Friday - The Dragnet Podcast

Originally Aired: November 15, 1951 Dragnet #127, "The Big Bungalow," Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Ben Romero meet informant Red Smalley at Johnny Cokin's cafe after receiving an urgent phone call. Over hamburger steak and coffee, Smalley nervously shares information about Jeff Allen, a professional second-story burglar from Michigan who has been operating in Los Angeles for the past six months...

Originally Aired: November 8, 1951 Dragnet #126, "The Big Hit and Run Killer," Detective Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero are called to investigate a tragic hit and run accident at a busy Los Angeles intersection. A 64-year-old woman and her nine-year-old grandson have been struck down in a pedestrian crosswalk by a speeding panel truck. The grandmother is killed instantly, and the b...

Originally Aired: November 1, 1951 Dragnet #125, "The Big Lease," finds Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero investigating the mysterious disappearance of Chester Dillon, a wealthy retired businessman. When Dillon's sister Gladys contacts the Los Angeles Police Department from New York, worried that she hasn't heard from her brother in weeks, Friday and Romero begin piecing together the...

Originally Aired: October 25, 1951 Dragnet #124, "The Big Market," finds Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero hunting a pair of elusive bandits who have terrorized eleven food markets in just 21 days. The methodical criminals have a well-established pattern: they strike supermarkets on main thoroughfares during morning hours, always using stolen Pontiacs or Nashes taken from the industri...

Originally Aired: October 18, 1951 Dragnet #123, "The Big Story Man," Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero interrogate three suspects in a string of church burglaries that has plagued Los Angeles. Charles Bryson, a two-time loser with a lengthy criminal record, spins an elaborate tale to explain his presence at the latest crime scene. He claims he was trying to stop his future brother-in...

Originally Aired: October 11, 1951 Dragnet #122, "The Big Shoplift," Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Ben Romero are called to Anthony's store for women to investigate a wave of shoplifting that has escalated to the theft of an expensive silver blue mink stole. General manager Mr. Elliott explains that the store has been hemorrhaging merchandise for weeks, but this latest theft is the most brazen y...

Originally Aired: October 4, 1951 Dragnet #121, "The Big Want Ad," finds Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Ben Romero investigating a sophisticated auto theft ring that's been plaguing Los Angeles for over a month. The criminals, posing as representatives of a legitimate car dealership, target private citizens who advertise their vehicles for sale in the newspaper. Their latest victim is Mrs. Palmer...

Originally Aired: September 27, 1951 Dragnet #120, "The Big September Man," Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero investigate the brutal murder of Adele Pryor, a 28-year-old secretary found beaten to death in a downtown Los Angeles office building. The crime scene yields almost nothing—just the murder weapon, a piece of steel pipe wrapped in manila paper, and no usable fingerprints. With...

Originally Aired: September 20, 1951 Dragnet #119, "The Big Sour," Sergeant Joe Friday and Detective Ben Romero investigate a brutal home invasion robbery targeting an elderly couple in the Westlake Park area. When Friday arrives at Georgia Street Receiving Hospital, he learns that seventy-one-year-old Wendell McClung has been savagely tortured by two armed bandits who invaded his modest home. The...

Originally Aired: September 13, 1951 Dragnet #118, "The Big Waiter," opens with Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero arriving at the Apex Men's Shop on a foggy Los Angeles night. Inside the store's back room, they discover the brutal murder of 64-year-old shopkeeper Joseph Wilford, beaten to death with his arms tied behind his back and a woman's slip knotted around his neck. The victim's...

Originally Aired: September 6, 1951 Dragnet #117, "The Big 17," Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero are called to a neighborhood movie theater on West Fremont where a gang of fifteen to twenty teenagers has gone on a rampage. Theater manager Clyde Barton describes how what started as noisy teenagers quickly escalated into violence when he tried to restore order. The kids attacked him, o...

Originally Aired: August 30, 1951 Dragnet #116, "The Big Crazy," Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero investigate the puzzling disappearance of a 30-year-old woman who has been missing for three months. Ruth Daly comes to homicide detail to report that her twin sister, Bernice Butler, vanished in early March. Ruth explains that she delayed reporting the disappearance because Bernice had...

Originally Aired: August 23, 1951 Dragnet #115, "The Big In-Laws," Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero investigate a sophisticated gang of hijackers operating in Los Angeles. Truckloads of merchandise worth thousands of dollars are vanishing without a trace, and the criminals appear to have a foolproof system. When truck driver Frank Burroughs finally shows up at headquarters to look th...

Originally Aired: August 16, 1951 Dragnet #114, "The Big Winchester," Sergeant Joe Friday is pulled away from his annual physical exam when his partner Ben Romero calls about a suspicious death in the Westlake Park area. An elderly man named Martin Latimer, a 68-year-old retired grocery store owner, has been found dead in his living room with a bullet wound in his chest. At first glance, the scene...

Originally Aired: August 9, 1951 Dragnet #113, "The Big Screen," Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero are assigned to Bunko Detail to investigate a growing wave of complaints about dishonest television repairmen who are victimizing customers across Los Angeles. Working in cooperation with the Daily News, Friday and Romero meet with staff writer Jack Cannett, who has been collecting lette...

Originally Aired: July 26, 1951 Dragnet #111, "The Big Late Script," Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero are called in when prominent businessman Tony Richmond vanishes from his North Hollywood home under suspicious circumstances. While Richmond and his family are watching television, two unidentified men arrive at the front door. A neighbor, Mrs. Sanford, witnesses Richmond being escor...

Originally Aired: July 19, 1951 Dragnet #110, "The Big Sophomore," finds Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero assigned to Juvenile Bureau, investigating a puzzling series of petty thefts plaguing neighborhood merchants near a local high school. Grocery store owner Henry Loomis reports that for nearly two weeks, merchandise has been disappearing during the lunch hour rush when high school...

Originally Aired: July 12, 1951 Dragnet #109, "The Big Set-Up," Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero face mounting pressure as a sophisticated burglary ring continues to terrorize wealthy Los Angeles homeowners. In just three months, the gang has stolen over $100,000 in furs and jewelry from fashionable residences, and despite working every angle—stakeouts, informants, and stolen p...

Originally Aired: July 5, 1951 Dragnet #108, "The Big Love," begins when Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero investigate the mysterious disappearance of Barbara Gorman and her two-year-old daughter Nancy. The woman and child vanished from their Westlake district home five days earlier without explanation, leaving behind only a few missing clothes and no note. When her husband Philip Gor...

Originally Aired: June 28, 1951 Dragnet #107, "The Big Cliff," Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero investigate the mysterious death of Gertrude Turner, an elderly woman found dead on the floor of her shabby hotel room. Her husband, Mr. Turner, discovered her body when he woke up one morning and reached across the bed to find her gone. He found her lying on the floor beside the bed, ice...

Originally Aired: June 21, 1951 Dragnet #106, "The Big Run," Friday and his partner Ben Romero are called away from a quiet Saturday evening to investigate a brutal hit-and-run accident at Los Feliz Boulevard and Commonwealth Avenue. Two elderly women have been struck down in a well-lit crosswalk by a driver traveling at high speed. The victims are thrown dozens of feet from the point of impact an...

Originally Aired: June 14, 1951 Dragnet #105, "The Big Building," Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero investigate the puzzling disappearance of Louise Marston, a wealthy society woman who vanished over two months ago. Her husband, Dr. Marston, a dentist, filed the missing person report only after her regular letters from New York suddenly stopped arriving. As Friday and Romero interview...

Originally Aired: June 7, 1951 Dragnet #104, "The Big Imposter," Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero are assigned to missing persons detail when 10-year-old Jimmy Sherman vanishes from his home in a remote section of Los Angeles. The boy was last seen Monday evening hiking up the hill behind his house by neighbor Mrs. Keller, and now two days and two nights have passed without a trace....

Originally Aired: May 31, 1951 Dragnet #103, "The Big Bindle," Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero are called to investigate a sophisticated heroin distribution ring operating out of an unlikely location. When they interrogate Monty Wilkins, a user arrested the previous night with seven caps of high-grade heroin, they discover that top-quality narcotics have been flooding Los Angeles fr...

Originally Aired: May 24, 1951 Dragnet #102, "The Big Mailman," Sergeant Joe Friday and Detective Ben Romero are working the day watch out of forgery detail when U.S. Postal Inspector Smith arrives at their office with a pressing problem. Someone is systematically stealing mail throughout Los Angeles, and the thief's sophisticated operation has already netted him an estimated two thousand dollars...