk to drive. Yeah. You're getting along towards daylight. Where'd I put my clock? No, I've put it over here, Joe. Fred, we knock it off. Oh, thanks. This one's mine. Hey, you seem to come in bunches. You get two or three and then you wait for an hour. You know, they don't use this highway much since they put that all in it, Joe. Police business. Yes, sir? You travel this highway every night about this time? Once in a while. I haven't been over this way in a week. You didn't drive this way last night? No, sir, I didn't. Anything to matter? Routine check. Thank you very much. You can go on. Well, it looks like a hopeless job, doesn't it? Business is picking up. Here comes another one. Looks like one of your sheriff's cars, Pete. Yeah. Reynolds, homicide. Pete Sutton? Yeah, Reynolds. You can pack up. They found him. Is he all right? Two bullet holes in the back of his head. You are listening to Dragnet, the case history of a police investigation presented in the public interest by Fatima Cigarettes. If you smoke a long cigarette, it will be in your interest to listen to a typical case history of a Fatima smoker. It's the case of Northwest Airlines stewardess Gene Madsen. You'll see her picture in leading magazines this week. Now her actual signed statement. There's one thing I really look forward to after a long flight. A good mile smoke. That's why I prefer king-size Fatima. It's milder than any other long cigarette I've tried. Yes, I agree. It's wise to smoke extra-mild Fatima. And so do more and more smokers every day. Actual figures show extra-mild Fatima has more than doubled its smokers coast to coast. So enjoy extra-mild Fatima yourself. The king-size cigarette which contains the finest Turkish and domestic tobaccos superbly blended to make it extra-mild. You will prefer Fatima's much different, much better flavor and aroma. You will agree. It's wise to smoke extra-mild Fatima. It's wise to smoke extra-mild Fatima. Best of all, long cigarettes. Five a.m. Tuesday. The body of highway patrolman Eugene Brewer was found half-buried in a shallow grave approximately four and a half miles from the point where his car had been found standing on the highway. The scene was roped off, photographed, measurements were taken in the area, carefully gone over for any physical evidence. A few scattered residents were again checked and asked if they'd heard gunshots. Since the nearest dwelling to the place where the body was found was two miles, there was a possibility that they could have not heard the shots. No one could give us any further information. The coroner's autopsy showed that patrolman Brewer had been shot three times in the chest, one bullet directly entering his heart. It also been shot twice through the base of the skull. One p.m. Wednesday. I get it. Homicide Friday. Pete Sutton, Joe. Yeah. Just had a call from our Hollywood substation. Woman reported her car stolen on Sunday night. Thought the guy was going to bring it back. That's why she didn't report it sooner. What about it, Pete? It's a Plymouth sedan, last year's model. Same type the truck driver told us about. Sounds good. We already have a broadcast out on it. We're putting out an APB now. You want to check and see if they got it on tonight's hot sheet. Right. Anything on the guy who stole the car? Boyfriend or the woman who owned it. He left her in a restaurant and got away with her car. You remember the description of the guy the truck driver helped out Monday morning? Mm-hmm. The guy that stole this woman's car, it's the same. Yeah. Still doesn't prove yet anything to do with it. Doesn't prove he didn't. Together with Pete Sutton and Dave Terry from the sheriff's office, we drove out and interviewed the woman whose car had been stolen. She told us that the man who had taken her car had also been seen in the company of one of her girlfriends, a Miss Helen Farrell, who worked as a cashier at a Hollywood theater. The Farrell girl identified the man as Mike Lupino, and she gave us a snapshot of him. She also gave us his last known address. We had no actual tie-in between the theft of the woman's car and the murder of patrolman Eugene Brewer, but the circumstantial evidence made it at least worth checking out. The only car known to have been in the vicinity the morning of the murder was the car of the truck driver Nat Wolford reported. The same make-and-model car had been stolen the night before the killing. The general descriptions of the man from two different people tallied closely. We figured before we'd pass this lead by, we'd check it out all the way. 4 p.m. Wednesday, we met with Inspector Bowers at the sheriff's office. We checked this Lupino's apartment, found a shirt and a pair of pants, black paint on both of them. I sent for that truck driver, Nat Wolford, to look at this picture here. You find anything else in the apartment? Well, this address book, there's no local places in it. They're all Las Vegas and Nevada addresses. That's it, huh? Yeah. What'd you get from the record bureau on the guy? The eye bureau pulled a package on him. That is Mama's sheet. Thank you. Mike Lupino spent some time at the San Quentin. Armed robbery, grand theft auto, assault, pretty good record. Still not positive he had anything to do with the Brewer killing, but he's had the training part. Yeah. Send him right in. Nat Wolford. Come in, Mr. Wolford. Thanks. I'm very ashamed about that boy. I read about it in the paper. Got a photograph we'd like you to look at, Mr. Wolford. You bet. Yeah, that's the man. Yeah, sure. No mistake. I suppose he was painting that car at four o'clock in the morning. Maybe that's what that patrolman wanted to know. For an answer on the APB, two days passed. Saturday, June 9th, received a phone call from the Las Vegas, Nevada police department. The stolen black sedan had been found in the downtown area of Las Vegas. We requested them to put a stake out on the sedan and ask them not to disturb either the car or its contents. Together with Pete Sutton from a sheriff's office, Mark Benson from Highway Patrol and our crime lab would flew to Las Vegas. Pinker checked the stolen car. Embedded in the rear seat were two spent bullets. There were also blood stains on the seat and on the floor of the car. Pinker flew back to Los Angeles where the evidence was analyzed. The bullets found in the car were fired from the same gun as the bullets found in the body of the dead patrolman. Pinker prints lifted from the stolen car match those of Mike Lupino. Saturday afternoon we checked in with Chief Harry Miller from Las Vegas Police Department. This is all you've got on him, aren't you? Since we staked out that black sedan, I've had the town covered for Lupino. No one saw him abandon that car, huh? No one would know of, no. Had good cooperation from the newspapers. Story's been on page one since the thing broke. Anything coming of those names we got from Lupino's address book, the ones we phoned to you? Let's see. I got the list out here. Yeah, here we are. These are the ones my men have checked out already. George Connelly, nothing there. Harry Carlson, he and his wife have been checked out. There. William Spencer, nothing in his place. We've got him all staked out. At least two to go, huh? That's right. We're checking the last two now. Nothing from the railroad stations, the airlines? They've been covered ever since we got your phone call. Yeah. I could be wrong, but I think your man's still here in town. Any reports on him? A couple of wild ones, nothing definite. Checked him out. Had one this morning from a dealer at one of the clubs downtown. About 10.30 this morning he saw Lupino playing a dog shot. He swears it's the guy. Well, all we can do now is sweat it out, huh? My men have covered everything. I don't know what else we can do. Yeah. Excuse me, sir. Chief Miller. Yeah? You sure it's him? No, don't try to handle it alone. Keep the place covered the best you can. We'll be right out. They found him. Two Las Vegas detectives named Billings and Vance answered a phone tip from a grocerman in the east end of town. He said a man had been buying groceries from him for the past two days and lived in the apartment house above the store. The two detectives showed the grocerman Lupino's mug shot. He gave a positive identification. They then checked with the apartment house manager. After looking at the mug shot, he identified Lupino as the tenant in apartment 10B. Detectives Billings and Vance staked out the place until our arrival with enough men to cover the area. Vance? Yeah, chief. He's in there. Hasn't been out all day. We'll take the front, chief. The manager thinks Lupino has a gun. The maid who's cleaning the apartment found some loose slugs in the dresser drawer. You still want it Friday? Well, it's our headache. Joe and I'll go in, chief. Vance gets the men up on the roof to cover. We've already found him out around the building. I don't know what they tell you in LA on one of these things, but here we tell him to be careful. Right, chief. Joe, let's go. He's on the second floor. Let's take the stairs here. Right through the door. Just a minute. Let's go, Pete. Let alone Lupino. All right, come on, get up. You all right, Pete? Okay, I get the cut. What's a big idea? They tell us you killed that patrolman. He got tough. You didn't have to kill him. Spotted the stolen car. What else could I do? Come on, you. He had as much chance as I did. That figures. Yeah. Two bullet holes in the back of his head. What you just heard was true. The conditions were changed to protect the innocent. On October 2nd, trial was held in Superior Court, Department 91, City and County of Los Angeles, State of California. In a moment, the results of that trial. And now, here is our star, Jack Webb. Thank you. The working detective knows that every member of his local police department is a qualified man. He knows that his fellow peace officers have been carefully selected to perform their specific duties by trial, and by results. And so, with a cigarette, the makers of Fatima carefully select and blend only the finest Turkish and domestic tobaccos to make Fatima extra mile. Best of all, long cigarettes. If you're a long cigarette smoker like I am, smoke Fatima. Every pack is extra mile. Fatima. Michael Everett Lupino was tried and convicted of murder in the first degree. The jury failed to recommend the death penalty. Lupino is now serving his life term in the state penitentiary. Ladies and gentlemen, the Los Angeles Police Department requests the cooperation of all dragnet listeners in the following police matter. The Los Angeles Police Department would like every and any information regarding a gun fitting the following description. 38 caliber specials, Smith and Wesson revolver, gold seal model. The gun has a blue steel 4-inch barrel. The serial number is 210088. 210088. If you have any information as to the past or present whereabouts of this gun, contact W.H. Parker, Chief of Police, Los Angeles, California. This is a very important matter. All information furnished will be held in strictest confidence. Thank you. You have just heard dragnet, a series of authentic cases from official files. Technical advice comes from the Office of Chief of Police W.H. Parker, Los Angeles Police Department. Coming up, Duffy's Tavern. Three times mean good times on NBC.