Dragnet - S03, E27 The Big Winchester, Full Length episode, Classic TV series

[Music] ladies and gentlemen the story you're about to see is true the names have been changed to protect the innocent [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] this is the city [Applause] everybody starts out with the same chances they grow up with the chance to play the city provides playgrounds [Music] public schools give them a chance to learn high schools colleges [Music] [Applause] [Music] they all have an equal chance to obey the laws some of them don't take it that's why i have a job i'm a cop [Music] it was wednesday january 14th it was cold in los angeles we were working the day watch out a homicide division my partner is frank smith the boss is captain mormon my name's friday the teletype from the doctor at the police academy had been posted my name was on the list 8 30 am i reported for my annual [Applause] physical [Applause] [Music] looks fine joe i'm gonna have to pass you i mean i'm okay for another year huh yeah how about that shoulder what gunshot wound everybody no when we took the x-rays looked like you were going to have trouble with it chip bone you're sure you'd never have any trouble with it no well once in a while the wet weather kind of aches a little bit you know yeah that happens how old are you joe 33. still central homicide serial number two two eight eight two three eight yeah well guess that does it you get dressed okay thanks me pretty busy are they doc 4 200 men keep you hopping hi doc sorry to bother you you through joe yeah anything doing dead body call out near westlake park we got it yeah better get there 9320 laurel lane what's the story old man found dead in his living room bullet hole in his chest yeah boys in the radio car that answered the call thought the old man killed himself and that's sure now what do you mean i think somebody helped him [Music] 8 45 am we left the doctor's office at the police academy and we drove to the address in the west lake area where the shooting had been reported [Music] the dead man was identified as martin latimer 868 a retired owner of a couple of neighborhood grocery stores in the city it was lying sprawled partly on his side on the floor there was a bullet hole in his chest just above the heart where the slug had entered the body there was another larger wound in the back through the right shoulder blade where the bullet had emerged approximately five feet from the body was a chair there was a winchester rifle wired firmly to the top its muzzle pointing directly above the spot where the body lay on the floor a thick white string was wound firmly around the trigger of the rifle it ran through a metal ring on the stock of the gun and stretched across the room where it had been tied to the dead man's left index finger at first glance it seemed like an obvious suicide arrangement officer harkness one of the men in the radio car who answered the call didn't agree i don't know sergeant maybe i'm all wet this doesn't jail right for me who found the body hargis next door neighbor mrs donwar my partner's with her now do you fellas call the crime lab yeah they're on their way the old man the only one who lived in the house here yeah that's what the neighbor told us sure would like to see what the crime lab crew's going to think of why what's the big question argus well i know it's none of my business sergeant you fellows at the detectives i just couldn't help but notice though yeah what's that over there that rifle wire to the back of the chair yeah take a side along the barrel to see what you think now pointed right in a straight line with a body well that much fits the old man pulled the string tied to his index finger that set off the trigger and took the slug right through the chest that's what i figured take a look at the wall directly behind the old man slug when cleaned through the body we know that through the chest above the heart and out through the shoulder blade yeah see what you mean take a look at that wall there not a mark on it well one thing sure if the old man was shot in that position the slug had to come this way went through his body at just about this height we ought to find the bullet hole in this wall right along here now there's not a trace of a slug any place no not much chance it could have been deflected either isn't it that's what i thought at first too sorry yeah down be right knee on the wall take a look yeah that looks like it well there's something wrong here joe that rifle never could have thrown a slug that far down on the wall wired at the chair the way it is and besides it's way out of line almost four feet here i know it's not in my business sergeant couldn't help but notice it though you want me to stand by outside yeah okay and would you mind checking with a neighbor lady what's her name mrs don wood yeah you said she lives right next door yeah on this side would you mind telling me we'll be overseeing a few minutes and ask her to wait right we'll check with you before we leave thanks ernest i'll look at that gun again it's a 30 30 yeah that's right sure doesn't add up too well does it even if the old man jerked the gun when he pulled the trigger with that string arrangement there the slug couldn't have passed through his chest out his back and then hit the wall where it did joe stand right behind the body will you let's see if we can line this thing up no a little more of the left a little more more like this yeah that's it let me see no not a chance joe it's way out of line if this is the gun to kill the old man he didn't pull the trigger not from there anyway that was one other chance isn't he yeah somebody pulled it for him [Applause] sergeant j allen on a crew from the crime lab arrived and went to work we put in a call to the coroner's office and asked them to remove the body [Music] 9 15 am we went next door to talk to the neighbor who found the body mrs elsie downward i went over to pick up his laundry officer i do laundry for half a dozen people here in the neighborhood i don't charge anymore and the regular laundries do a lot more particular with shirts and things i see miss downward would you go on please i went over about eight o'clock this morning i walked in and called out but he didn't answer then i went into the parlor and there he was poor old man looked so sad lying there all alone that big gun strapped to the chair gave me the coldest feeling it was the same way when claude died claude was my husband i understand only claude didn't shoot himself uh-huh i take it you knew mr latimer pretty well man oh i suppose he didn't have any relatives poor man all alone he was in the grocery business for years made some nice money i guess tired about eight years ago sold both his stores he had an income from a mortgage on one of them 150 a month oh yes he was very comfortable uh-huh he wasn't a penny pincher tall but he was thrifty it was the same way with my husband claude you say take care of the dimes and dollars will take care of themselves mrs donworth can you think of any reason why latimer would want to take his own life oh i suppose poor old man is getting along in years used to complain all the time about his health for a long time there he's afraid he's going to die with cancer is that sodium i have cancer do you know oh no but he kept thinking he was gonna die with it mr ladderman was always talking about it i'm gonna check with jay next door and see how they're making out tell them where we are right i'll be right back mr latimer was so upset about it he finally went to see a doctor he came back and told me the doctor said praying not to be sicily about it he was a well man in good health that was last week only when was the last time you saw latimer day before yesterday oh we laughed and joked over the back fence poor old man had such a nice smile reminding me a good deal of my husband claude i'd like to have your honest opinion here miss donald do you think vladimir killed himself well i suppose that rifle in there that terrible contraption see a minute joe yeah excuse me surely anything the crime labs have in the field ajo they say it'd be absolutely impossible for the old man to kill himself for that rig they find anything definite dusted the rifle for fingerprints didn't find a one it makes less sense than that slug buried in the corner of the wall another thing i checked the desk in the living room found some correspondence the latimer had with the lonely hearts club judging from the letter seems latimer was getting set to marry the girl big picture of her attached the letter yeah did you find out why you'd want to die pretty good reason why i'd want to live yeah beautiful girl looks to be about 24 25 yeah she was going to marry him [Music] [Applause] the crime lab crew went on with their routine investigation of the martin latimer house while frank and i continued to talk to the neighbor mrs donworth there didn't seem to be any common ground at all between the evidence in the house and the information she had to offer as we continued questioning her mrs don worth remembered that a month before vladimir told her that something might happen to him and that he wanted to make out a will he asked her to witness the will a few days later vladimir's lawyer came to the house and mrs dunworth read it and witnessed the signing at that time she said latimer made the remark i don't feel like going on much longer anyway if death means a rest i think i deserve one ma'am did you hear anything out of the ordinary going on next door this morning or last night no there's nothing i heard from next door to remark about of course it's so noisy around here that time one you can't even hear yourself think how's that man the trucks passing by up and down up and down every morning not small trucks either they start in at 6 a.m and they rattle past for two or three hours at least could you give us the names of some of the other people on the street who knew mr latimer pretty well yes i suppose i don't think anyone knew the poor old man as well as i did most of them are younger folks parties and things you know when you get up around 65 or past it like mr ladderman parties don't mean so much anymore i understand yes just a nice quiet home with a good heating system good books on the shelf and good man around the house about all you can ask for well thank you very much man here's our card if you think of anything else please call us all right thanks smith that's you huh that's right homicide extension two five two one just one more thing was done with we understand latimer was corresponding with several women through a lonely hearts club do you ever mention that to you by any chance no he never did i saw the circulars and stuff around his house though and latimer never mentioned any of the women he corresponded with huh i pretended i didn't know about it he never brought it up i don't understand why he'd want to meet a lady that way all most of them are looking for is a man with money so they can quit work and lay around the house well thanks again was done with yes poor old man i wonder what made him write letters after silly women well good they'd have done him he wrote letters all over the country yes ma'am i'm getting tired of working myself he could have saved the postage too well i was right next door i would have married him in a minute [Music] [Applause] we left mrs donwar's house and we went back next door to latimer's house the crime lab crew had finished their investigation and the coroner's deputies had arrived they took the body downtown for autopsy we talked over the crime lab findings with sergeant jay allen and he felt the same way frank and i did the theory that latimer had shot himself to death was possible in many respects but it was far from plausible [Music] we checked through latimer's correspondence with the women he contacted by mail especially the young girl he obviously intended to marry judging from his letters to her her picture showed her to be brunette dark eyes young very attractive the inscription read with love catherine there was no return address either on the photo or on any of the letters 9 52 am we put in a call to the mail club yes ma'am we may drop down to talk to you thank you very much goodbye what'd they have to say well it might be joe club secretary says have been having trouble with somebody who signs a picture just like this one with love catherine i describe the picture secretary says it's the same girl what's the angle well the girl doesn't belong to the club but somehow she got a list of the members in their addresses she writes to them usually old men gets them set for marriage and they send for yeah her letters come from the east usually different cities she writes and asked for train fare out here the men sent her the money for clothes and train fare and that's the last of it she's gone well yeah it's up all right doesn't it there's one letter here this one [Applause] i hate to ask you dear but if you could send me the traveling money and just a little extra for some clothes i will take the first train and be with you in a week to become your wife awaiting that precious moment with love kind of pours it on thick huh what's the date on that one let's see male december 30th that's 14 days ago what do you think joe i don't know it's possible she could have showed up tried to grab all the old man's money she could find maybe he caught her at it she killed him bring up this phony setup to make it look like vladimir shot himself get a hold more water if we could find out she really came here hey we better start ringing a few doorbells the other neighbors might come up with something what do you say let's take another look at that girl's picture huh here you are no photographer's name underneath here down the corner of the mountain see xxx 6y3 must be some kind of manufacturer's mark photographic supply huh guess it stands for the type of mounting huh you know anything about photo business no i don't need it let's find somebody who does before we drove back to the office frank and i covered the rest of the neighborhood and talked to everybody who knew the dead man martin latimer even remotely they told us nothing we didn't already know there'd been no stranger seen visiting the old man no one had noticed anything out of the ordinary in latimer's daily routine three o'clock that afternoon we checked with the photo supply firm where we found out that the symbol stamped on the cardboard frame of the photograph signed catherine were symbols used by a photo supply company in san francisco we went back to the office and got in touch with the san francisco firm we were told that the symbols indicated the style and size of photographic mountings and further that this particular type of mounting was distributed only throughout seven western states they gave us a list of 18 photo studios in los angeles who kept this particular amount in stock was a long chance but we started checking them out [Music] meantime we'd run the girl through rni and gotten out an apb seeking information on her monday january 19th i checked into the office homicide friday oh hi faye no no he's not right now i expect him in almost any minute yeah [Music] sure yeah when i get a pencil okay [Applause] three pounds of ground round yeah lean yeah no i'll tell loaf of rye bread with what oh seeds with seeds yeah okay and a quart of cream oh ice cream no i don't know what anybody want with a quarter cream yeah what kind chocolate okay uh-huh that's it huh right sure i'll be happy to oh pretty good faye and the kids fine well we've been pretty busy lately you know uh-huh sure i'll try to make it next week right bye oppai she hung up oh your wife oh what you want some stuff she wants you to bring home tonight yeah seeds yeah for rye bread you know well why don't you write it down joe rb seeds doesn't mean anything how'd you do it well i covered seven photographic studios on the eighth i got lucky doris chambers age 22. [Applause] [Music] monday january 19th 10 30 a.m the proprietor of the photo studio on melrose avenue had identified the girl in the picture he told us she was doris chambers age 22 she came from a fairly well to do family and her father was manager of a local neighborhood bank we drove over to talk to her she couldn't recognize the handwriting on the photo nor did she understand the inscription with love catherine after questing her it became apparent she knew nothing at all about 68 year old martin latimer i wonder if you'd mind taking another look at the handwriting on that picture miss take a close look is it familiar at all to you no no i couldn't be sure either way seems like i've seen it though i wouldn't say you had that picture made about a year ago at graduation my mother had extra copies made up she liked it i didn't care for it much could you tell us how many people have prints of this picture mama had about two dozen copies made up she took 12 and i took 12. she sent him to relatives and friends of ours she kept a few what'd you do with yours send them to friends girls at school a few my boyfriend can you remember if you autographed any of them yeah some of them the one for my girlfriends the others i gave out plane can you try and think who you gave those two miss the unsigned pictures one went to carl i know that and then fred and don and ray and warren yeah i think that's it i wonder if we could have their full names and addresses please yes all right i'm pretty sure i've got him in here someplace i don't know what i'm saving all this junk for old letters and just a minute that's funny it's the same handwriting isn't it i thought i'd seen it before man this old letter from warren see the writing doesn't that look the same to you looks close joe and we'll have don meyer and running check it over who is this warren miss chambers warren white here's his address right here i got a joke warren and i went to college together we were engaged to be married for a while then i broke it off i see warren's a serious boy he's very thorough a perfectionist you know sergeant never does things halfway that's all i've never known warren to do anything in his life halfway not once well he's gonna have a perfect record at that handwriting matches isn't he what can they do to him i don't know but they won't do it halfway 1102 am we left the home of doris chambers and drove down beverly boulevard to 743 north clearwood avenue an apartment house where the suspect was supposed to be living we talked to the manager and he told us that warren white had moved without giving notice five days before on january 14th the same day 68 year old martin latimer was found dead in his home we got on the phone talked to doris chambers again and she gave us a lead on warren white's married sister the following day we located the sister of the murder suspect and she told us that her brother warren had phoned that morning and asked for an emergency loan of two hundred dollars which he didn't have the sister gave us white's new address when we checked it out [Music] we had the manager let us in white's apartment it was one of those run down futuristic style apartment houses built somewhere around the mid 30s it was on a high narrow road above sunset boulevard overlooking most of hollywood white wasn't in and the manager said he wasn't expected back until early next morning [Applause] [Music] we waited midnight 1am no sign of the suspect you know joe you can't beat it the view from up here is beautiful yeah it's nice isn't it you gotta look around find a place like this for yourself be great well the rent's too high up here well it's the location i guess you know people love hillsides love to be high higher you are more cost location is great public school right down there and if you take sunset boulevard down to the freeway you're in the city hall in 10 minutes it doesn't take me much longer than about 20 minutes or so yeah but you don't have the view joe no smell of there what time you got 1 45. we waited 3 a.m 4 a.m 4 30. it was cold still no sign of the suspect warren white 5 am 5 30. [Music] 6 30 7 am 7 30. we kept waiting no sign of the suspect we called the office and arranged for a relief 8 am we could hear groups of youngsters passing by outside drooping into the main yard of a school just below the apartment house we kept waiting 8 15 a.m [Music] come on in what is this what do you want you worn white yeah stand still he's clean joe well what he wants police officers you've been drinking a little but it's all right why don't you sit down officers i'm not gonna give you any trouble what do you mean i killed him maybe i'll never know why but i killed him sit down officers some bourbon in the kitchen you want some no thanks why'd you kill the old man son you want to tell us i don't know probably a hundred reasons not sure of any one of them something i never realized before yeah i mean killing a man taking a human life i guess nobody knows what it is until they do it most complicated thing in the world i must have had a reason for killing him rigging it for a suicide do you have anything against him i hardly even knew him i used that picture of doors to fool him made some good money doing it i needed it you're willing to give us a statement about the whole thing having anything to hide officer the minute i killed him i knew it was over right there in that one minute i knew you'd come and find me somehow i didn't know when i knew you'd come and find me all right i better head downtown yeah that's a great sound isn't it what's uh schoolyards kids got a great sound to it a good one yeah could i please go over there for a minute all right all right how can anybody figure it start in the schoolyard like those kids down there running around yelling i started the same yeah i wonder what it is that happens make your old red-headed kid must be one down there now other kids will grow up get jobs work and die and be all right one kid will end up in an alley with a gun in his hand how can anybody figure it i wouldn't know a bunch of kids playing in a schoolyard someday one of them's a killer yeah you tell me what's the answer [Music] so on april 8 trial was held in department 88 superior court of the state of california in and for the county of los angeles in a moment the results of that trial [Applause] [Music] the suspect was tried and convicted of murder in the first degree [Music] [Music] [Music] baby [Music] [Music]

Channel: Manic Movies

Views: 52,624

Keywords: Dragnet (TV Program), classic tv shows, drama, los angeles, detective, www.manicmovies.com

Id: itvbPDhpYvA

Length: 26min 6sec (1566 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 23 2014