The story you are about to hear is true.
Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.
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You're a detective sergeant. You're assigned to robbery detail.
A small bakery shop in your city is held up. A man and his daughter are shot down without
reason. Your job, get 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 to 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 Tuesday, November 3rd. It was chilly in Los Angeles.
We were working the night watch out of robbery detail.
My partner's Ben Romero. The boss is Captain Ed Walker.
My name's Friday. It was five minutes to midnight when we got to 318 Silver Avenue.
Stendhal's Bakery Shop. Romero and Friday Central Robbery.
Hi, I'm Jacob. She's in at 16R. My partner Olson's back there in the shop talking to the owner.
You answered the call, did you?
Yeah, must have been a crazy man shot two of them down, cold blood.
There they go in the ambulance now. Shot up pretty bad.
Who runs the place?
Swedish family named Stendhal. Father, mother, two daughters, all four of them work in the bakery here.
They all here at the time of the robbery?
Yeah, the holdup man shot the father and the oldest daughter.
The mother and the younger girl are in the back straight through that door.
Okay. Thanks, Jacob.
Right, Sergeant.
Joe.
On the side of the door here, looks like a bullet hole.
Hey, Jacob.
Yes, Sergeant.
You want to call into the crime lab, ask them to send somebody out?
Right.
Thank you.
Hi. You Olson?
That's right.
Romero and Friday Central Robbery.
Oh, how are you? These are two of the victims, Mrs. Signy Stendhal.
The girl's her daughter, name's Jennifer.
Any other witnesses?
Not so far. Neighborhood around here is pretty deserted this time of night.
The holdup man made a fast getaway.
Two people who were shot, what kind of shape are they in?
Father, Mr. Stendhal, he's got a bullet wound in the right shoulder.
Older daughter's a lot worse. Her name's June.
19 years old, shot four or five times through the stomach.
You want to stand by?
Right, yeah.
Okay.
Mrs. Stendhal, we're from robbery detail.
Yeah, how do you do?
How do you do?
Jenny, you're worse than Alex.
I'm sitting right here in the...
...two chairs.
Yes, Mama.
You will excuse me for not getting up, officer.
I don't feel so well.
That's perfectly right, ma'am.
Chair for you, officer.
Thank you, I'll get it. Thank you very much.
You and your daughter here, are you going to be able to get out of here?
You and your daughter here were in the front of the bakery shop at the time of the robbery.
Is that right, Mrs. Stendhal?
No.
Jenny was back here with her father.
Lars, my husband.
Jenny and I were in the shop in front.
Who were you with, ma'am?
Jenny, Jenny and I.
June?
Mama means June, my older sister. She calls her June.
Yeah, June.
Oh, I don't know.
You mind telling us what happened?
Well...
June and I were scrubbing the floor of the shop.
Every Tuesday night we scrubbed the floor of the shop.
Then this man came in and pointed a gun.
He wanted our money.
By what time did he come in?
11.15, 11.20.
I don't remember for certain.
He wanted our money and I gave it to him.
How much was that, ma'am?
Jenny, you know.
How much money was in the bag?
Twenty-four dollars.
Yeah, twenty-four dollars.
He used the paper money.
He took it and put it in his pocket.
June, my daughter, she started to cry.
The man hit her.
She cried some more.
Then Lars and Jenny came running from the back.
Yes, ma'am.
The man pointed the gun.
He made Lars and me and Jenny stand against that wall.
But not June.
He took hold of her.
Jenny, who said today?
Then we came in the morning.
And, but, June...
It was getting fresh with her, ma'am.
The man tried to get fresh with June officers.
June hit him.
He tried to drag her out the door with...
Yeah, June hit him.
Hit him good.
And he went like that,
drew her against the counter and pushed June down.
Crazy man.
Crazy look.
He kicked her.
Then Lars, my husband, he ran at the man.
He heard the gun loud.
And Lars fell down.
And I screamed.
Yeah.
Jenny screamed.
He turned and I saw the man standing over June.
He pointed the gun down at her.
Yes, ma'am.
Crazy look on him.
He kept shooting her.
Four, maybe five times.
Jenny screamed.
She kept screaming.
The man ran out the door.
It's all right now, Miss Stender.
Had either one of you ever seen this man before?
No, no.
Neither did I.
Would you know him if you saw him again?
Yeah, I think so.
I would, officer.
I got a good look at him.
He was wearing a blue cap like a baseball player wears.
How'd he get away?
Was he on foot or did he have a car?
Nobody followed him, but after he left,
I heard a car start up down the block and then it drove away.
Do you have anything else to add, Miss Stender?
I hope you catched the man.
His bed.
Please catch him.
Yes, ma'am.
We're going to try.
Jenny, first and foremost,
I need to get my nickels from the cash register.
Yes, ma'am.
Here, ma'am.
Here, officer.
When you find the man, please call me.
You keep the nickels.
We'll call you.
Before we left the scene of the robbery and shooting,
Mrs. Stendall and her daughter gave us their description of the holdup man
together with the clothing he wore.
The suspect had no outstanding physical characteristics that they'd noticed.
The only thing unusual about his clothing was that he wore what appeared to be a baseball cap
at the time of the holdup.
She described the cap as light blue with a visor.
Together with officers Bechtel and Lopez from Central Robbery,
we canvassed the immediate neighborhood for other possible witnesses.
We found none.
The next morning we went out to the hospital.
The condition of the older daughter, June, was critical.
We interviewed the father.
He could tell us nothing.
At 10 a.m., Mrs. Stendall and her younger girl, Jenny, were brought to the office
and we started them looking through mug books of parolees previously convicted of armed robbery.
Within two hours, both of them positively identified the picture of a recent San Quentin release
as that of the holdup man.
His name was Harold Best.
We started a quick rundown.
You pulled the package on?
Yeah, here's the dope. Harold Best.
Uh, alias Harold Norris, alias Harold Thompson, alias Tom Norris.
One term for armed robbery and Q. Got out four months ago.
M.O. and description both mads.
How about the ex-con files you're checking?
He's registered. Did you get ahold of his parole officer?
Yeah, 244 to Excelsior Avenue is roaming us.
Well, that checks with the ex-con files.
Parole officer says Bechtel went to work two weeks ago at a filling station over on Vermeer.
Yeah.
Doesn't seem to be able to hold a job.
Quorrelsome, run himself into death.
I got it.
Robbery, Romero.
Yeah, Ray.
That's all, huh?
Yeah.
Right, bud.
Ray Pinker at the crime lab. They checked the slugs taken from the two victims.
Yeah.
They came with a.32 caliber revolver.
Probably a Colt.
Anything else?
That's it.
Not too bad a start.
We've had worse.
Yeah.
Maybe we can make that phone call very quick.
Two p.m. Wednesday.
Ben and I drove out to his rooming house at 2440 Excelsior Avenue,
and we found that Herbert Best was still living there.
We had the landlady show us his room.
Besides the usual personal belongings, we came across nothing of consequence.
After questioning the landlady, we drove to the service station on Vermont Avenue,
where Best was supposed to be employed.
I don't see anyone around.
Oh, hey, there's a fellow over there greasing your car in the rain.
Oh, oh, yeah.
That looks like Best.
Hey, fella.
You.
Yeah?
Can you tell us if there's a Herbert Best working here?
Oh, I'm him.
Why?
Police officers would like to talk to you.
Yeah?
What's the matter?
Routine investigation.
Got a few questions for you.
Supposed to have this car greased up in a quarter to four.
What am I supposed to do, please?
You or the boss?
I'll find him, Joe.
You got any heat on you?
No.
What's it all about?
How long is this going to be?
Couple minutes.
Won't take more than a grease job to put this thing in shape.
Well, we'll wait for you.
How'd you find me?
A nosy landlady of mine?
No, routine general.
Every fetten on this trap is froze.
Piece of junk.
Well, what's it all about?
Got a few things to straighten out, Best.
How long you been working here?
Well, you didn't drive out here for that.
That's not your game.
What's the pitch?
Routine investigation.
We'd like to know where you've been spending your nights.
For instance?
Sunday night.
Where were you?
Well, I don't know.
I went to a show.
Yeah, I saw a Mickey Rooney picture.
Where?
Downtown.
I had a beer after the show.
Come home.
How about Monday night?
Well, I went home after work.
I was poked.
Went to bed early.
Can you prove it?
Landlady saw me come in while we were snooping around.
She ought to know if I was there or not.
How about last night, Tuesday?
Played some cards with a friend of mine, him and his wife,
Penny Annie Booker.
Where?
A place that's down on Pico, near the park.
You can ask them.
What time did you get there?
I'm not sure, about 8 o'clock, I guess.
What time did you leave?
What's it all about?
What time did you leave?
Around midnight, yeah.
Must have been around midnight.
What did you play with your friend and his wife?
Booker.
Booker, a loss as usual.
Took a streetcar home, went to bed.
Sure you didn't leave earlier.
Of course I'm sure.
It was around midnight, I remember.
How do you remember?
I looked at my watch.
Good enough for you?
What time did you get home?
Well, it takes about a half hour on a trolley.
Must have been about 12.30.
Did your landlady say you'd come in?
I don't know if she saw me or not.
Always snooping around.
Probably did.
You're not sure?
No, of course I'm not sure.
She looks for me, I don't look for her.
You own a gun, bastard.
You know better than that cop or ex-cons can't have a gun.
Your friend and his wife, now they're going to back you up
if you were playing cards with them till midnight?
Why not?
I was.
Say that there's a boss looking for me.
I better let him know I'm here.
Just a minute, Bess.
Yeah?
What's that you got in your back pocket there?
Huh?
In your back pocket, the right one there.
Oh, this?
Yeah.
Baseball cap?
Why?
4 p.m.
Ben and I checked the suspect's locker at the service station
and then drove him back to the office of the interrogation room.
We continued questioning him.
He denied any knowledge of the holdup and shooting
at Stendhal's Bakery Shop the night before.
We asked him again about the friends he was supposed to be playing cards with
at the time of the robbery.
He told us that they lived over on Pico, but he couldn't remember the address.
He volunteered to direct us there, but he said they wouldn't be home.
He told us their names were Mr. and Mrs. Clyde Mitchell
and that they were in charge of the food concessions
at one of the football stadiums in town.
Bess was held for suspicion of robbery.
That night we drove out and interviewed the landlady at his boarding house.
She knew nothing of Bess' whereabouts the previous night.
She didn't know what time he left or what time he returned.
Ben and I went over his room again.
There was no sign of a gun.
Friday, 2 p.m., officers Beckle and Lopez went out to the hospital
to see if Mr. Stendhal and his daughter June could identify Bess Mugshot.
Ben and I drove out to the stadium to locate Mr. and Mrs. Clyde Mitchell.
There was a high school football game going on.
High school kids sure have a lot of fun nowadays.
The best years of your life, Joe.
You sound like you're 85.
Some nights I feel like it.
The way those kids turn out for these things,
you'd think USC and Notre Dame were playing.
You see the number on that gate over there?
Yeah, it's 23.
That's the number the gatekeeper gave him?
Yeah.
Must be the Mitchell stand over there.
Come on.
Oh, Miss, can you tell us where to find Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell?
Yeah, around back of the stand. You're knocking the door.
Thank you.
Yeah, come on in.
You're Mrs. Mitchell?
That's right. What is it?
Police officers. Like to talk to you if you have a few minutes.
All right, I'm having a bite of lunch, but come on in.
Shut the door.
Yes, ma'am. Thank you.
Lousy food business. You never get a chance to feed yourself.
Yes, ma'am.
Hey, care for some of these? New kind of potato chips.
Revolutionary, it says.
Mother Thompson's puff chips, flavored.
Get all kinds, see?
These here are a combination, see.
Garlic and eggplant. Sure tastes different. Have some?
No, thank you. I wouldn't.
Thank you.
See, we're inquiring about a friend of yours, Mrs. Mitchell.
Maybe you can tell us something about him.
Oh, who's that?
A man by the name of Herbert Best.
Herb, yeah. Old time friend of my husband's.
Why you want to know?
You see him quite often, do you, Mrs. Mitchell?
Mm-hmm. Once, twice a month.
Clyde and I play cards or go out bowling with him.
Herb's pretty company.
When's the last time you saw him?
Early this week, Tuesday, I think it was.
Sure it was Tuesday.
Hmm, see, yeah. It was. We played cards twice.
That's your play?
That's right, a little poker.
Clyde and Herb and me.
What time did Best get to your place, Mrs. Mitchell?
Well, right after I finished up with the dinner dishes, around 7.45, I'd say.
How long did he stay?
A couple hours. We sat around, had a few drinks, played poker, nickel limit.
What time did he leave, do you remember that?
A little before ten, I think.
Are you sure that man was important?
Sure as I can be.
Must have left before ten because Clyde and I listened to the ten o'clock news alone.
Then we went to bed right after.
Your friend Best tells us he didn't leave your place until midnight.
Oh, that's not right.
He must be mixed up. He left before ten, I'm sure of that.
All right, Mrs. Mitchell, thank you.
See, I hope I haven't said anything I shouldn't have. I know Herb's next con.
Yeah.
He likes to gamble.
I'm not checking up on him for Tuesday night, are you?
That's right.
You're playing too much poker?
We're not playing enough.
3.30 p.m.
We located Mr. Mitchell, corroborated his wife's story, and then we went back to the city hall.
Officers Beckland-Lopez were waiting for us.
They told us that they had seen Mr. Stendall and his daughter June at the hospital.
Both of them had identified Herbert Best's mugshot as that of the hold-up man.
At a show up, Mrs. Stendall and her daughter identified Best.
We checked auto records for all stolen cars that might tie in. There were none.
We then started to work on the theory that he had taken a bus from his friend's place
where he had been playing cards at the Stendall bakery where the shooting took place.
Lopez and Bechtel rode the bus over the same route.
It took 43 minutes.
Plenty of time for Best to have gotten from one place to the other even on a slow run.
We interviewed the bus driver who had been on duty that particular line
Tuesday night between 10 p.m. and midnight.
He identified Best as one of his passengers, but he didn't remember where he got off.
The next morning, Ben and I met with Ed Walker, captain of the robbery.
Hi. How'd you make out?
Just saw the deputy DA. Made out the case for him.
Yeah.
We got the complaint. He'll be arraigned this afternoon.
How strong a case you got.
Well, each one of the Stendall family identified Best.
His alibi didn't stand up for Tuesday night.
Uh-huh.
And we got that bus driver. He tapped Best, too, in that blue baseball cap.
All we need now is the hold-up gun.
I hate to spoil it for you.
Hmm?
This letter just came through in the mail.
Have a look.
Oh, thanks.
What do you think?
Uh...
I read in the paper this morning about Herbert Best.
You got the wrong guy. I'm the one who held up that bakery.
Every detail about that robbery is written down in that letter.
The information wasn't in the newspaper story. Nobody else but the hold-up man would know all those details.
Hey, wait a minute. Listen to this.
Yeah?
If you don't believe I'm the right man, I'll shoot up a couple of more jerks.
Next time, I'll kill him.
It's no crank, Luddy.
No, it isn't.
You got the wrong man.
You are listening to Dragnet.
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After we received the anonymous letter in the mail confessing to the Stendhal Bakery holdup,
we met with the deputy district attorney.
We acquainted him with the new facts in the case.
That afternoon the charges against Herbert Best were dropped.
We started again at the beginning.
Ten a.m. Monday, November 9th.
The members of the Stendhal family were again shown mug books of ex-cons with robbery records.
This time they picked out eight mug shots of known robbery men,
each with a marked resemblance to the original suspect Herbert Best.
Together with officers Bechtel and Lopez, we started checking them out.
The first two days we tracked down four of the eight.
All of the four were in the clear.
Five fifteen p.m. we got back to the city hall, the carpool.
See any empty spots, Joe?
No, but don't park it in any one of the city councilmen's stalls.
Yeah, it might get so...
Well, why don't you pull up here, Boyd will take care of it.
Okay.
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That's good, that's good.
Oh, Garnet, I knew there was something I forgot to do.
What's that?
Oh, they had an underwear sale today.
That place down in the South, fake shorts, t-shirts.
My wife told me to be sure and get down there.
Oh, that'd be another one.
That place has sales all the time, don't they?
Only twice a year on underwear.
Stuff I've got's not gonna last until next time.
Riley, Ben, wait a minute.
Gene Beckman.
Hi, Beck.
Hi.
Going up?
Yeah.
How'd you make out?
Two men we checked were clean.
Picked up something 77th Street station.
Now go ahead, Ben.
Mm-hmm.
Watch that elevator door.
Oh, yeah, I'm sorry.
What's with 77th Street?
Oh, a couple of men in traffic out there covered in accidents this afternoon.
91st and Central hit and run.
That's how?
One of our traffic cars saw the collision, took out after the guy, chased him ten blocks.
Mm-hmm.
While they were chasing him, they thought they saw the driver throw something out of the car window.
Yeah, what?
I'm coming to that.
When they finally pulled the car over, great coup, the driver told him his shoulder was wrenched in the accident,
he was on his way to his own doctor.
Mm-hmm.
Our men took him to 77th Street, had the doctor look at him.
Yeah.
Well, the doctor's treating the guy, only one of the officers was in the room.
Mm-hmm.
When he turned to get a drink of water, the suspect slugged him, then the doctor jumped out of the window, got away.
Teletypes out on him.
Oh, he went through an awful lot of trouble to beat a traffic rap, didn't he?
Yeah, that's the way to impress the boys out there.
They got out of broadcast, and the guy went back to the spot where they thought they saw the guy
toss this thing out of his car when they were chasing him.
Did it pay off?
They found a.32 Colt revolver.
The arrest camp's checking it now in the crime lab.
What did they say the man looked like?
Description measures pretty close to our holdup guy.
I'll get it.
Robbery Friday.
Yeah, just a minute. See you back.
Oh, thanks.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, Russ.
Yeah.
Okay, fine, right.
Russ Camp checked.32 revolver with the slugs in the Stendall case.
Yeah.
Positive make.
The gray coupe, which the unidentified suspect had been driving, had been checked out by traffic officers at 77th Street Division.
They had found that the owner and driver of the car was a man named Bruno Stock, a two-time loser with a page full of major and minor crimes to his credit.
We checked his mama's sheet, and we got out of broadcast on him in an APB.
The stakeout had been placed at his last known address.
We picked up a sandwich and a cup of coffee for dinner, and then we started checking out Bruno Stock's relatives and friends.
By six o'clock the following night, we still had no idea where he was.
A little after 9 p.m., we got a call from an informant who told us that Tommy Josephson, a small-time thief and reputedly a friend of Bruno's, wanted to talk to us.
We found him in a small apartment over on West 6th.
One thing I want to set you straight on, Bruno's no friend of mine.
He's in on the heavy rackets. No heavy racket man's a friend of mine.
All right, we got it. Now where's Bruno?
He came here tonight, quarter after six, moved right in on me, didn't even ask me.
What do you want with you?
Now you remember, Bruno's no friend of mine.
Yeah, we got that. Now what do you want?
A gun. He knew I had one. I keep it for self-protection. You can't trust these heavy men.
Did you give him a gun?
Give it to him. He took it, shook me down like a rat, made me go out and buy dinner for him.
My own dog had to bring it back here from.
Yeah.
Bruno's no friend of mine. What he does with that gun is his grief. It's out of my hands.
When did he leave here?
An hour ago, I think. Maybe a little less. Shook me down like a rat. Real heavy guy.
Where was Bruno going?
I don't know. He's crazy. All them heavy guys are crazy. Talk like somebody with a paper head.
Did he tell you where he was going?
I see a friend of his over in Dogtown. Guy runs a bowling alley. Bruno's gonna borrow his car.
What for?
He's heavy, I tell you. Said he was going out on a heist tonight. Did he ever write you guys a letter?
Why?
Well, he told me he was gonna prove what he wrote to you. Crazy. I didn't get it at all.
Yeah.
Said he was going out to kill a couple of jerks.
9.30 p.m. We got the address of the bowling alley run by Bruno Stock's friend and we called the office.
An alert for the suspect was broadcast immediately. Together with Gene Bechtel and Lopez, we drove to the bowling alley.
Ben and I went in. Bechtel and Lopez covered the outside.
That's a good crowd. I wonder where they do business. I don't see any counter.
No, neither do I.
Oh, yeah, yeah. There it is. Way over in the corner.
Oh, yeah. There's nobody behind the cash register. How about that fellow in the white t-shirt standing by the cigarette machine?
Yeah, looks like he works here. Let's go.
Joe, the guy with him just turned towards you.
Bruno, come on.
He sees us. He's going to the back.
All right, Joe. Let's hold it up.
Come on. He ducked in there to the right, Joe. Down behind the alley.
Hold it up, Stock.
The window, Joe.
The window right through it. Come on. Here.
There he is. Now get out.
Joe!
He's in there, Bechtel. Cover the front.
Right.
Over the fence, Joe. There he is.
All right, give it back. Yeah.
Come on.
You see him?
No.
He's got to be in the yard somewhere.
Yeah.
Where'd he come from? I can't see. Keep down.
Backstairs to that house. There he is.
Give it up, Stock.
All right, mister.
Give tag. Come on.
What's it look like?
It's a shoulder wound. You want to shake him down?
Yeah.
Joe, Ben, you all right?
Yeah. Get an ambulance. We'll be back.
Right.
I'll throw the cuffs on him, huh? Yeah.
Well, that's it, Joe.
Yeah.
Where you going?
I got a phone call to make.
The story you have just heard was true.
Only the names were changed to protect the innocent.
On February 18th, trial was held in Superior Court, Department 84,
Sadeem 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.
In the record bureau of all Metropolitan Police Departments,
there's a special file in which all known criminals are catalogued
and cross-indexed according to identifying marks.
Marks which help the working detective.
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Bruno Alfred Stock was tried and convicted of first-degree robbery
and assault with intent to commit murder, two counts.
Because of his prior convictions, he was a judged and habitual criminal
and sentenced to a life imprisonment.
He is now serving his term in the state penitentiary.
You have just heard Dragnet, a series of authentic cases from official files.
Technical advice for Dragnet comes from the Office of Chief of Police,
W.H. Parker, Los Angeles Police Department.
Fatima cigarettes, the best of all.
Long cigarettes has brought you Dragnet from Los Angeles.
Coming up, Duffy's Tavern, next Tuesday at Spiber McGee on NBC.