Friday - The Dragnet Podcast

Originally Aired: May 17, 1951 Dragnet #101, "The Big Blast," Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Ben Romero investigate a brutal shotgun murder on a sweltering July night in Los Angeles. The victim is Josephine Stevens, a young mother who was blasted through a screen door while lying in bed. The only witness is her terrified seven-year-old son, Charlie, who tells Friday about hearing someone cutting...

Originally Aired: May 10, 1951 Dragnet #100, "The Big Drills," Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero are working burglary detail, chasing a highly skilled gang of safe crackers who have hit thirty-seven Wilson Brothers grocery stores over the past eighteen weeks, netting over $100,000. Despite assigning 252 officers to stakeouts across the city, the burglars always seem to know which mark...

Originally Aired: May 3, 1951 Dragnet #99, "The Big Casing," Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero respond to a shooting at the Kelsey apartment hotel. They find Marie Robertson dead from a gunshot wound to the right temple, with her husband Andrew claiming it was suicide. According to Andrew, the couple had been arguing while Marie prepared dinner. He says she grabbed his Army .45 automa...

Originally Aired: April 26, 1951 Dragnet #98, "The Big Saint," Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero are assigned to auto theft detail to investigate a troubling pattern. Over the past four months, the recovery rate for stolen vehicles has plummeted from the normal 96-98 percent down to the low 80s, and the pressure is on from headquarters to break the case. The detectives notice that all...

Originally Aired: April 19, 1951 Dragnet #97, "The Big Speech," Sergeant Joe Friday receives a telegram at home inviting him to speak about police work at his old high school, but the pleasant request is quickly overshadowed by urgent police business. Friday and his partner Ben Romero are called to investigate a vicious robbery at a doctor's office on Georgia Street. A narcotics addict they've bee...

Originally Aired: April 12, 1951 Dragnet #96, "The Big Threat," Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero investigate a puzzling case after Dr. Hart reports that his patient, Lewis Butler, was beaten and robbed of over $800. When the detectives arrive at Butler's accordion studio, they encounter a frightened middle-aged businessman sporting bandages and facial swelling who adamantly refuses t...

Originally Aired: April 5, 1951 Dragnet #95, "The Big Friend," begins with a desperate phone call to Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero. Leonard Gray reports that his wife has been murdered in their home at 1627 Oxford Place. When the detectives arrive on the rainy Los Angeles night, they find Mrs. Gray's body on the dining room floor, showing signs of a struggle with a deep gash on he...

Originally Aired: March 15, 1951 Dragnet #92, "The Big Ben," Sergeants Joe Friday and Ben Romero investigate a brutal early morning robbery on Commercial Street. The victim, Harvey Kimbrough, a department store employee, stops to help what appears to be a stranded motorist around 5 a.m. on his way to work. Instead of finding someone in distress, Kimbrough is confronted by an armed man who pulls hi...

Originally Aired: March 8, 1951 Dragnet #91, "The Big New Years," Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero are assigned to special duty on New Year's Eve, working the night watch out of homicide as thousands crowd downtown Los Angeles. What begins as a routine evening of handling street fights, drunk drivers, and minor disturbances takes a devastating turn when an officer needs help call esc...

Originally Aired: March 1, 1951 Dragnet #90, "The Big Partner," finds Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Ben Romero responding to a brazen jewelry store robbery in broad daylight. When they arrive at City Hall to begin their investigation, the case takes an unexpected turn—a traffic accident at Third and Ditchel leads them straight to their suspect. A truck driver named Lenny Brooks has wrestled down...

Originally Aired: February 22, 1951 Dragnet #89, "The Big Couple," Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero are called to investigate a heartbreaking case of fraud at the Holy Gospel Tabernacle. Reverend Andrew Olson explains how a seemingly devout couple, calling themselves Mr. and Mrs. Tom Herbert, approached him with an offer to write a history of his modest church for publication in a co...

Originally Aired: February 15, 1951 Dragnet #88, "The Big Crime," Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero are called to investigate a terrifying case when four-year-old twin girls, Jo and Kelly Carson, disappear from a park during a family picnic. As hours pass without any sign of the children, the investigation takes on increasing urgency. The detectives methodically canvas the area, inter...

Originally Aired: February 8, 1951 Dragnet #87, "The Big Cast," Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero are assigned to a perplexing homicide case. Twelve men have vanished without a trace over a short period, and after four months of investigation, they finally track down their prime suspect: Henry Osworth Ross, a hot-tempered longshoreman living in a shabby rooming house. When Friday and...

Originally Aired: February 1, 1951 Dragnet #86, "The Big Children," Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Ben Romero from the Juvenile Bureau investigate a disturbing report from a neighbor in the wealthy Bel Air district. Miss Jeanette Bajan, a cook working in one of the area's colonial mansions, has called in a complaint about two children from next door—seven-year-old Richard Kessler and his fi...

Originally Aired: January 25, 1951 Dragnet #85, "The Big Tomato," Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero investigate a tragic case that hits close to home for Los Angeles families. When seventeen-year-old Kenneth Morrow dies after crashing his car into a street light at high speed, the investigation takes a darker turn. Officers discover a metal case containing marijuana on the floor of the wrecked...

Originally Aired: January 18, 1951 Dragnet #84, "The Big Dance," finds Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero tracking a pair of brutal young holdup men who have terrorized Los Angeles with 23 robberies in three months. The detectives are pulled from a quiet Sunday morning breakfast at Friday's apartment when another vicious crime occurs at a small newsstand on South Grand and Colonial. Th...

Originally Aired: January 11, 1951 Dragnet #83, "The Big Jump," Sergeants Joe Friday and Ben Romero race against the clock when they receive a call about a potential jumper at the Fitzroy building downtown. Walter Harrison, a 41-year-old mental patient, has climbed out onto a narrow 14-inch ledge thirteen stories above the street and threatens to leap to his death at exactly 2:00 p.m. The situatio...

Originally Aired: January 4, 1951 Dragnet #82, "The Big Holdup," finds Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero hunting a dangerous criminal known as the rattlesnake bandit. This vicious holdup man has already robbed six people in the Los Angeles area, savagely beating his victims for no apparent reason even when they cooperate. Operating in stolen cars with an attractive blonde accomplice w...

Originally Aired: December 28, 1950 Dragnet #81, "The Big Family," Joe Friday and Ben Romero investigate the mysterious disappearance of John Keith Jarrett, a wealthy and prominent Los Angeles businessman. When Jarrett's abandoned car is discovered at the end of Pier 6 with a suicide note in his coat pocket, the case initially appears straightforward. However, crucial evidence complicates the pict...

Originally Aired: December 21, 1950 Dragnet #80, "22 Rifle for Christmas," Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero respond to what begins as a routine missing child case but quickly becomes something far more sinister. When nine-year-old Stanley Johnstone disappears from his backyard on a cold December afternoon just days before Christmas, his mother Ruth initially believes he has simply ru...

Originally Aired: December 14, 1950 Dragnet #79, "The Big Break," Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero close in on George R. Hoffman, a career criminal responsible for 18 armed robberies over three months. Acting on a tip that Hoffman is holed up in a bungalow on Buchanan Avenue, Friday and his team move in during a foggy night to make the arrest. The dangerous suspect, armed with two re...

Originally Aired: December 7, 1950 Dragnet #78, "The Big Picture," finds Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Ben Romero working the day watch out of Juvenile Bureau when a Minnesota businessman named Wayne Kenworthy walks into their squad room with a disturbing discovery. While attending a convention in Los Angeles, Kenworthy purchased an obscene photograph from a bartender on Alvarado Street, only to...

Originally Aired: November 30, 1950 Dragnet #77, "The Big Car," Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero are working the night watch out of robbery detail, hunting for a well-dressed bandit who has hit 15 food markets in Los Angeles over four months. The case takes an unusual turn when a man named Frank Potter walks into the interrogation room volunteering a detailed confession to all the ro...

Originally Aired: November 23, 1950 Dragnet #76, "The Big Betty," Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero of the Bunco Detail investigate a particularly cruel swindle operation targeting the families of deceased servicemen and recently departed loved ones. The case opens when Miss Bergstrom visits the detectives after being conned out of $78 for a worthless watch and pen-and-pencil set supp...

Originally Aired: November 16, 1950