The story you are about to hear is true.
Only the names and locations have been changed to protect the innocent.
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You're a detective sergeant.
You're assigned to homicide detail.
You answer an early morning call.
A police officer on patrol duty disappears.
Any attempt to contact him by car radio fails.
Your job.
Find him.
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Dragnet, the documented drama of an actual crime.
For the next 30 minutes in cooperation with the Los Angeles Police Department, you will
travel step by step on the side of the law through an actual case from official police
files.
From beginning to end, from crime to punishment, Dragnet is the story of your police force
in action.
It was Monday, June 4th.
It was sultry in Los Angeles.
We were working early morning watch out of homicide.
My partner's Ben Romero.
The boss is Chief of Detective Stad Brown.
My name's Friday.
It was 6.45 a.m. when we got to the Imperial Highway.
San Pedro cutoff.
Hi.
Friday and Romero?
Yeah, that's right.
Pete Sutton, Sheriff's Department.
How are you?
Hello.
We got here as soon as we could.
Did Inspector Bowers fill you in?
Yeah, you know, Ed Baxter in Central Homicide told us to check with Bowers at the Sheriff's
Office.
And Bowers' directors to come out here and lend you a hand.
This thing happens so close to the county line they figure both departments ought to
go to work on it.
Sure.
Glad to have you.
Looks like a tough one.
Is this the one?
Yeah.
This isn't just the way we found it.
We turned off the ignition.
Motor was running, lights were on.
It's been idling quite a while.
The temperature was up pretty high.
When did you find it this way?
45 minutes ago.
Missing patrolman's name is Eugene Brewer.
State Highway Patrol called the Sheriff's Department a little before 6 a.m.
Told us the missing officer wasn't acknowledging his radio call.
I talked to Mark Benson.
Is the radio all right?
We checked it.
In fact, it was operating normal when we found the car.
Mike was out of the bracket, laying on the seat there.
Any ideas?
No signs of struggle.
No blood stains.
Is this the asphalt here?
No footprints anywhere.
Nothing on the shoulder of the road.
You said the car was running?
That's right.
That eliminates any engine trouble.
Yeah.
No, there's more to it than that.
Gotta be.
Nobody has any idea why or when he left his car.
You've got it all, you know, that's the way it is.
I'm not going to tell you.
And when he left his car, you've got it all, you know, as much as we do.
What was the check on Brewer?
Mark Benson says he's one of their top men.
Been with Highway Patrol for eight years.
Good record all the way.
Have you talked to anybody around here?
Pretty remote spot out here.
A lot of truck gardens, that's about all.
My partner, Dave Terry, turned up one man.
Maybe he's got something.
That's him over by our car.
Hey, Dave, would you send him over here, please?
Who is the fella?
One of the farmers, works at truck garden out here.
His name's Henry Taniguchi.
Tenant Sutton?
Yes, sir.
Mr. Taniguchi, this is Sergeant Friday in Romero.
Yes, sir.
Hi, sir.
I know you filled my partner in, but would you mind going over it again for us?
Oh, all right.
I can tell you very little.
You know, we start work early in the garden.
Yes, sir.
Conrad, a fellow I work with, Conrad Ishikawa.
We started in a string beans about five o'clock this morning, bean patch near Imperial Highway.
We noticed a headlight stop off the side of the road.
This happened all the time along the highway, but this stayed very long.
By what time did you notice this, Mr. Taniguchi?
Must have been, oh, ten minutes past five.
I remember I asked Charlie Fujikuni, our cultivator man, what time was.
I see.
Did you see or hear anything out of the ordinary?
Oh, no, sir.
We wait a while and headlight do not move.
Conrad and I decide that maybe somebody was in trouble.
This highway quite deserted early morning hours.
What did you do then?
We walked up to see what was wrong.
When we get close, we could see what state highway cars, so we know everything all right.
Did you see the officer in the car?
No.
A door was open on the other side.
We thought maybe officer investigates something down in the brush.
Did you see him down there?
Oh, no.
We just think he was check up something, so we go back to work.
You saw nothing out of the ordinary, nothing unusual?
No, we don't.
We hear the radio play.
We know everything okay.
That checks out.
The radio was functioning when we got here.
You didn't notice any other cars around anywhere, did you?
No, sir.
Thank you very much, Mr. Taniguchi.
Here's my card, appreciate it.
If you think of anything else, please let us know.
Yes, sir, I will.
What happened to officer in this car?
We don't know.
Oh, he's all right.
Probably look for somebody.
Well, it makes us even.
We're looking for him.
Monday, June 4th, 8 a.m.
According to our instructions, we headed back to the Hall of Justice to check in with Inspector
Gordon Bowers and Captain Garner Brown of the Sheriff's Department.
They were coordinating the search for the missing highway patrolman Eugene Brewer.
Inspector Ed Backstrand, Central Homicide, was helping out.
To the peace officer, cooperation with all branches of the various law enforcement agencies
is essential.
Each man on the force knows the value of a coordinated effort.
He knows that without the aid of the many divisions of law enforcing bodies in his city
and county, the task of maintaining law and order would be a total failure.
The local officer depends on the men in the federal, state, and county departments as
they depend on him.
Without this coordination, no one department could survive.
8.25 a.m.
We met with Inspector Bowers and Ed Backstrand in the sheriff's office.
Nothing, huh?
Nobody saw him.
If somebody did, we haven't found him, Inspector Bowers.
We both figured the only thing to do was to ask for cooperation of the newspapers.
We got him.
Pretty good layout, huh?
There's stories in every morning edition in town.
They're running a picture and full description of the missing patrolman.
We talked to everybody we could find in the general area out there.
We worked two hours at it.
The spot where the patrol car was found is pretty remote.
A couple of gas stations, some vegetable gardens.
We told you about the town of Goochie, fellow.
Checked all his friends that worked with him.
They couldn't add anything.
Maybe the newspaper will turn up something.
I sent a special detail out there to fan out and search the entire area, five square miles.
Yeah.
It'll take time.
There's nothing else we can do.
No, there's nothing more we can do.
Nothing anybody can do until we can show them the patrol car's out of carry two men.
Nobody seems to be able to do anything about it.
Maybe they will now.
Sending one officer out in a patrol car is like trying to run a trolley line with one
man.
How many cases can you remember in our department?
Ed Dudman pulled the car over and dug 10 at 3 o'clock one morning.
I remember.
Driver turned out to be a guy with a record.
Dudman couldn't know that.
While he was making out the traffic ticket, the guy shot him down in the street.
Dudman died before he could get help.
Yeah.
We do a lot of griping in the detective division, but those men in the patrol cars and the motorcycle
boys, they get the dirty end of the deal for sure.
You bet they do.
When a detective is sent out on a job, he knows who he's after, what he looks like,
what he can expect when he finds him.
The boys in the patrol cars answer a call at 390 or 415 or 507.
Sure we know what they're supposed to be, but how often do they turn out that way?
Prowler or Peeping Tom?
How many times do they have a gun in their pocket?
How many cops do they kill every year?
We've all been through it.
We know what it is.
Yeah, but how often do we think about it when we're griping on steakhouse?
Let me tell you something.
This goes for me as well as you.
Let's not forget who the real cream of the force is, the backbone of any police department.
We've got to get him on wheels.
No question there, Skipper.
Sorry, I didn't mean to make a speech, but when something like this happens, it gets
to me.
They're riding on short odds as it is.
There ought to be two men in every patrol car.
Well, I wish there'd been somebody else with Brewer.
The guy on the job just doesn't disappear without a trace.
It's just what he's done.
We've checked everywhere, everything.
Excuse me.
Prowler?
Who?
Yeah, send him right in.
This might help.
A truck driver by the name of Nat Wolf says he's got something for us.
Come in.
Mr. Wolf?
Yes, sir.
Come in.
Mr. Wolf, Inspector Backstrand, Sergeant Friday, and Romero.
Hi.
How do you do?
I saw the story in this morning's Times.
I don't know if what I got's worth anything, but I figured I'd better pass along to you
guys.
Something on the missing highway patrolman?
I don't know.
The reason I'm here, maybe it's just a coincidence, but I gave a fellow a hand early this morning
out on the Imperial Highway, not far from where the paper here says the empty patrol
car was found.
About what time was that, Mr. Wolf?
All around 4.30 this morning.
You want to tell us about it?
Yeah.
I'm an independent trucker.
I haul topsoil for different nurseries.
Stuff out there on Imperial is good rich stuff.
We dig it right out the side of the hill.
Near Zim?
Well, I just loaded up and as I'm on my way back to town, this fellow flags me down.
Said he'd had a flat, pulled out on the shoulder of the road to fix it.
Said he didn't know what was saying.
After he'd fixed the flat, he found out he stuck.
He couldn't get his car.
You gave him a hand, huh?
No, not with the flat.
He already had that fixed, but I towed him out.
That's how I became suspicious of this fellow.
How do you mean?
Well, I offered to get out and hook up the tow chain.
He said, no, no, just stay in the cab.
I figured if he could do it alone, it was all right with me.
I pulled him out.
Here's the funny part.
Here's him.
The chain got a kink in it from the way to the pole.
He had no mean job to handle that alone.
He says, no, he'll do it himself.
It seemed to me like he didn't want me to get a good look at him or his car.
I could be wrong, but well, that's the way it struck me.
Did you notice anything?
Yes, sir, I did.
For one thing, I got a look at him when I threw on my backup lights in his car.
That's a real funny one.
What do you mean?
Well, this is a fairly new car.
It's saying older than last year's model, Plymouth.
Well, at the risk of sounding completely nuts, I'm going to tell you that car looked like
it had just been painted.
There's nothing wrong in that, is there?
Well, there is if you're off on the side of the road that time of the morning throwing
cheap black paint all over a fairly new car.
He's using a spray gun.
I could understand part of it.
What's that?
It's his license plate.
The front one.
It was all painted over.
You couldn't read any of the numbers.
What led you to believe he just finished painting his car?
All his hands and arms and all of his clothes.
Oh, I see.
It's that kind of paint you put on the rag.
Oh, yeah.
Well, I don't know.
Was it worth bothering you guys about?
You bet it was, Mr. Wolf.
I can't tell you just what it means now.
Maybe it doesn't mean anything, but certainly it's out of the ordinary and worth reporting
to the police.
Well, I hope so.
I'd like to see your boys find that missing officer.
Something's pretty rotten in Denmark about that one, huh?
Maybe we found a hole.
Maybe.
Friday, I'd like to have you and Romero help out in the next step.
What's that?
Throw up a roadblock.
Ten-thirty a.m.
Before we left the sheriff's office, the truck driver Nat Wolf gave Inspector Bowers a description
of the man in the Plymouth sedan.
Together with Lieutenant Pete Sutton and Dave Terry, we drove to the Imperial Highway.
Nat Wolf showed us the spot beside the road where he towed the man.
The area was checked and sample scrapings of the black paint were taken.
There was no chance of taking a tire impression because of the loose sand in the area.
All physical evidence was taken back to the crime lab for analysis.
Nat Wolf returned to the office to check through mug books for possible identification of the
man he helped out.
Meantime, a special detail of men continued to search the area where the missing patrolman
had disappeared.
Three a.m.
According to instructions, a roadblock was established at the spot where the abandoned
patrol car had been found.
Imperial Highway, San Pedro Cut-Off.
Police business?
Yes, sir.
I wonder if you could help us out.
Certainly.
You travel this highway every night, ma'am?
Yes, I do.
I'm in the vegetable business.
Did you come this way last night about this time?
I run pretty much on schedule.
Yes, I did.
Did you notice anything unusual along the highway?
I bet I know what this is about, that missing highway patrolman.
Yes, ma'am.
We're stopping everybody to see if they can give us any information that might help us
out.
I wish I could, but I didn't see a thing.
That poor fellow.
Do you think you'll find him?
We're trying off hard.
Sorry, I can't help you.
Can I go now?
Yes, ma'am.
Thank you.
How'd you do?
Nothing.
What time you got, Joe?
Almost four.
Got a little more hot coffee in that jug, you want some?
It's fine with me, ain't it?
Here we are.
Cups in the lid here.
Ben, Joe?
Thanks, ma'am.
Watch your fingers.
It's hot.
Yeah.
It's good.
I'll take this one.
I'm gonna put my coffee on the fender here.
Don't knock it off, huh?
I won't.
Thank you.
Hey, wait a minute.
Wait a minute, fella.
Can you see my light?
I haven't even got a cigarette.
I mean my flashlight.
I got some.
I'll get you a cigarette.
I mean my flashlight.
You've been drinking, haven't you?
Yes, I have.
I never get drunk, but I've had a little drink.
I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to ask you to pull over to the side of the road.
Okay.
What happened to my car?
It's broke.
You better let me do it, huh?
You want to slide over a little bit there?
I never pick up hitchhikers.
I'm just gonna move your car off the side of the highway now.
Any trouble, Joe?
No.
Five-oh-two.
I'll tell your friend to get in, too.
Here's the sedan.
We're not going far.
Where are we going?
Right here.
Is this the road to Pismo Beach?
No, sir, not this one.
Well, that dirty little Ernie, he lied again.
He hates clams.
What's that?
I've been trying for five months to get to Pismo Beach for a bowl of clam chowder.
I haven't made it yet.
All right.
You just sit here a while and sober up, will you?
I'm gonna hold on to your keys.
I'll give them back to you.
You haven't got a bottle in the car, have you?
No, I never drink and drive.
Alcohol and gasoline do not mix.
Yeah.
Do you drive this road every night?
Every night.
Ernie keeps telling me he'll take me to Pismo Beach.
I love clams.
You just sit here and sober up.
Happy drunk?
Yeah, he's too drunk to drive.
Yeah, getting along towards daylight.
Where'd I put my coffee?
I put it over here, Joe.
Afraid we'd knock it off.
Oh, thanks.
This one's mine.
Dave.
You seem to come in bunches.
You get two or three and then you wait for an hour.
Well, they don't use this highway much since they put that all in it, you know.
Police business.
Yes, sir?
Do you travel this highway every night about this time?
Once in a while.
I haven't been over this way in a week.
You didn't drive this way last night?
No, sir, I didn't.
Anything of the matter?
Routine check.
Thank you very much.
You can go on.
Nothing.
Well, it looks like a hopeless job, doesn't it?
Business is picking up.
Here comes another one.
Looks like one of your sheriff's cars, Pete.
Yeah.
Reynolds, homicide.
Beach Sutton?
Yeah, Reynolds.
You can pack up.
They found him.
Is he all right?
Two bullet holes in the back of his head.
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Five a.m. Tuesday.
The body of highway patrolman Eugene Brewer was found half buried in a shallow grave approximately
four and a half miles from the point where his car had been found standing on the highway.
The scene was roped off, photographed, and measurements were taken in the area carefully
gone over for any physical evidence.
A few scattered residents were again checked and asked if they'd heard gunshots.
Since the nearest dwelling to the place where the body was found was two miles, there was
a possibility that they could have not heard the shots.
No one could give us any further information.
The coroner's autopsy showed that patrolman Brewer had been shot three times in the chest,
one bullet directly entering his heart.
He'd also been shot twice through the base of the skull.
One p.m. Wednesday.
I get it.
Homicide Friday.
Pete Sutton, Joe.
Yeah.
Just had a call from our Hollywood substation.
Woman reported her car stolen on Sunday night.
Thought the guy was going to bring it back.
That's why she didn't report it sooner.
What about it, Pete?
It's a Plymouth sedan, last year's model.
Same type the truck driver told us about.
Sounds good.
We already have a broadcast out on it.
We're putting out an APB now.
You want to check and see if they got it on tonight's hot sheet?
Right.
Anything on the guy who stole the car?
Boyfriend of the woman who owned it.
He left her in a restaurant and got away with her car.
You remember the description of the guy the truck driver helped out Monday morning?
Mm-hmm.
The guy that stole this woman's car, it's the same.
Yeah.
Still doesn't prove he had anything to do with it.
Doesn't prove he didn't.
Together with Pete Sutton and Dave Terry from the sheriff's office, we drove out and interviewed
the woman whose car had been stolen.
She told us that the man who had taken her car had also been seen in the company of one
of her girlfriends, a Miss Helen Farrell, who worked as a cashier at a Hollywood theater.
The Farrell girl identified the man as Mike Lopino, and she gave us a snapshot of him.
She also gave us his last known address.
We had no actual tie-in between the theft of the woman's car and the murder of patrolman
Eugene Brewer, but the circumstantial evidence made it at least worth checking out.
The only car known to have been in the vicinity the morning of the murder was the car the
truck driver Nat Wolford reported.
The same make and model car had been stolen the night before the killing.
The general descriptions of the man from two different people tallied closely.
We figured before we passed this lead by, we'd check it out all the way.
Four p.m. Wednesday.
We met with Inspector Bowers at the sheriff's office.
We checked this Lopino's apartment, found a shirt and a pair of pants, black paint on
both of them.
I sent for that truck driver Nat Wolford to identify this picture here.
Did you find anything else, any problem?
Well, this address book, there's no local places in it.
They're all Las Vegas and Nevada addresses.
That's it, huh?
Yeah.
What'd you get from the record bureau on the guy?
The eye bureau pulled a package on him.
That is Mama Sheep.
Thank you.
Mike Lopino.
Spent some time at San Quentin.
Armed robbery, grand theft auto, assault.
Pretty good record.
Still not positive if he had anything to do with the brewer killing where he's had the
training for.
Yeah.
Send him right in.
Nat Wolford.
Come in, Mr. Wolford.
Thanks.
Dirty shame about that boy.
I read about it in the papers.
He's a good man.
You read about it in the papers?
Yeah.
Got a photograph we'd like you to look at, Mr. Wolford.
You bet.
Yeah.
That's the man.
You're sure?
Sure.
No mistake.
Hey, uh, why do you suppose he was painting that car at four o'clock in the morning?
Maybe that's what that patrolman wanted to know.
We waited for an answer on the APB.
Two days passed.
We arrived at the APB on Saturday, June 9th.
We received a phone call from the Las Vegas, Nevada police department.
The stolen black sedan had been found in the downtown area of Las Vegas.
We requested them to put a stake out on the sedan and ask them not to disturb either the
car or its contents.
Together with Pete Sutton from the sheriff's office, Mark Benson from the highway patrol,
and Ray Pinker of our crime lab, we flew to Las Vegas.
Pinker checked the stolen car.
Embedded in the rear seat were two spent bullets.
There were also blood stains on the seat and on the floor of the car.
Pinker flew back to Los Angeles where the evidence was analyzed.
The bullets found in the car were fired from the same gun as the bullets found in the body
of the dead patrolman.
Fingerprints lifted from the stolen car matched those of Mike Lupino.
Saturday afternoon we checked in with Chief Harry Miller, Las Vegas police department.
This is all you've got on him, huh, Chief?
That's most of it, yeah.
Since we staked out that black sedan, I've had the town covered for Lupino.
No one saw him abandon that car, huh?
No one would know of, no.
Had good cooperation from the newspapers.
Story's been on page one since the thing broke.
Anything come of those names we got from Lupino's address book, the ones we phoned to you?
Let's see, I got the list right here.
Yeah, here we are.
These are the ones my men have checked out already.
George Connolly, nothing there.
Harry Carlson, he and his wife have been checked out, nothing there.
William Spencer, nothing in his place.
We've got them all staked out.
That leaves two to go, huh?
That's right.
We're checking the last two now.
Nothing from the railroad station, the airlines?
They've been covered ever since we got your phone call.
Yeah.
I could be wrong, but I think your man's still here in town.
Any reports on him?
A couple of wild ones, nothing definite.
Checked him out.
Had one this morning from a dealer at one of the clubs downtown.
About 10.30 this morning, he saw Lupino playing the two-bit slot machine.
We showed him his mug shot.
He swears it's the guy.
Well, all we can do now is sweat it out, huh?
My men have covered everything.
I don't know what else we can do.
Yeah.
Excuse me.
Yeah.
You sure it's him?
No, don't try to handle it alone.
Keep the place covered the best you can.
We'll be right out.
They found him.
Two Las Vegas detectives named Billings and Vance answered a phone tip from a grocer
man in the east end of town.
He said a man had been buying groceries from him for the past two days and lived in the
apartment house above the store.
The two detectives showed the grocer man Lupino's mug shot.
He gave a positive identification.
They then checked with the apartment house manager.
After looking at the mug shot, he identified Lupino as the tenant in apartment 10B.
Detectives Billings and Vance staked out the place until our arrival with enough men to
cover the area.
Vance?
Yeah, Chief.
What's the story?
He's in there.
Hasn't been out all day.
Apartment 10B.
We'll take the front, Chief.
Manager thinks Lupino has a gun.
Made us clean in the apartment, found some loose slugs in the dresser drawer.
You still want it, Friday?
Well, it's our headache.
Joe and I will go in, Chief.
Right.
Vance gets the men up on the roof to cover.
We've already fanned them out around the building.
I don't know what they tell you in LA on one of these things, but here we tell them to
be careful.
Right, Chief.
Joe, let's go.
10B is on the second floor.
Let's take the stairs here.
Long way up in there.
This way.
You cover, huh?
Yeah.
Watch out, Pete.
He shot right through the door.
He's got two left.
He's got another gun.
Let's take him.
One good kick ought to get the lock.
Right.
Just a minute.
Let's go, Pete.
Watch it.
I got it.
Watch that gun, will you?
Drop it.
Look, here.
Let it alone, Lupino.
I got it.
All right, come on.
Get up.
You all right, Pete?
Okay.
I got the cops.
What's the big idea?
They tell us you killed that patrolman.
He got tough.
You didn't have to kill him.
You spotted the stolen car.
What else could I do?
Come on, you.
You had as much chance as I did.
That figures.
Yeah.
He's got holes in the back of his head.
The story you have just heard was true.
Only the names and locations were changed to protect the innocent.
On October 2nd, trial was held in Superior Court, Department 91, City and County of Los
Angeles, State of California.
In a moment, the results of that trial.
And now, here is our star, Jack Webb.
Thank you.
The working detective knows that every member of his local police department is a qualified
man.
He knows that his fellow peace officers have been carefully selected to perform their specific
duties by trial, by examination, and by results.
So with a cigarette, the makers of Fatima carefully select and blend only the finest
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Best of all, long cigarettes.
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Every pack is extra mild.
Fatima.
Michael Everett Lupino was tried and convicted of murder in the first degree.
The jury failed to recommend the death penalty.
Lupino is now serving his life term in the state penitentiary.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Los Angeles Police Department requests the cooperation of all
Dragnet listeners in the following police matter.
The Los Angeles Police Department would like every and any information regarding a gun
fitting the following description.
38 caliber special Smith & Wesson revolver, gold seal model.
The gun has a blue steel four inch barrel.
The serial number is 210088.
If you have any information as to the past or present whereabouts of this gun, contact
W.H.
Parker, Chief of Police, Los Angeles, California.
This is a very important matter.
All information furnished will be held in strictest confidence.
Thank you.
You have just heard Dragnet, a series of authentic cases from official files.
Technical advice comes from the Office of Chief of Police, W.H. Parker, Los Angeles
Police Department.
Coming up, Duffy's Tavern.
Three chimes mean good times on NBC.