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You're a detective sergeant. You're assigned to homicide detail.
A confessed murderess is paroled from the state prison for women.
After seven months, the parole office loses contact with her.
Your job, find her.
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Dragnet, the document a 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 Thursday, March 9th. It was foggy in Los Angeles.
We were working a day watch out of homicide detail.
My partner is Ben Romero. The boss is Thad Brown, chief of detectives.
My name is Friday.
We were on our way back from the state building
and it was 2.45 p.m. when we got to the city hall, room 29, handwriting analysis.
I want to have some information on the case.
Handwriting analysis. Want to have a seat, Fred?
Okay, thanks. I'll see if Don's around. Maybe in the back room.
Don Meyer. Don, are you here?
Yeah, coming. Just a minute.
Oh, hi, Ben.
I've got a quick job for you, Don. Can you spare a few minutes?
Thanks, sir. Hi, Joe. Good to see you.
I'd like to have you meet Fred Galloway, State Parole.
Fred, this is Don Meyer, our handwriting man.
How are you?
Got a couple of signatures here. I'd like to have you check them now if you can.
I can try. Let's see what you got.
You want to show them, Fred? Yeah.
These three sheets here, Don, mark November, December, January.
I'd like to know if the signatures on them
compare with the signatures on these two here. They're marked February and March.
Let me see. Thanks.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, this shouldn't take long.
Why don't you fellas have a seat? Okay.
How's this thing shape up, Fred?
You figure that the Johnson woman's jumped her parole?
Got me. I don't know what to think.
How long's it been since you got out of prison?
Well, let me check you out on the details. I got the dope right here.
All right, all right.
Annie Marie Johnson. She was sent up for a life term in 1933,
murdered her husband John, shot him to death.
Started appealing for parole in 1940, finally won it May 14th last year,
paroled into the custody of Mrs. Laura Jean Muller.
Mm-hmm. Where does this Mrs. Muller live?
Down Wilmington. Old friend of the Johnson woman.
She fought for ten years to get her released from Tehachapi.
Have you been in touch with Mrs. Muller lately, Fred?
Only by mail. We've been sending her monthly report forms all along.
She's the person that Annie Johnson was paroled to.
So the form has to be filled out, then signed by Mrs. Muller, and mailed back to me.
Yeah, I know. And that's where you figured that something was wrong.
We got the February and March reports back from her on time.
All the usual questions answered properly.
And it was the signature.
Writing didn't look like Mrs. Muller's at all.
You think the Johnson woman is faking the signature?
Maybe. I tried to contact the Muller house half a dozen times
in the last couple of days, nobody home.
There you go, man. You got it? Yeah.
Let me see. These three here, November, December, January,
they were signed by the same person. Yeah.
Signatures on the February and March reports,
they're pretty bad imitations.
One person signed these two, another person signed these.
No match at all.
Well, then the signatures on the last two reports were forged.
I'd say so.
She went up for murder. That's your department. You want to run it down?
Sure. What's it end up to?
It could be a lot of things, could be nothing.
Annie Johnson ought to know.
Ben and I checked out of the office and drove down to Wilmington.
We located the home of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Muller on Seaboard Drive,
just off Anaheim Street.
It was an old-fashioned two-story house,
set back on a big corner lot along with plenty of shrubbery.
It was a faded gray with lots of Victorian gingerbread hung all over it.
Fancy carved gables, carriage driveway with hitching posts
and pieces of thick colored glass
set in some kind of a design in the window of the front door.
Out in the harbor beyond Terminal Islands, you could hear the fog horns.
They sure get the fog out here, don't they?
It's pretty thick today.
My aunt used to live just above here, Grant Avenue.
Oh, uh-huh.
Couldn't take the fog, so she moved out the valley.
The garden could stand some taking care of.
Yeah, weeds are doing fine.
Want to try it again?
What do you think?
Let's try the neighbors, huh?
Yeah, all right.
That house across the street must be somebody there.
I saw a woman shaking a dust mop out the window when we drove up.
All right.
Kind of a bleak-looking spot up here on the hill, isn't it?
Not many houses around.
Yeah, and this fog's doing nothing for me.
Chills you right down to the bone.
What's the name of the mailbox here?
Let's see.
Miss Fora Carpenter.
Well, maybe she can tell us something.
Are you the sewing machine man?
No, ma'am, we're police officers.
Like to ask you a few questions?
Oh, I'm sorry.
I thought you came about my singer.
No, ma'am.
I can't do any more work on my peasant skirt until the machine's fixed.
And it has to be done by Saturday.
Our folk dancing group's having a big jamboree Saturday night.
Will you step inside?
Thank you.
This is Sergeant Romero.
My name's Friday.
How do you do?
Oh, fog's so refreshing, isn't it?
Very vitalizing.
Yes, ma'am.
Are you acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Mueller across the street, Miss Carpenter?
The Mueller's?
Yes, I've known them for years.
And they have an Annie Johnson living with them?
Yes, one of my very good friends.
She's employed as a housemaid for the Mueller's, is that right?
Well, I guess you could call it that.
Actually, she's more of a companion to Mrs. Mueller since poor Mr. Mueller got sick.
What's his trouble?
His mind.
Poor man just lost his senses.
He's at the state hospital at Norwalk.
When did they send him there?
Let me see.
This is March.
Must have been last November.
Yes, became violent.
Do you know where Mrs. Mueller is now?
In the sanitarium out near Pasadena.
Not well at all.
And Annie Johnson, is she still living at Mueller's house across the street?
Oh, yes.
She went downtown to do some shopping today.
Did she say when she'd be back?
No, she didn't, but we have a meeting of our book appreciation club at 8.30 tonight here at my house,
and I certainly don't think she'd miss the meeting.
I see.
Miss Carpenter, do you happen to know the name of the sanitarium where Mrs. Mueller's staying?
Garways.
That's what Annie told me.
Garways, Rest Home, out by Pasadena.
Have any of the neighbors been out to visit her?
Well, no, we haven't.
Annie said the doctors there thought it'd be better if Mrs. Mueller didn't have visitors.
I see.
I wonder if you'd tell us where we could find a public telephone in the neighborhood.
Oh, you can use my phone, Sergeant, it's right back there in the hall.
Fine, thank you.
I'll call them, Joe.
I'll have the operator charge it to our office.
You sure you can find your way back there, Sergeant?
It's right under General Pershing's picture.
Yes, ma'am, no trouble.
I was just thinking, Sergeant Friday.
Yes, ma'am.
Would you know anything about repairing sewing machines?
No, I'm afraid not.
Oh.
Oh, fluffy, there you are.
This is Annie Johnson's cat, Sergeant.
Isn't he simply gorgeous?
Look at that fur.
Yes, ma'am, he's a nice cat.
Genuine Pershing.
Annie brought him with her when she came to live with the Mueller's.
Did Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Mueller always seem to get along fairly well together, do you?
I mean, no arguments?
Oh, my, no.
Annie's the easiest person in the world to get along with.
All us girls in the neighborhood just adore her.
Joe, did you talk to the sanitarium?
Yeah, I double-checked the name.
Yeah.
Mrs. Mueller's not there, they never heard of her.
Ben and I left and interviewed some of the other people in the neighborhood.
They all had the same high opinion of Annie Johnson as Miss Carpenter did.
They all had the impression that Mrs. Mueller was under doctor's care at the Garroway Rest Home in Pasadena.
Annie Johnson told them so.
We found out that Mrs. Mueller had one other living relative besides her husband, her niece, Lorraine Mueller.
She lived out on Norwich Drive in Beverly Hills.
At 5.30 p.m., Ben and I drove back to the office and made a spot check of every private rest home and sanitarium listed in the Los Angeles area.
Mrs. Mueller wasn't at any of them.
We called the state hospital at Norwalk and they informed us that Joseph Mueller was there,
having been committed the 2nd of November the previous year.
He was critically ill.
We put in another call to the Mueller home, still no answer.
6.15 p.m., we drove out to Beverly Hills to the home of Mrs. Mueller's niece, Lorraine.
She was a tall, good-looking girl with blonde hair and a bad cough.
I don't think I can help you, Sergeant.
I moved out of my aunt's house three months ago.
I haven't seen her since.
Were you staying at the house when Annie Johnson came to live there?
I was raised in that house.
Mother and dad died when I was a baby and Uncle Joe and Aunt Laura took care of me.
They're wonderful people.
Would you mind telling us why you moved?
I don't mind.
Everything was fine until Annie Johnson came.
I didn't get along with her. We fought all the time.
Oh, is that so?
I don't know why. I just didn't like her.
When Annie moved in, she took over the whole house.
What's the connection between your aunt and Mrs. Johnson?
Any blood relationship there?
No, no. Annie was a school child with Aunt Laura.
When they sent her to prison for killing her husband, she wrote for help.
And your aunt helped her?
She worked for 11 years at it.
I don't know how much money she spent.
Lawyers, you know.
She finally got Annie parole.
And then she took Mrs. Johnson on as a housekeeper, is that right?
Yeah. And she never did any work.
She acted like she owned the house.
Like my aunt and uncle owed her everything they'd done for her.
When's the last time you heard from your aunt?
It was a few months ago, around Christmas time.
I called her up to wish her a Merry Christmas.
You have no idea where Mrs. Muller might be now.
She's got friends that she could be staying with maybe.
No, Aunt Laura only has a few friends.
They all live in the neighborhood.
She's not in the habit of going up without telling anyone, is she?
No, never anything like that.
I don't understand it.
Something must be wrong.
Annie, do you think she's done something?
Do you?
No, she couldn't have.
She owes everything to Aunt Laura.
Her freedom, a good home, nice clothes, money.
Everything my aunt could give her.
Some people are like that.
If it's free, they never get too much.
Before we left Lorraine Muller's house, we got the name of her aunt's lawyer.
We had dinner at a lunch counter on La Cienega,
and then we drove back to Wilmington to the Muller house.
Lights were burning in the front windows.
The fog was thick now.
Guess that's her sing.
Yeah, you want to ring the bell?
Can you see in through the curtain, Jill?
Yeah, she didn't hear it. Let's ring it again.
Here she comes.
Yes?
Are you Mrs. Johnson?
Yes, that's right. What is it?
Police officers, our identification.
Oh, yes. Won't you come in?
Thank you, ma'am.
We'll go in the parlor, shall we?
All right.
Now...
We're February and March?
Yes.
We think the signatures on those two reports are forged.
Oh, those.
Uh-huh.
Oh, yes. I don't know what to say.
I really didn't think it was that serious.
I knew the reports had to be sent in.
Did you sign Mrs. Muller's name on them?
Well, yes, I did.
You see, Laura Muller's at a sanitarium now, resting up.
I didn't want to bother her with all this business,
so I signed them and put them in the mail.
But forgery, I didn't think it was that serious.
Which sanitarium is Mrs. Muller staying at?
Garroways.
A very nice place. It's near Pasadena.
She's been there about two months now.
Have you been out to visit her yet?
No, I haven't.
I'm a little ashamed of myself.
I've just been too busy keeping up the house here.
It's lots of work.
Yes, I understand.
I suppose you drove Mrs. Muller to the sanitarium.
As a matter of fact, I didn't.
You see, we don't have a car, so she took a taxi cab.
Have you telephoned Mrs. Muller at the sanitarium?
Yes, just once the day she went in.
She's there for a good rest.
I don't feel that anyone should bother.
Not even myself.
Does she have any other relatives?
Besides her husband, that is.
None at all.
Poor Mr. Muller.
We had to send him away, you know, to Warwick State Hospital.
Yes, ma'am.
He got out of hand. Just terrible.
He almost murdered poor Laura once, and those were awful days.
He's much better off where he is.
Yeah, it's too bad.
Well, that's about all, Miss Johnson.
Oh, here.
Let me show you to the door.
Thanks.
You'd better contact your parole officer the first thing in the morning
and clear up this matter of the reports.
I'll do that. Thank you.
Good night, Miss Johnson. Thanks again.
All right. Good night.
What time you got?
20 minutes after 8.
Hmm.
The light just went on in the attic.
Yeah.
What do you think?
We'd better go take a look around.
What do you think we'll find?
I don't know.
Maybe a reason for some of those lies she told us.
8.35 p.m.
Annie Johnson left the house and crossed the street.
She was in the back of the house.
Annie Johnson left the house and crossed the street to Miss Carpenter's place.
In the Muller house in a small desk in one of the rear bedrooms on the first floor,
we found a file for Mrs. Muller's business papers.
In the file, we located three of her insurance policies.
It was one for 5,000 and two for 3,500.
Each policy had a writer attached,
changing the beneficiary from Joseph Muller, the husband, to Annie Johnson.
$12,000 worth of insurance.
Yeah. Let's get them back in this folder.
Did you get the policy numbers?
Yeah.
What's this?
Let's see.
Phone bill.
Light bill.
Here's one.
Labor bill.
Dollar an hour paid to Tom McCray,
charged Annie Johnson.
Uh-huh.
Let's go.
Yeah, I want to get this address here.
Tom McCray, East Jefferson.
Hmm.
There's her cat.
Yeah. Let's go.
See what we can find upstairs, huh?
It's a pretty cat.
We went upstairs to the second floor of the house and searched the rooms.
We went up another flight of stairs to the attic.
For a full half hour, we searched through dozens of corrugated cartons
crammed with souvenirs and picture postcards.
Joe, come here.
Yeah.
Take a look.
Wrapped in newspaper.
Hmm.
3220 Colt.
Three empty cartridges.
We got a gun and we got a suspect.
Those insurance policies could be the motive.
Let's pray to God there's no victim.
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Ten p.m.
An immediate stakeout was placed on the Mueller residence in case Annie Johnson made an attempt to leave during the night.
Ben and I took the gun that we'd found to the crime lab for analysis.
The next morning we checked with the Mueller's family attorney.
He had no ideas to the whereabouts of Mrs. Mueller,
but he told us that about three months ago she'd ordered him to draw up a new will for her.
Under the new provisions, Annie Johnson was to be the sole heir of the Mueller house and property,
plus an additional $1,500 in bonds.
Friday, March 10th, 11 a.m.
While Ben checked with the insurance company, I met with Captain Elliott of Homicide.
You got everything with a victim, huh? Where are you looking?
We'd like to shake down the Mueller house again before we look anyplace else.
Didn't have a chance to give it a thorough going over last night.
You're sold on the idea it's a Johnson woman?
Looks like it.
Sure couldn't be a freak disappearance.
No, sir, not in my book. Annie Johnson's got some big reasons for lying to us.
I'd like to find him.
How do you figure on doing that?
Well, if we could pull her in and question her just to get her away from the Mueller place,
I'd like to take a detail of men out there and shake the house from top to bottom.
You checked with the insurance company that they shoot Mrs. Mueller's policies.
Yeah.
We got it right. Annie Johnson gets a dough if Mrs. Mueller dies.
Oh.
Something else. The changes in the policies were made during the last two months at her home.
It doesn't jive.
Why not?
Well, Annie Johnson told us that Mrs. Mueller's been in the sanitarium for more than two months.
Here's a cab for Joe.
What's that?
Gill and Sinus went out to State Hospital at Norwalk to talk to Mr. Mueller.
Yeah?
Joseph Mueller died at 8 o'clock last night. Death from natural causes.
What's that prove?
Wait a minute. When Joseph Mueller was committed to the institution,
Annie Johnson figured prominently in that commitment.
She had a lot to do with sending him away.
Didn't take any chances, did she?
Annie Johnson has left with the house, the bonds, and the insurance money.
She had all the answers.
Yeah, all but the right one.
While Captain Elliott called in Annie Johnson and questioned her,
Ben and I, together with a detail of men from homicide,
and Lieutenant Lee Jones from the crime lab,
drove out to Wilmington and started a thorough search of the Mueller house.
We took it floor by floor, starting with the attic.
By 4 o'clock that afternoon, we had searched the attic and the second floor completely
without finding any additional physical evidence.
5.30 p.m., still nothing.
The fog was coming in thick now.
Captain Elliott called and said the Johnson woman was on her way home.
The search went on.
Anyone check the sewer yet?
Let's give it a look, huh?
Joe, come on down. Lee's with me. We're checking some stains.
What do you got, Lee?
We picked up this line of stains here, Joe.
They run down from the top of the stairs. Pretty faint.
Let me see.
Mm-hmm.
So I'll shoot drops and benzidines, see what happens.
Okay. Let's have a look around, Gil, see what we can find.
There's no lights down here. You'll have to use your flash.
I got one.
Not much of anything, is there?
I guess they used the attic for this storage place.
Yeah.
Wait a minute. Put the light over this way, will you, Gil?
No, in the corner. That's it.
See something?
I don't know.
Yeah, have a look here.
New patch of cement.
Looks pretty new alongside the rest.
Yeah.
There's a sledge and a couple of shovels back in the garage.
Get them, will you? Yeah.
Joe. Yeah.
The stain's turned blue.
It's blood.
Lee Jones took some sample scrapings and went back to the crime lab
to give them a precipitant test to determine if the stains were made by human or animal blood.
We broke away the patch of new cement work in the cellar and we began digging.
6.30 p.m. Annie Johnson came home.
We met her in the living room.
Sergeant, I wonder if you'd mind explaining this intrusion.
No, not at all. Will you sit down?
I believe I'm the one to offer hospitality here. It's my house.
Is it, Miss Johnson?
Well, it's in my charge. It's my responsibility.
Yes, ma'am, it is. We'd just like to clear up a few things, that's all.
I think the police department's taken up enough of my time.
I spent half the day at the city hall answering silly questions.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment at the beauty shop at 7 o'clock.
Maybe you'd better cancel it.
I don't see any reason why I should.
What is that noise?
Coming from the cellar.
Someone's down there.
They're police officers, Miss Johnson. We're searching the house.
Searching this house? With whose permission?
Maybe they didn't make it clear to you downtown.
We've got a good reason to believe that a crime's been committed.
Why?
Mrs. Muller. She's missing.
I told your Captain Elliott this afternoon, Laura could have left the sanitarium.
She might have gone east to visit some friends in Cincinnati, I think.
She has some friends in Cincinnati.
How could Mrs. Muller leave the sanitarium? She was never there.
Maybe she didn't stay at Garaways. Could have been another rest home.
But she said you phoned her at Garaways. You said you talked to her there.
Those men downstairs, they...
They gonna dig up the whole house?
That's right.
This bill, Mrs. Johnson, would you mind telling us what it was for?
There was a section of this cellar floor that had never been cemented.
I decided to have it done while Laura was away.
The men are digging it up, Mrs. Johnson.
Why are they digging it up? What right have they?
Investigation. We'll see that the cement work is redone when we're finished.
This is impossible. I forbid it.
This house is my responsibility.
No need to worry. Everything will be left exactly the way it was.
We'll leave the house as soon as the men are finished.
Oh. Well, then perhaps I can keep my appointment with a hairdresser.
I won't be long. Should be back around nine.
I'm sorry. I think you better stay.
But I've told you everything I know.
Did you kill Laura Muller?
Did I kill...
I can't take any more of this. Why would I want to kill Laura?
She's done everything for me. She's given me a new life.
Did you kill her?
I know. Of course I didn't kill her.
Oh, and there's no need to be upset.
Oh, my nerves. I got the head of something.
Glass of sherry?
Yes.
Diggy, how long is it going to take them?
That all depends, ma'am.
There's no reason for this.
You don't know that anything's happened to Laura.
That's right.
Laura's the best friend I have in the world.
Eleven years. That's how long she fought to make them let me out of prison.
She's the only one who believed in me.
Yes, ma'am.
She is. She's given me everything.
She wants me to have everything. Everything I want.
I wouldn't have a reason for killing her.
My clothes, my home here, money.
They're all Laura. She's given them to me.
Would you like a glass of sherry, Sergeant Pratty?
No. No, thanks.
You know, Laura was much older than I, Sergeant.
She could have taken her own life.
She didn't have much to live for.
Old and sick.
But I got everything to live for.
Laura used to tell me that.
So she gave me everything.
Laura was much older than I.
Would you care for a glass of sherry, Sergeant Romero?
No, thank you.
This whole thing's so silly.
Laura's away on a trip.
She's much older than I am, you know.
I'm 38.
You wouldn't take me for a woman 38 years old, would you, Sergeant?
No, ma'am.
I know I'm not really young anymore,
but I'm still attractive, don't you think?
A lot of men prefer mature women.
Women with experience, background.
I'd know how to take care of a man.
Joe.
Yeah.
Joe, come here, my way.
Yeah?
We found her.
Laura!
Laura, I didn't mean it!
I didn't mean it!
She didn't have anything to live for.
She wanted to die.
Call the coroner, Gil.
Let's go, Miss Johnston.
Laura wouldn't want this.
She knows I didn't mean it.
She's the only one who knows what I went through.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
She's the only one who knows what I went through.
Years in prison.
Laura understood me.
She gave me everything, everything.
Yes, she did.
Ask anybody.
They all know how Laura felt about me.
Ask anybody.
We can't ask her.
The story you have just heard was true.
Only the names were changed to protect the innocent.
On July 14th, trial was held in Superior Court,
City and County of Los Angeles, State of California.
In a moment, the results of that trial.
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Annie Marie Johnson was tried and convicted of murder in the first degree.
She was executed in the lethal gas chamber at the State Penitentiary, San Quentin, California.
You have just heard Dragnet, authentic cases from official files.
Technical advice for Dragnet comes from the Office of Chief of Police, W.A. Wharton, Los Angeles Police Department.
Dragnet wishes to thank the editors of Radio Television Life magazine.
They have judged Dragnet, the outstanding new program of the past radio season.
Fatima cigarettes, the best of all long cigarettes has brought you Dragnet from Los Angeles.
Tomorrow, hear the Ronald Coleman's charming series, The Halls of Ivy, on NBC.
The Halls of Ivy.