 Autolight and its 96,000 dealers present... Suspense. Tonight, Autolight brings you True Report, a suspense play starring Pat O'Brien. Go ready, Lieutenant. Captain's waiting for you. Thank you, Bert. It's you. Hello, Captain. All right, Ben. Have you got it? Yeah, here it is. Mm-hmm. Good. Everything here? Everything. Sorry it had to be this way, Ben. Yeah. So am I. Well, it couldn't have come out any other way. So take it. This is what you wanted. This is my True Report. In just a moment, Mr. Pat O'Brien in the first act of True Report. Well, hi, Hap. Welcome back. If it isn't this spark plug of Autolight alley, Harlow-Wilkac. Say no more, Hap. Gotta get proclaiming after my summer siesta. Proclaiming that when you replace worn-out spark plugs in your car with new ignition-engineered Autolight spark plugs, you get smoother performance, quick starts, gas saving. Don't forget, Harlow. Autolight spark plugs are ignition-engineered. Right, Hap. Ignition-engineered by the same Autolight engineers who designed the coil distributor and all the other important parts that go to make up the complete ignition system used on many of America's leading makes of cars and trucks. That's why you can't buy better spark plugs for your car than Autolight. So, friends, have the spark plugs in your car checked before you start on that long Labor Day weekend drive. And if replacements are needed, insist on smooth, snappy, ignition-engineered Autolight spark plugs. And whether you choose the resistor type or the standard type, you're always right with Autolight. And now with true report and the performance of panel, Brian, Autolight hopes once again to keep you in... Suspense! August 31. True Captain Walter Joste. Commander, Accident Investigation Division, City Police Department. From Lieutenant Ben J. Kennedy. Hit and run detail. Ray Lawrence Tanker. Deceased. Attached fine supplementary, traffic accident reports completed at this date disregard other files concerning same now and your possession. Two days ago, 9 a.m., I went to your office for the day's assignment. I didn't know what it was going to be and neither did you. Hello, sir. How are you? How's that good of yours, sir? 3, 8, J. J isn't that one. 4, 2, 6, 6. This date. Repeat. Black convertible. You're unknown. Make unknown. Oh, Ben, who do you make for the World Series? Oh, give me the Phillies and Cleveland. Hello, Al, Sam. Hi, Kennedy. Anything up? Anything up. Anything new? That's a good one. Hi, Ben, how are you feeling? Like asking if anything's up, Geiger. So... Nothing, Ben, all routine. I think I never should have been a cop. Yeah, so there's a hit-and-run artist named Edward Franken, right? Bulletin board says you pulled him in last night. Good job, Geiger. Took a long time, huh? Too long, Ben. Would you believe I used up 385 probable witnesses to that accident? Came out with just two who knew what they were talking about? Listen, I'm going to figure out a system for questioning. Uh-oh, here we go. Lieutenant, Geiger, Kennedy, All-Sub, Nugent. Right, Captain Justy's waiting for you. Good morning, men. Sit down, please. Make yourselves comfortable. Here, Captain. No calls for the next half hour, Bert. Right, sir. Well, there they are. Initial traffic accident reports. 22 of them. 22 traffic accidents in our city in the last 12 hours. Three of them fatal. Accidents. Most of them weren't accidents. Most of them could have been avoided if people had just realized how badly handled cars as dangerous as a loaded gun. Routine for us, but not routine in the lives of the citizens involved. So let's get busy. Sam? Yes, sir? Nine different people wound up in emergency hospital last night. Police surgeon says four of them look like they won't make it. Here's the list, Sam. I hate to hand out things like this, but hop over there and see if you can get any statement from them before they... how do you know? Right, sir. Get right on. Oh, Newton. Late last night, a woman went through a boulevard stop, hit a bus in two parked cars at Harper and Caldery Street. The extensive property damage. She was all right, but her six-year-old daughter was injured critically. The woman failed a sobriety test flat. The child in the car, and she couldn't even walk to the police cruiser without stumbling. The report says under attitude, abusive. Claims she was under drugs. Why do they always pull that tired drug routine? Because people are afraid to face the truth. One thing I know, Fina Barbatal doesn't smell like scotch. Look into it, Newton. Don't pull any punches. Don't worry, Captain. And you, Geiger. Huh? Hit and run on center just off 12th, about 3.30 this morning. Victim unidentified. I think... hey, wait a minute. You've been up all night working on that Franken thing, haven't you? Oh, sorry, Captain. I can take another one. No, no, no. You better knock off and get some sleep. Ben. Yeah, chief? This'll be your baby. Here. Find the Ginzo who ran that poor devil down and didn't even stop to see if he was alive or dead. And that's the way I got the assignment. It was just a statement of two patrolmen and a witness to me, nothing else, and I went to work on it. Like any other case, it started with the initial accident report and the statement of a witness. Her name happened to be Thurston. Yeah, I'm Jenny Thurston. Police. They were here once. They're here again. Where's your uniform? How do I know? Traffic investigator Lieutenant Ben Kennedy. Seems to me you wear a uniform. Come in. 3.05 this morning, you reported a hit-and-run accident in front of this address. I live here. I own this place. I've seen it. I've gone over all this stuff with them officers that showed up right after I called in. Man, it was run over, died in receiving hospital without regaining consciousness. We're trying to find out who was driving that car. I want you to tell it again. Well? I was sleeping. It got hot and I woke up. I decided to fix myself a glass of iced tea, so I did. I was sitting there by the window, thinking my tea and cooling off when it happened. What happened? The accident. The car turns off 12th Street. I can see 12th Street from here. The next corner, 12th Street? Yeah. Two doors or four doors on the car? No, I don't know. The officers report you sang it was a sedan. Two doors or four doors? I don't know. You're trying to tie me up? The color was the car. Black. Couldn't have been maroon, blue, green. It was nighttime, no moon. Street lights go out at midnight. You sure it was black? Well, it looked black, I don't know. It was a dark color anyhow, shiny. Yeah. All right, go on. His car's doing a lot of speeding, heading that way. North. Yeah, north. And it goes right by this window. And I'm looking when it hits the man. I don't know where he came from, but there was a big noise like glass breaking in this poor man's lying half on the street and half in the gutter, and the car's gone out of sight. You don't hardly have them? No, I call the police. That's your job. Traffic accidents have become everybody's job. Did you get a look at the driver of the car? I got a good look. He's a woman in dark clothes. The officer who interviewed you says you didn't see the driver at all. Well, I know I was going to call up about that. When I concentrated later, I remembered it was a woman. The young one. One of those kind all painted up. You know the kind I mean. What she was doing out at three in the morning was no good at all. All you could possibly have seen from this window was the top of the car and not the person driving it. Well, why'd you ask me then? Try to get the license number? It was too dark to see. I did my duty as a citizen. I reported what I saw. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks, Mrs. Therson. Jenny Therson wasn't a very reliable witness, but she was the only one outside of the usual group of dream witnesses who have a lot to say about something they didn't see. Gave me enough to start on. I gave up after I'd talked to the 30 people who showed the neighborhood and dropped by the morgue to look at the victim. There is a lieutenant who was left of him unidentified, unclaimed. Hey, hey. What did the doctor say? Among other things, both legs fractured, well as the skull, well as five ribs, as well as the neck, as well as the number... Point of impact? There are two obstacles and clothing near the hip. Both hips broken. Dr. Figer's waist-high contact. High bumpers. That'd make it something before 1939. Of course, trucks have got high bumpers, lieutenant. Big ones. But no big truck scrambles around the narrow street like center. All right, all right. I'm just trying to be useful. Internal? Both lungs collapsed. High rate of speed. Anything else? Glass, they took out of them. It's with the technicians now. How about paint? You can wheel him into the lineup now. This guy's still a John Doe. We've got his prints on the wire hoping he'll be recorded somewhere. He's recorded somewhere right downtown. Change that tag to Lawrence Danker. Lawrence Danker? That's his name. I arrested him in 1936 when I was on robbery detail. Small-time grifter. Jackrolling, bookmaking, breaking and entering. 13 previous arrests when I picked him up. You identifying him? I'm identifying him. I'm a victim, and though my witness hadn't been too good about the details, I knew that the piece of broken glass and a chip of paint found on the victim would tell a better story. The shortest route to hit and run killers is through the crime land. They don't miss a thing. Kennedy. This is a lab, lieutenant. We got the dope for you. All right, let's have it. The glass splinters came from a headlight lamp used on four different Mexican cars between 37 and 39 ounce into the list. How about paint? Maroon. Also very pre-war stuff. There's a bump on a fender and a broken headlight somewhere in town, that's for sure. Maybe a sprung door? Yeah, and it's a jalopy over 12 years old. I probably can't travel 20 miles without breaking down. So my hit and run is in town somewhere trying to get a new headlight in the fender street. Yeah. You can cancel that unit one that went out for a black sedan this morning. The direction goes like this. Dark Maroon sedan, year 37, make unknown. Right front headlight shattered. Right front bumper dented. Got it? Got it. I want every garage, auto parts, junk dealer, and repair shop in town contacted on this. Somebody's going to try and take the bumps out of an old car and buy a new headlight, and they shouldn't be hired a spot. Got it. My four o'clock that afternoon, the bulletin was out. We knew what kind of car we were looking for, and I had eight pairs of officers out doing the legwork. With luck, I expected to pick up in a matter of hours. Oh, Geiger, hi. Got a tough one this time? No, not too tough. I thought you were home sleeping. Oh, you know me. You got nothing else to do but be a cop. Need any help? No, thanks. Just a matter of time. How are things at home? Good. Charlie? It was last year. He goes into internship next April. Nice kid. You're lucky. Alice all right? Yeah, she's fine, thanks. Why are you coming over for dinner? Soon, I hope, then. I don't know what's with me. Even when I have time off like now, I come sniffing around. It seems to stop being a cop. Well, so long, then. I'll see you. Okay, Geiger. August 29, 10th, 30 a.m. It was a pile of reports 10 inches high on my desk from garages, junk dealers, and auto repairmen. Not one report meant a thing. My tip-off finally came from a phone call placed by a man named Loper who runs an auto repair shop on Crespill Street and I'm down to see him. I don't know if it's what you're looking for, Lieutenant, but it might be. All right, let's have a look. A guy brought it in yesterday. He said he broke the lamp and dented the fender on his garage. It seemed funny. He only wanted that right front straighten. The real one's in a lot worse shape. This here? Yeah. No registration tag. This the car you're looking for? Uh, maybe. Gonna make a stake out, huh? Pick him up when he comes back to get it, huh? All right, Mr. Loper. Thanks for your help. Gonna look up the serial number. We'll handle it. Thanks. I didn't need to look up the motor serial as a license plate, Captain. I knew who it belonged to, all right. I knew everything about it. From the shimmy in the right front wheel to the windshield wiper that's squeaked. I bought it for Charlie his first year in college. It was my own son's car. AutoLite is bringing you Pat O'Brien in true report. Tonight's production in Radio's Outstanding Theatre of Thrills. Suspense. Suspense tomorrow starts the long Labor Day weekend. I hope that you'll make sure that your car is running right before starting on long trips. That you will have worn out spark plugs replaced with new ignition engineered AutoLite spark plugs. So drive carefully, won't you? Today, tomorrow, and always. Because the life you save may be your own. And now AutoLite brings back to a Hollywood sound stage Pat O'Brien in Elliott Lewis' production of true report. A tale well calculated to keep you in suspense. Routine. You start with things you know for sure like a traffic accident report and the statement of a witness. Like glass particles and the headlight and the smear of dark maroon paint and you work with the medics and the crime technicians. All routine. And pretty soon you know what the car looked like and you start looking for it. But what do you do when you're a cop and you find the car and you're supposed to arrest your own son on a manslaughter charge? What do you do? I drove up to the State University that afternoon to have a talk with my suspect. Rex. Rex. Oh, Mr. Kennedy. Hello, Rex. How are you? You seen Charlie around? I know I haven't. I went over to the room. The landlady said you were here in the recreation hall. I thought maybe Charlie was with you. Sorry. Rooming with that guy is like rooming with a ghost. I never see him. I... You didn't see his gelapy around anywhere, did you? I didn't. Was he taken out of town or anything? Well, sometimes they go over to the county hospital for surgery classes. Maybe he drove over there. Did I call him there? No, not in class. Oh, well... But stick around, Mr. Kennedy. You can probably pick him up at the hash house around dinner time. Anything wrong? No. Say, shouldn't you be studying or something instead of playing that thing? I'm majoring in the piano. Piano and law, Sergeant. Lieutenant. Lieutenant. That'd be 5-1-0-0 per annum, right? Civil service. Seem to know all about it, Rex. Maybe you should be a cop. Nope. I'm like Charlie. I want something better. What? No offense, Lieutenant, but... Well, I mean it's hard going to college. You didn't answer me. All right. You didn't go to college. Charlie's put in six hard years already and still a couple to go. Plenty tough. I live with him. I watch him go through it all. He's building something good here, something important. Kids sometimes get the wrong idea of how important they're going to be. They forget about right now. They run around making mistakes and getting themselves into a lot of trouble they can't handle. Take all their work and study and throw it out of the window when they get in that kind of trouble. Yeah. Well... We've sort of wrung out the philosophy today, haven't we, Mr. Kennedy? Tell Charlie to call me at home, will you? If I'd waited for him, I don't know what I'd have said or done. As it was, I felt like a rookie with his first corpse blowing my top in front of a punk kid. So I just got out of there and drove back to the city. Lieutenant Geiger was sitting at my desk. Oh, Ben. Oh, you want something, Geiger? Been waiting for you. What for? I've been hearing of a mechanic named Loper. Oh, Ben. Don't look like I caught you with a dead body in this Loper call here a while ago. I took the call for you. Said you were in to see him at his garage today. Wanted to know if the car he had turned out to be the one you were looking for. No, it wasn't. Uh-huh. Sounded good the way he described it. Maroon Coop. Headlights gone. Ben... Well, it wasn't the one. Don't you think I know what I'm doing on this case? Sure, Ben. You know what you're doing. Can I see the file? I... I haven't made it out yet. You're kidding? No. Come on. Give me the file. Captain might put me on this. I've been with the department 14 years. Don't you think I can handle a simple hit-and-run case alone? Sure, Ben. I know you can handle it alone. We've lost one yet. Just want to help you keep that perfect record. Perfect. I took the file home with me. I didn't want Geiger to see it until I was good and ready for him to see it. I couldn't believe that my son Charlie, the kid I taught to drive myself, I couldn't believe that he'd ever kill anyone with his car. But there was the evidence in an auto-body shop on Cresfield Street and I'd been on too many cases and dragged too many hit-and-run criminals in to start fooling myself now. And trying to tell Alice about it was like trying to tell her that Charlie had suddenly died. I just couldn't do it. Potato? Ben, potatoes? Oh, yeah, thanks. Miss Jennings came over today. She's in charge of the church bazaar. She told me my quota's six pies. You know, I think I'll make up some of those graham cracker pies, the ones you always start eating before they even cool. Ben, you're not even listening to me. I can tell when you get that not-listening look. Ben. What? Oh, I guess I've still got my mind on some things. You don't look well to me. You don't look at all well. Let me look at your eyes. What, they're bloodshot. You've got a nervous twitch at the corner of your mouth. Your arthritis isn't hitting again, is it? I'm all right. I think you better have a doctor look at you. The next time Charlie comes home, I think he should give you a check-up from toe to tonsil. Well, don't give me that kind of a look. He's as good as a doctor already, only two years to go. I don't want Charlie checking up on my health. Oh, dear, you are upset. Work, going badly. Another hit and run? Yeah, 12th and center. I wish you weren't on that detail anymore. I wish I'd never been on it. Ben. Why, Ben, dear? It weren't for men like you. It wouldn't be safe to walk on a city streets these days. Every time you arrest a lawbreaker, you protect somebody's life. What do you know about it? Sometimes people just get panicky and forget what they're doing. Ben, uh... The size of the victim in this case was an old ex-car and a bum. Nobody cared whether he was a liar or dead. That doesn't sound like you, Ben. He was a human being. Whoever struck him down should be found and punished to the limit of the law. Alice, Alice, suppose I had been driving that car. It's harping. That's the most foolish thing I ever heard you say. It takes a certain kind of person to do something like that. A thoughtless, selfish person. You're not the kind, nor am I, nor Charlie, nor anybody we know. Anyone's capable of doing it. Well, anyone's capable of driving thoughtlessly. Passing red lights, beating just a little, even having an accident. Any of them are bad enough. But to run away is criminal. I hope you get whoever did it, Ben. I hope you get him quick, too. Because as long as that kind of person is free to drive a car, he's free to kill someone else. I couldn't sleep that night thinking about the case, Chief. Charlie had a full use for life in Falling. As a doctor, he could save hundreds of lives and pay back the one worthless life he took hundreds of times over. Justification? Maybe. But by midnight, I decided what I had to do. I woke up all night and worked on my report, and I brought it down to your office the next morning. Is everything, Ben? Incomplete. No finish, huh? Finish as far as I'm concerned. Mm-hmm. Bird is Geiger out there. Just walked in. Well, I want him right now. Ben, it's, uh, sometimes better if you, uh, poke it over with a couple of guys. Maybe. Oh, come in, Geiger. It's about that hit-and-run, the Danker case Kennedy's handling. You know all about that case, Captain. Then you know more than I do. Kennedy's bogged down. I'm not bogged down. This case will never pan out. I only had one witness, and all she could tell me was a... a car hit Danker. All the lab reports were guesses. We had paint and glass to... Paint and glass that could belong to 10,000 cars in this area. What about this, uh, garage man, Loper? Did that car... He was just looking for free publicity. He had a car and figured he'd get some message in the papers. Well, if that wasn't the car, Ben, just keep looking. Maybe a thousand cars later, you'll find the right... I'm fed up with it. Well, Ben, we all get that way once in a while. I suppose we take you off the case. You're the captain. And Geiger, I'm giving it to you. Here, you can take Ben's report and work from it. And that's just what I was waiting for you to do. Turn the whole thing over to Geiger. Didn't make any difference who you turned it over to. The phony clues I had planted in it the night before would take ten years to run down. Remember, Danker, criminal, yes, but run down and left to die on the street. And I remembered my old... Captain, that report... Oh, excuse me, Ben. Yes, Archer? Someone to see you, Captain, Jesse. Oh, who? Charles Kennedy, Lieutenant Kennedy's son. Send him in. No, tell him no. Ben, what's the matter with you? What goes on? Come in, Charlie. What can I do for you? It's about a hit-and-run case. Charlie. I've got to, Dan. Captain, it's that Danker case. I'd have come in sooner if I hadn't been up at the county hospital. What do you know about the Danker case, Charlie? It was my car that hit him. Did you know this, Ben? I found it out yesterday morning at the garage. It was my car that did it. But somebody else was driving it. You weren't driving it? No. Suppose you tell us who was driving it, Charlie? My roommate, Rick's Blakey. I loaned him the car a couple of days ago when he didn't come back with it. I found out he left it in a repair shop in town. Well, I went down to take a look at it and my dad's a cop and I... I guess I picked up a few things. I, uh... I've got him run outside. I dragged him down here myself. All right, Geiger. It's your case. Take over and book him. Thanks for coming in, Charlie. Ben, what are you going to do? I guess, Captain, I... I guess I better go and make out my report. So here it is, Captain. My true report. And my resignation. I just want to ask you one question. If it had been your kid, could you have done any differently? Suspense, presented by Autolite. Tonight's star, Pat O'Brien. Friends, Autolite has again opened Suspense's new season with a story that shows how unnecessarily tragic bad driving can be. Pat, that was a grand performance. Harlow, you know how much I wanted to play Sergeant Kennedy. I sure like the role, but... I also wanted to do my part to help prevent highway accidents this Labor Day weekend. Driving accidents are horrible to the man, woman, or child injured or killed, and they're doubly horrible to their families. Death also always cheats each one of his greatest right in the world. The right to live. Now, tonight on behalf of Ned Deerborn, President of the National Safety Council, it is my special privilege to present the National Safety Council's Public Interest Award to Mr. Royce G. Martin, Chairman of the Board and President of the Electric Autolite Company. Autolite, sponsor of Suspense, has won this Distinguished Service to Safety Award for the second straight year. Thank you, Mr. O'Brien. Safety is as much our business as manufacturing, automotive, aviation, and marine products in our plants throughout the world. Autolite has always assisted all efforts of the great automotive industry to make America a safe driving nation. Tonight on Suspense, Autolite repeats a message that can never be repeated enough. Drive carefully. The life you save may be your own. So let's all be interested. Miss Labor Day weekend in two driving lives, our own and the other fellas. A lot of lives will be saved if we are. Thank you, Mr. Martin. Next week at the same time, Autolite will bring you Miss Ida Lupino in the tip, a tale well calculated to keep you in suspense. Tonight's Suspense play was produced and directed by Elliott Lewis with music composed by Lucian Moraweck and conducted by Lud Bluskin. Parts of this program were transcribed. Two reporters and original play written for suspense by E. Jack Newman and John Michael Hayes. Pat O'Brien may now be seen in Johnny One Eye. Autolite and its 96,000 dealers wish you all a happy, safe Labor Day weekend. Good driving. Good night. You're always right with Autolite. This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.