Suspense - Radio’s Outstanding Theater of Thrills

Originally Aired: June 14, 1955 Suspense #602, "The Whole Town's Sleeping," transports listeners to a sweltering summer night in a small Illinois town gripped by fear. Lavinia Nebs, a confident 37-year-old woman, insists on keeping her plans to see a movie with her friends Francine and Helen, despite warnings from the nervous Mrs. Hanlon about "the Lonely One," a strangler who has been terrorizing...

Originally Aired: June 7, 1955 Suspense #601, "Frankenstein," brings Mary Shelley's classic tale to chilling life. Dr. Victor Frankenstein confides a terrible secret to his friend James, a minister: he has assembled a complete human body from various parts and believes he can give it life. Using a mysterious compound he discovered years earlier while reviving a dead dog, Victor has already made th...

Originally Aired: May 31, 1955 Suspense #600, "Beirut by Sunrise," Mildred Gideon, a third-grade schoolteacher from North Dakota on a Mediterranean cruise, awakens before dawn to witness the magical sunrise over Beirut. The romantic moment turns to horror when she sees an American sailor stumble from the shadows on the dock below, a knife buried in his back. Before dying, the sailor gasps a crypti...

Originally Aired: May 24, 1955 Suspense #599, "I Saw Myself Running," Susan begins experiencing terrifying recurring nightmares that blur the line between dreamer and dream. Each night, she finds herself running from an unseen pursuer, but something is different about these dreams: there are two of her, both present and visible to each other. One Susan watches while the other lives through the ter...

Originally Aired: May 17, 1955 Suspense #598, "Lili and the Colonel," presents a gripping tale of colonial tension and deadly secrets in Kenya Colony, East Africa. Lieutenant Charles Temple, a young British officer stationed to combat the Mau Mau uprising, encounters the imperious Colonel M.O.V. Abernathy at the exclusive Ribb Valley Club. When a neighboring farmer, James C. Carey, is found murder...

Originally Aired: May 10, 1955 Suspense #597, "Going, Going, Gone," finds newlyweds Wally and Jan Pindale making an impulsive purchase at an estate auction. Despite Wally's protests, Jan insists on buying a mysterious old trunk covered in peculiar stains for just three dollars. When a nervous little man named Mr. Minchy suddenly offers one hundred dollars for it, then two hundred, the Pindales gro...

Originally Aired: May 3, 1955 Suspense #596, "Remember Me," Harry Nora finds himself in a desperate situation when his plan to rob Mr. Leibowitz's small neighborhood store goes violently wrong. Just as Harry is leaving the scene of his crime, Ruth Shaw walks in, a former high school classmate who recognizes him immediately. Ruth has never forgotten Harry, the popular football player she once had a...

Originally Aired: April 26, 1955 Suspense #595, "Sight Unseen," Colin Farragut, a journalist for the Times, experiences a disturbing encounter while relaxing in the park one evening in 1926. Two ordinary-looking men in bowler hats approach him, addressing him by name and insisting he come with them. Though they refuse to identify themselves or explain their purpose, they speak with eerie certainty...

Originally Aired: April 19, 1955 Suspense #594, "Speed Trap," follows rookie highway patrolman Art as he learns his new mountain beat from veteran officer Craig Hollister on a treacherous, rain-slicked night. While Hollister shows Art the deadly curves and hairpin turns that have claimed numerous lives, he reveals personal details about his wife Debbie, whom he caught speeding on this very road ye...

Originally Aired: April 12, 1955 Suspense #593, "The Lunch Kit," Jonathan reluctantly helps his embittered father construct a devastating weapon disguised as an ordinary thermos bottle. Filled with nitroglycerin and fitted with a timer set to detonate at 6:30 in the morning, the deadly device goes into Jonathan's lunch kit as he heads to work the night shift at an industrial plant. His elderly cow...

Originally Aired: April 5, 1955 Suspense #592, "Zero Hour," presents Ray Bradbury's chilling tale of an innocent children's game with sinister implications. Mrs. Morris watches with mild amusement as her energetic daughter Mink and the neighborhood children obsessively play a new game called Invasion, gathering odd items like pots, pans, and tools while following mysterious instructions. Mink exci...

Originally Aired: March 29, 1955 Suspense #591, "Give Me Liberty," follows Paul French, a man who embezzled a quarter of a million dollars and managed to hide it before his conviction. As French is being transported to prison by a detective, handcuffed for the journey, fate intervenes in the form of a spectacular train wreck. In the chaos and flames, French sees his opportunity for freedom, but th...

Originally Aired: March 15, 1955 In Suspense #589, "The Game," two restless teenagers, Pen and Red, find themselves bored on a lazy summer afternoon with nothing to do. What begins as an innocent search for entertainment takes a dark turn when Red suggests they get drunk at Pen's empty house. As the whiskey flows and inhibitions fade, Red begins needling Pen, calling him soft and chicken, question...

Originally Aired: March 8, 1955 Suspense #588, "Nobody Ever Quits," a man desperately trying to escape his criminal past finds himself trapped when his old life catches up with him at the worst possible moment. Walt runs a remote mountain gas station with his pregnant wife Sally, but when a customer named Battaglia stops for fuel during an approaching blizzard, Walt's carefully constructed new ide...

Originally Aired: March 1, 1955 Suspense #587, "The Screaming Woman," presents a chilling tale of childhood terror that no adult will believe. Young Margaret Leary is cutting through Mr. Kelly's vacant lot on Thanksgiving Day when she hears something horrifying: a woman's desperate screams coming from beneath tons of freshly dumped dirt and debris. The voice seems to be coming from the area where...

Originally Aired: February 22, 1955 Suspense #586, "Waiting," three women endure an agonizing vigil as the hours tick down to Norman Landon's execution for the murder of Sheila Warrener. His wife Eileen, consumed by love and doubt, struggles with the terrible uncertainty of whether her husband actually committed the crime. Norman's sister Harriet clings desperately to his innocence, treasuring a f...

Originally Aired: February 17, 1955 Suspense #585, "The Man with the Steel Teeth," presents the harrowing tale of Arthur Henderson Lutrel, an American newspaper correspondent who finds himself suddenly arrested at the Moscow Opera and thrown into the notorious Lubyanka Prison. His captor is Inspector Golovin of the MVD, a peculiar little man with a remarkable set of stainless steel teeth who prese...

Originally Aired: February 10, 1955 Suspense #584, "Diagnosis of Death," a medical mistake triggers a race against time when Simon Davis overhears what he believes is his own fatal diagnosis. While waiting in Dr. Jim Kirk's office, Simon inadvertently hears Nurse Herman reading a lab report over the phone describing a malignant condition with only one to three months to live. Believing the diagnos...

Originally Aired: February 3, 1955 Suspense #583, "A Killing in Abilene," starring Parley Baer, tells the gripping story of Jeff Mander, a man who has spent two years tracking down Lee Burridge, the killer of his brother Seth. When Jeff arrives in the desolate mountain town of Pleasant Valley, he finds the residents gathered around a freshly dug grave, where they've just uncovered the body of Fred...

Originally Aired: January 27, 1955 Suspense #582, "The Operation," begins with a robbery gone terribly wrong when two gunmen, Al and Danny, hold up a liquor store and shoot the owner. During the crime, Danny takes a bullet in the abdomen. Desperate and panicking, Al kidnaps Dr. James Bell at gunpoint, forcing him to return to his home office to operate on his wounded partner. But the situation bec...

Originally Aired: January 20, 1955 In Suspense #581, "Study of a Murderer," a devoted wife recounts the devastating transformation of her husband Hank from a gentle, loving man into someone she barely recognizes. After losing his job, Hank becomes increasingly obsessed with newspaper accounts of a serial killer stalking Lincoln Park, fixating on the murders of mothers and babies with an intensity...

Originally Aired: January 13, 1955 Suspense #580, "Final Payment," stars Harry Bartell as Joe Thurston, an ordinary working man struggling to support his family on a construction worker's wages. When he runs into his old Army buddy Sam at a Chicago lunch counter, Sam presents him with an irresistible proposition: a foolproof insurance fraud scheme worth $100,000. The plan is elaborate but seemingl...

Originally Aired: December 30, 1954 In Suspense #578, "Odd Man Out," Johnny, a wounded revolutionary, finds himself dying and abandoned after a payroll robbery goes terribly wrong. During the raid with his comrades Murphy, Nolan, and Pat, Johnny kills a man and is shot in the arm. As police sirens converge and panic sets in, his fellow raiders flee, leaving the badly wounded Johnny to fend for him...

Originally Aired: December 23, 1954 Suspense #577, "Premonition," Tony and Gwen Christopher, Americans living in Austria, find themselves stranded in a blizzard while attempting to cross the Alps to Paris for Christmas. When their car becomes stuck in deep snow, they make their way to a remote mountainside inn run by Herr Landick. Despite his wife's relief at finding shelter, Tony experiences an o...

Originally Aired: December 16, 1954 Suspense #576, "Pretty Girl," Emmy Carter is found wandering in the rain, clutching a mysterious heavy object, with no coat or purse. When Police Lieutenant Lewis Gagan arrives at the station, he's surprised to learn the disheveled young woman specifically asked for him by name. Emmy, a pretty university student, seems disoriented and confused, asking desperatel...