The story you are about to hear is true.
Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.
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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 transcribed from official
police files.
From beginning to end, from crime to punishment, DRAGNET is the story of your police force
in action.
Was Wednesday, April 2nd.
Was windy in Los Angeles.
After working the early morning watch out of homicide.
My partner's Ben Romero, the boss is Thad Brown, chief of detectives.
My name's Friday.
I was on the way back from communications and it was 5.25 a.m. when I got to room 42.
Homicide.
I was on the way back from communications and it was 5.25 a.m. when I got to room 42.
Mrs. Guthrie and Jack and I had a cup of tea together. Then Jack left to go back to work and then I left.
You didn't notice anyone else in or near the Guthrie's rooms after that?
No. I had my dinner and listened to her radio play and then I went off to bed.
I know you're upset Mrs. Deadman, but can you think of anybody who might have wanted to do away with the Guthrie's?
Anybody who had a reason to do them harm?
As far as I know Sergeant, they didn't have an enemy in the world.
I guess I was wrong. It's a terrible thing.
Yes ma'am. We'll leave our card here with you.
If you want to contact us, don't hesitate to call anytime.
Alright, thank you.
Thank you Mrs. Deadman. Goodbye ma'am.
Goodbye.
What time again?
Six fifteen.
It's pretty early. They ought to be able to post the bodies for us this morning.
Say Friday?
Oh yes Chief.
Jones, your crime lab man is looking for you.
Thank you. Ben, you call the coroner do you?
Yeah, he's on his way over.
Lee?
Hi.
I'm looking for you. Got a few things.
Yeah, what's that?
This hammer. Found it over in the corner under some of the rubble.
These stains on the metal handle here on the head. Gave it the benzidine test. It's blood.
You figure it's a murder weapon?
I've no more when I get the coroner's report.
Bergman lifted a lot of nice prints. A lot of them all over everything.
Yeah.
On the handle of this hammer, on that timing contraption over there, the one that touched off the fire.
Even left some in the next room on that metal box in the drawer of the desk.
How did they look?
Got good prints from each room. They matched. Tell him the next room is something else.
All right.
Yeah?
Those stains on the carpet by the door, the stains on the carpet by the desk, those on the wall, blood stains, all of them.
You can see here, Taylor stains, all leading through the door into the murder room.
You figure they were murdered in here and then the killer took the bodies in the next room and put them on that bed.
That fire to cover up, that's my guess.
How about the prints on the box and that desk, Lee?
Might have been money in the box.
Possible burglary?
That's an angle. I'll take scrapings from these stains run on biological precipitant when I get back to the lab.
I'll let you know how it comes out. Better start finishing up.
Right, Lee. Thanks very much.
Well, that looks like we're in fair shape. A hammer, a couple of fingerprints.
Righty. Romero?
Yes, Huber?
My father worked for Mr. Guthrie in the parking lot, Jack Marshman. Just got here.
Did you talk to him?
Why, I'm now having one of the empty rooms down the hall.
Thanks. Which way?
Down here.
Seems pretty well broken up.
He talked to anyone besides you since he got here?
No, I told him Guthrie's were dead, that's all. He's taking it pretty hard.
Which one?
Right here.
Those friends I had, Charlie and Walter. I knew I should have stayed with them. I knew I should have.
These men are from homicide, Mr. Marshman. Sergeant Friday, Sergeant Romero.
Hello, Mr. Marshman. How are you?
I don't know what I can tell you. I can't understand it. Poor Charlie and Walter.
What can I do to help?
I'd like to have you answer a few questions if you don't mind, sir.
Certainly. Certainly, there ain't anything to help out with. Please, you gotta find out whoever did it. You gotta find out who killed him.
We're gonna try, Mr. Marshman. Now, would you tell us the last time you saw that Guthrie's alive?
Sure.
Maude, Mrs. Guthrie about 4.15 yesterday afternoon. Me and Mrs. Steadman, she's a lying lady. We had tea with her.
And I went back to help Mr. Guthrie at the parking lot.
When's the last time you saw him?
Oh, it was about 6.30. That's when I got off duty at the lot. I said goodbye to Charlie.
Never told him it was the last time I'd seen him alive.
I just can't understand. It's such a vicious thing, Charlie and Maude. It's really terrible.
Yes, sir. You want to just sit down there, Mr. Marshman?
Oh, thank you very much.
Ray.
Yeah?
Are you sure you're the only one who talked to Marshman since he died?
That's right. I met him at the door downstairs.
Well, the only thing you told him was that the Guthries were dead.
I don't know. I don't know.
Any chance he could have been in the room since the fire?
Not a chance.
Then how do you know somebody killed him?
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The Deputy Coroner arrived and removed the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Guthrie to the county morgue.
Together with Clyde Wyant and Ray Schubert of the arson squad,
Ben and I continued questioning the Guthrie's friend and employee, Jack Marshman.
His answers got more confused, and he kept coming back to the morgue.
His answers got more confused, and he kept contradicting himself.
In some ways, he seemed childlike, and others, a good deal more complex.
We strung along.
In order to keep up the pretense that he was not a suspect,
we asked him to come along with us while we checked his living quarters,
a two-room basement apartment near Olympic and South Flower.
We explained it as a routine check.
Marshman was calm and self-assured.
Well, here it is, officer. You can see for yourself.
Yeah, nice, comfortable place.
I like it. I've been here for about three years.
Well, this room is where I do my living, pull down bed.
There's a little gas plate over there. It's handy, compact.
Mm-hmm, I see.
What do you use this next room for here, Jack?
Oh, that's my shop. I like to put around. You care to see it?
Yeah, okay.
Mm-hmm, it's very nice. What's your hobby?
Watchmaking. Used to be a watchmaker.
I haven't worked at it lately, though. The job's pretty hard to find.
Yeah.
These parts here on the bench, you making something, Jack?
Oh, just fooling around.
Old alarm clock there. I'm fixing it up for a friend.
All these wires and things, they all go into the works, huh?
More or less, yeah.
Just something I was fooling around with. It keeps me busy, you know.
I like a hobby, they say it's good for you.
That's what they say, yeah.
Where does this door go, Marshman?
Oh, that's my closet. Just some clothes and stuff in there. Just junk.
Don't mind if I let you in.
It's only a closet. They're just clothes and junk. There's nothing to see.
Say, Jack, do you usually keep this stuff around?
Huh? Oh.
It's kerosene, and it's pretty dangerous to store like this.
There's no cap on it.
I'm glad you reminded me. I got to get a cap for that.
I use it to wash up. My hands get dirty working around the bench.
This shirt, those trousers. Are you with Jack?
I wish you wouldn't drag that stuff out. It gets my stuff all mixed up.
Yeah, they're mine.
But I figured, these stains here, there's quite a few of them.
Some kind of paint I was using. I'm pretty sloppy with paint.
That's not paint. That's paint.
It's a little like blood to me.
What difference does it make? They're working clothes.
I think the reason was in the day.
Why don't you lay off?
Who cares what kind of stain it is?
You come in here snooping around, looking all around.
I invited you in there. I didn't give you the place.
This is my apartment. This is my shop.
You can get out. You hear me? You both of you, you can get out.
What's the matter, Jack?
I said you can get out.
All right. You want to tell us before we go?
Tell you what?
Why you killed the Guthrie's.
What do you mean?
Why did you kill Mr. and Miss Guthrie?
No reason. I just did it.
Nine a.m. We put the stained clothing and the materials from the workbench in the car.
Together with the suspect, we headed back for the office.
On the way, Marshman was quiet. He asked for some breakfast.
We stopped and bought him some ham and eggs.
We tried to get him to talk. He refused.
After breakfast, we dropped the stained clothing and the other things at the crime lab,
and then we drove to the city hall.
We parked the car in front of the Spring Street entrance and started up the stairs.
Hey, wait a minute.
What's wrong?
I've been thinking.
Yeah?
It's all a mistake.
What is?
I didn't know what I was talking about. I didn't kill him.
Nine forty-seven a.m. Ben and I took the suspect into the interrogation room.
We checked him through R&I.
We had a record of two petty thefts the year before.
We went back to the interrogation room and got on the phone.
We called latent fingerprints.
We made them, Joe.
The prints on the hammer, the timing device, and the metal box on the desk.
They all belonged to Marshman.
Ten o' three a.m. I called the county morgue.
Bodies identified as Mr. and Mrs. Charles Guthrie.
Cause of death, Mrs. Guthrie.
Multiple depressed fractures of the skull.
Subarachnoid hemorrhage. Blunt instrument.
Cause of death, Mr. Guthrie. About the same.
The bones of the brain in the occipital area around the brain stem.
Ten twenty-five a.m. I put in a call to Lee Jones at the crime lab.
The materials from the workbench are the same that went into that automatic timer, Joe.
Pieced together to cut ends of some of the wires. They match.
How about the stains on his clothes?
Human blood.
Ten forty-five a.m. We laid it out for the suspect, step by step.
Let me rest a while. I feel better. Let me think.
We stayed with him. We waited.
Eleven twenty a.m. The suspect opened his eyes.
Sergeant?
Yes?
I want to talk about it.
Eleven twenty-five a.m. Schubert and Wyatt from the arson squad joined us.
We called in one of the stenographers to take Marshman's statement.
Eleanor Eastlake.
She automatically took down the time, the place, and those present.
Jack, this is Miss Eastlake.
She's going to record your statement so there'll be no misunderstanding as to what you say at this time.
I do, ma'am.
Hello.
Joe, you want to handle the question?
All right.
Jack, we've got a few preliminaries here for you.
Okay.
John Everett Marshman. Is that your true name?
Yeah.
Where do you live?
One twenty-two and a half Morgan Place, Parvin Bay.
What's your age?
Thirty-seven.
Occupation?
Watchmaker. When I'm working.
Well, now, Jack, you've indicated to us in the previous conversation that you're willing to make a statement setting forth the true facts surrounding the deaths of Mr. and Miss Charles Guthrie.
That's right. I'll tell you.
Were you in their home Tuesday, April 1st? That's yesterday.
Yeah, that's right. I was.
What time did you get there?
First time? About five minutes to four in the afternoon.
Mrs. Guthrie was there, and so was the landlady, Mrs. Stedman. We had some tea.
Was anybody else present while you were there?
No. It was just the three of us.
How long did you stay there?
I left about four fifteen, I guess. I guess I was there about twenty minutes.
Where did you go when you left?
Well, back to the parking lot, as usual. Charlie Guthrie left and went home to dinner.
He got back about six fifteen. I left at six thirty quitting time.
Where did you go after you left the parking lot?
Went around the block and then back to the Guthrie's place.
Why'd you go back there?
To get money. Charlie never paid me enough. He picked me up and expected me to work for nothing.
All right. Now, in your own words, will you tell us just what happened starting when you entered the Guthrie's apartment the second time?
Mrs. Guthrie opened the door and I went in. She gave me a cup of tea and I told her I wanted some money. She wouldn't give me any.
I don't know why, but I was mad. I was sick and tired of both of them. They never gave me enough money.
Tell her.
I'll hang it, Sergeant.
All right. Go ahead, please.
Mrs. Guthrie went in the next room and I went over to the desk and got the money from the box that they keep it in.
I don't know how much I grabbed all of it and the parrot started squawking.
Mrs. Guthrie came running in. She saw me with the money and she says, Jack.
I picked up something and hit her. It was the hammer. I kept hitting her.
Can you remember how many times you hit her, Moishman?
I don't know. She fell down. The parrot was still squawking, jumping around the cage.
I went over and opened the door of the cage and pulled the parrot out. It stopped moving, finally.
I went in the bedroom and threw it on the floor. Then I dragged Mrs. Guthrie in the bedroom and put her on the bed and I left.
Where'd you go?
I don't know. I walked around. Tried to think of something. It was cold.
I got a bottle of wine. I drank it and I got to thinking about what Charlie would do when he got home.
I knew he'd be sure I did it. He always blamed me for everything.
So I finally went back to the Guthrie's place and found the hammer that I used on her.
What'd you intend doing with the hammer?
Kill Charlie. If she had it coming, so did he. You can't blame me if they forced me into it. Anybody would have done the same.
What'd you do after you found the hammer again?
I picked it up and waited for Charlie to come home.
I remember that. The wine made me feel pretty good.
I stood there in the dark holding the hammer, watched out the window for Charlie. It was cold out. I remember that.
There was a radio on down the hall and I held on to the hammer and waited for Charlie.
The neon light across the street came through the windows.
Old lady was on the bed in there. I could see the parrot on the floor.
It was quiet. I had a smoke.
Traffic kept going by outside. I could hear that.
I held on to the hammer. It was windy out.
I kept thinking Mrs. Guthrie was looking at me from the bed, but she wasn't.
Charlie came home at the usual time, a little after 7.30.
He stood by the door. He came in and closed the door after me. When he reached for the lights, I hit him.
I fell down. I hit him some more. You couldn't blame me. Anybody would have done the same. Anybody would have the way he kicked me around.
How many times did you hit him, Rochman?
I don't know.
Was it twice? Three times?
I hit him until he quit moving. That's all.
I took him, dragged him into the bedroom, put him on the bed with his wife. I put him over.
Wiped the stains off of me and left. That's the only thing I could do.
Where did you go then?
My place. I knew that timer had to do the trick. I put it in a shopping bag with some stuff and I went back to the Guthrie's.
They were still there on the bed. The parrot was on the floor.
Would you repeat that last part, Mr. Merchant?
I said they were still on the bed, the Guthrie's, and the parrot was on the floor next to the bed.
I put the kerosene on the carpet and the rags and paper under the bed and rigged up the electric heater and the automatic timer to set it off.
A little slower?
We'll just pick up Jack and then slow it down just a little bit.
Oh, sorry.
How did you rig the timer to set off the heater, Merchant? Can you tell us?
It would take all morning to tell you. You got the timer. I'll take it apart and explain it to you if you want.
All right.
What was your purpose in setting fire to the room? You knew both Mr. and Mrs. Guthrie were dead, didn't you?
Oh, sure. Sure they were. They forced me into it. I set the fire to make it look like an accident, like they'd burned a day.
What did you do after you set the timer?
Oh, I left, went down the street, bought a couple of bottles of wine, talked to the guy a minute, and I walked around a while. It was too cold, so I went home.
When did you get home?
2.30 maybe. I don't remember too well.
Did you go right to bed?
Yeah.
Did you go to sleep?
No. No. I laid there and read a movie magazine, drank the wine, and finally I finished up the two bottles and dosed off.
What time did you get up?
A little before six this morning. Went down to the Guthrie's to know his around, and so I met you guys.
Well, you know all the rest because I've been with you ever since.
All right, Jack. Anything else you'd like to add?
No, I told you I didn't.
All right. When this statement was given free and voluntarily, there's been no promise of immunity or reward extended to you?
Yeah, that's right.
Was any force, violence, or duress used to induce you to make this statement?
No.
Okay. These questions and answers have been recorded by the secretary here. After they've been transcribed, will you be willing to sign it as a true statement?
Sure, sure. I'll sign it.
All right, Eleanor. Will you get that out as soon as possible?
All right, Sergeant.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Well, that's it, huh? All of it?
That's it.
Oh, that's good. That's good. I'm tired. It's been a long night. A long one.
Get used to it, huh? They're gonna get longer.
The story you just heard was true. Only the names were changed to protect the innocent.
On July 29th, trial was held in Superior Court, Department 86, City and County of Los Angeles, State of California. In a moment, the results of that trial.
Now, here is our star, Jack Webb.
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John Everett Marshman was tried and convicted of murder in the first degree, two counts, and arson, one count.
He is now serving a life term in the state penitentiary without possibility of parole.
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.
Fatima cigarettes, the best of all long cigarettes, has brought you Dragnet, portions transcribed from Los Angeles.
Coming up, We the People, then Screen Director's Playhouse on NBC.