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.
It was Monday, May 11th.
It was fair in Los Angeles.
We were working the day watch out of auto theft detail.
My partner's Ben Romero.
The boss is Captain Stilson.
My name's Friday.
It was 8.35 a.m. when I got to room 40, auto theft division.
Captain's office.
Morning, Friday.
Morning.
Hi, Joe.
Ben.
Want to sit down?
Thank you.
I was just telling Romero here, I'm briefing all the men in the bureau on this thing.
That's the reason I called you two in.
Yeah.
I've got some figures here I want to go over with you.
All right.
As you know, the percentage of all auto theft recoveries is 96 to 98 percent on the average.
That's normally.
Yeah.
And checking the monthly averages, the past four months that percentage has dropped to
the low 80s.
That's a good drop.
The corner pocket thinks so too.
They want some action on it.
Well, we've been working on it.
Absolutely no pattern to the thefts, time, location, the method.
Makes it impossible to stake out on it.
Yeah, those are some of the reasons our percentage has taken such a dive.
I know the problems.
We all do, but we got to break this thing soon.
I know what figures we're dealing with, a well organized bunch.
They know what they're doing.
Across checking all the reports, it seems to boil down to this in general.
It appears that all the outstanding thefts are GM cars.
Cadds, Pontiacs, Chevys, Oldsmobile, all late models, all seem to be in good condition,
low mileage cars.
Well, in addition to the regular broadcast and teletypes, we got out a special bullet
on this tonight.
That's right.
All the thefts were listed, licensed, make, model and color.
Been sent to all major cities and border patrol stations.
Nothing so far.
I was checking through the salvage reports, salvage by.
Do you have the last two months' headscape from March and April?
Yeah, right here.
I know it's the same thing, that outfit down in San Pedro Street.
Yeah, let me see.
Oh, yeah.
This is a composite on the reports for the past two months?
That's right.
This one here, Herman Salvy's 2716 West San Pedro.
They seem to deal a little heavy on General Motors cars, don't they?
Yeah, they do.
I've been watching the buys on this place for the past few weeks now.
I wanted to make sure it wasn't coincidence.
Well, it looks like a good place to run down anyway.
You two want to check it out?
All right, fine.
2716 West San Pedro.
That's it.
Outfit appears to be okay.
Never been out of line.
It seems funny they should deal at the top of every GM cars, doesn't it?
Right when our recovery percentage takes a dive, yeah.
Do you have the last salvage report there, Captain?
Yeah, the last one.
Here you are.
Thank you.
Yeah, here's one for Herman's, 1949 Cadillac.
And a little further down, Herman's again, 47 Olds.
Yeah, there's five GM buys on the list.
One got four out of five of them.
Let's find out why.
From the time an automobile is first manufactured and sold, a constant and complete record is
maintained on that automobile.
The certificate of ownership, the pink slip in the state of California, the certificate
of registration, the white slip.
These two slips of paper contain the information necessary for the positive identification
of your car.
The fact that every motorist knows.
Now there are many agencies that work for the protection and security of your automobile.
One of these is the National Auto Theft Bureau, a kind of nationwide clearinghouse.
Acting upon information supplied by the various insurance companies and other allied agencies,
this bureau forwards all facts and figures concerning the disposition of motor vehicles
on a nationwide basis.
Reports are made available to all law enforcement agencies.
One of the pieces of information put out by the National Auto Theft Bureau is the salvage
report listing all sales and purchases of automobiles that for one reason or another
may have been relegated to the junkyard or to the salvage company.
A fact that many motorists may not know.
Nine fourteen a.m.
Ben and I checked through the police commission and found that the owner of Herman's Salvage
was a Herman Lester.
He had been in business at the same location for six years and appeared to be a reputable
businessman.
We drove down to 2716 West San Pedro to check it out.
It was an average looking garage with a connecting salvage yard filled with several hundred
smashed up cars of all makes and models.
It was nine thirty two a.m. when we walked into the garage.
There's a fellow there in a white shirt.
Yeah, I see him.
Can I help you, gentlemen?
Yes, sir.
Police officers.
Auto theft detail.
Oh, yes.
I don't believe I know you fellas.
My name is Lester.
This is Sergeant Friday.
My name is Romero.
How do you do?
How are you?
Are you the owner here?
Yeah, that's right.
Whatever happened to Mac and Donovan used to drop in once twice a month.
Haven't seen them for two, three weeks now.
Well, they're a little busy on a special assignment.
Oh, I see.
All right, if we look around here.
Oh, you bet.
Make yourselves right at home.
Any special?
No, just looking.
OK.
Notice you've been pretty busy, huh?
Yeah, had a pretty good month.
Salvage rackets going to get sour again, looks like, with the Korean War and all the cutbacks.
Doesn't seem to have hit you so far.
Well, no, not so far.
Looks like it may tighten up anytime.
I noticed from our salvage report you've been doing a big business in GM merchandise.
Yeah, we have.
You know, they're starting to build tanks back there now.
We wanted to make sure we wouldn't run short on parts.
You get a lot of call for GM parts, do you?
Oh, yeah, we sure do.
Everybody in town knows if they need something for a Caddy or a Buick or any of those cars,
it's the place to come.
We've kind of built up a reputation specializing in GM used parts.
I see.
Mind if we check your last few by?
Fine.
You have 49 Cadillac, 47 Olds, Pontiac 48, 1949 Chevrolet.
Wonder if we might see those.
Yes, sir.
Right out in the yard.
Back this way.
All four of them are really bent up, bad shape.
Just breaks your heart to see beautiful merchandise like that all smashed up.
I don't know what people are thinking of the way they drive.
Yeah.
We'll take a new Caddy, one of those new convertibles, really beautiful merchandise.
Somebody takes one out, rolls it, we pick it up and tow it down here.
Beautiful car like that all rolled up in a ball.
Georgia Street receiving lots that'll probably pick up the rear.
Yeah, it's really shame.
Here we go.
There's a Caddy.
Oh, yeah.
The Olds and the Pontiac are in that row there.
See?
Yeah.
And that Chevrolet, wasn't it?
Yes, sir.
1949.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
There she is over there.
Third car down, Maroon.
Yeah.
Maroon one, yeah.
Down there.
Yeah.
Looks like a graveyard, doesn't it?
Sure does.
What do you do with all these cars?
Strip them down for parts?
Well, at least the four you're checking now, yeah, they're all total wrecks.
Nothing much can be done with them except for parts.
Mm-hmm.
How about that Cadillac down there, the sedan?
Huh?
That one over there, can't you fix that one up?
That doesn't look beyond repair from here.
Oh, step around the other side here.
You can't see from where you're standing.
Here.
Yeah, the right side's all stove in.
By the time you figure you're replacing those side panels and fenders, trim, we couldn't
come out on it.
Yeah, I see now.
Well, I don't know too much about it, but it'll look good from over there.
Yeah, that's what we get all the time.
People want us to pay top prices for stuff we can't get our money out of.
If we could repair them, fix them up, and resell them as a complete automobile, there'd
be a lot of money in this business.
You do that with some of them, don't you?
Well, very few of them, I'll tell you.
That's what we look for, but we don't always get lucky.
Mm-hmm, I see.
Say, how'd you boys like to see some really beautiful merchandise?
What's that?
Well, come on back in the shop.
All right.
Kind of a hobby of mine.
Mm-hmm.
Here's what keeps us busy.
Plates and pink slips on the way up to Sacramento for cancellation.
Oh, huh.
Yeah, over this way.
Here we are.
Take a look at this baby.
Yeah.
Hot rod, huh?
No, not exactly.
We don't go in for that kid stuff racing around town.
Well, sure, it looks like one.
Yeah, but it's a little better than most of the kids can throw together.
What'll it do?
We clocked her up at Murrock at 112 last weekend.
You know, they've been coming in here from all over town to see this car?
That's so.
Yeah.
You ever get up to Murrock Dry Lake?
No, I never do, but that's the place for it.
Running around town on those things can cause a lot of accidents.
Those drag races the kids have?
Yeah.
We don't go in for that stuff.
This is strictly scientific as far as I'm concerned.
I like to build them up, see what we can make them do.
Costs a lot of money, don't they?
That's $5,400 on this one right now.
I'm putting more into it.
Mallory ignition, milled heads, twin wake fields.
Here, let me start it up for you.
Okay.
120 horses under there.
Yeah, sounds good.
Listen to that.
Beautiful, isn't it?
Yeah.
A lot of power here.
Go ahead.
You ought to see it up in the lake.
It really goes.
Yeah, I'll bet.
This all made up out of salvage cars?
Every bit of it.
I can buy a few things new, but most of it's right out of wrecks like those outside there.
It takes a lot of talent to build up something like this from scrap, doesn't it?
No, not really.
After you've been at it as long as I have, it's not too tough.
The trick is to get more speed out of them than anyone else can.
Yeah.
We did a good job on this car, right?
Well, if you put your mind to it, you can do a lot with a wrecked car.
Before we left Herman's salvage, we checked all four of the GM cars that were listed on
the salvage report.
We made a careful check on all of the cars in the yard and in the garage, paying special
attention to the few cars that were in the process of being rebuilt by Herman Lester's
mechanics.
We went over his records, carefully checking the disposition of all of his buys for the
past several months.
Everything was in perfect order.
We found that in the past three weeks, Lester had taken in 10 cars.
Eight of them had been stripped down for parts, and two of them had been rebuilt and resold.
The investigation showed that four of those cars were GM cars, and the two that were resold
were both General Motors.
1128 a.m.
Ben and I drove back to the office and asked Mack and Donovan if they'd check through the
two resale cars to make sure everything was in order as the reports indicated.
We checked through on the remaining eight cars that were listed by Herman Lester as
broken down for parts.
According to DMV, all plates and pink slips had been returned to them for cancellation.
1150 a.m.
Well, that's it, Joe.
Yeah.
Eight of the cars check out, two of those were GM.
Yeah, well, that leaves just the two that Mack and Donovan are checking, huh?
Oh, I don't know.
Everything down there looked all right.
It's a sense Lester wasn't holding back anything, as far as I could tell.
Co-operative, everything in order.
If those two that Mack and Donovan are working on check out.
I got a hunch they will.
Seems to me Lester told us everything, everything we asked him anyway.
I don't think he yelled back.
If he did, I got an idea he might be able to tell us somebody's been left out in the
cold here.
What are you getting at?
Well, now, if Herman's been able to buy up all those GM cars, what have the other salvage
dealers been doing about it?
Thanks for the thought.
Let's check his competition.
1240 p.m.
We drove back down to West San Pedro Street.
We picked out a group of salvage companies in the immediate neighborhood close to Herman's.
3209 West San Pedro, John's Wrecking Yard.
We introduced ourselves and started to talk with the owner, John Bacon.
A routine check was made of his establishment and as far as we could tell, everything appeared
to be okay.
And that's all you made, huh?
Just that one buy?
That's it.
1946 Ford.
We're dying a slow death.
Business pretty bad, huh?
Never seen it worse.
At least as far as we're concerned.
How do you account for that, Mr. Bacon?
Oh, everything I guess.
Business bad all over at the moment.
Scrap metal situations in a state of flux at the present time.
And looking around, Mr. Bacon, we noticed you don't have much in the way of General
Motors, do I?
Is that because of GM going into war production?
Any cutback would eventually affect you fellows, wouldn't it?
No, no, not at all.
Cutback would, sure, but there's no tremendous curtain on right at the present time.
They're still turning out a lot of automobiles back there.
Well, then what's your problem?
We're being outbid right up and down the line by the same outfit.
Who's that, sir?
A company by the name of Herman's Salvage just up the street there.
Go out to buy a piece of merchandise, their boys just won't let us get near it.
They pay more than you do, huh?
More than we can, Sergeant.
I honestly don't see how they're coming out on some of their deals.
It's that much out of line, huh?
Certainly is.
You know, whenever there's anything available, all the salvage companies get their bid in.
Well, Herman simply outbids all of us.
Yeah, it makes it kind of rough.
I'm not the only one.
Pete Larkin up the street, old man, Henry next door, all of us.
I don't know what we can do about it.
Herman seems to be doing all right, no matter what he pays for his cars.
Mm-hmm.
None of us can figure it out.
Just judging from the number of cars he outbids us on and the number he rebuilds, I just can't
see how he's coming out.
But he is, huh?
I figure he's laying odds on a big shortage.
That's what all of us think.
He's laying in the stockpile, is that the idea?
Sure.
What else could it be?
We continued our check on all salvage dealers, both in the neighborhood of Herman Lester's
place and throughout the city.
It seemed to be a fact well known to most dealers that Herman was outbidding all of
them on any and all GM automobiles.
The only possible explanation was that he must be trying to lay in a large stockpile
of this particular make of car, 335 PM.
We received word from Sergeants Mack and Donovan that they had checked out the two remaining
cars listed in Herman's books, the resales.
Ben was right.
They checked out with no discrepancy.
During the next 10 days, the investigation continued.
The theft of late model GM cars continued with few recoveries.
Suspects were arrested and questioned.
We could find no connection that might lead us to an organized ring of car thieves that
might be responsible for the lack of GM car recoveries.
The salvage report showed no change in Herman's buying technique.
Apparently, he was still dealing heavy on the one particular make of car.
Thursday, May 25th, we received a teletype from DMV listing all the salvage buy transfers.
In making our usual daily check of this teletype, we noticed a 1949 Cadillac, engine number
598-77415.
It had been resold from salvage to a used car lot.
That's the place right up the block.
Yeah, I see.
Same Cad we saw in Herman's salvage yard.
Yeah, it's funny, isn't it?
The one in particular that I asked him about, you remember?
Yeah, I remember.
You thought it could be fixed up, he said no.
It's only been a little over two weeks ago, hasn't it?
Yeah, I tried.
Still doesn't prove anything.
Here we are.
Jakes.
Yeah, there's a Cad in the front line right down there.
I don't see anyone around, do you?
No, I don't.
Well, I guess it's all right to check the engine number anyway.
Yeah, I'll get the hood released.
Right.
Yeah, there we go.
Yeah, the engine's had a good steam cleaning.
Let's see.
Five, nine, eight, seven, seven, four, one, five.
That's it.
Herman sure did a nice job, didn't he?
Yeah, almost looks too good, doesn't it?
Yeah, just a minute.
Body serial doesn't match.
Doesn't correspond with the engine model.
It's a 49 body.
Could be a late 49, but it's a definite switch, isn't it?
It sure is.
That's funny.
Yeah.
Look at this right side here.
This was the bad side, wasn't it?
Yeah, that's right.
Does it look like it's been rolled out to you?
No, there's no feathering, no orange peel.
Either that's the best repaint job I've ever seen or it's never been in an accident.
I'll take a look underneath.
All right.
OK.
Want to move your feet there?
Yeah, all right.
Anything?
No, nothing.
There's not a seam or a joint under there.
No welding marks of any kind.
This car's never been in a smash up.
The engine number checks, the body doesn't.
This is the one Herman couldn't fix up.
Yeah, that's what he said.
Maybe he changed his mind.
Or he lied.
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1949 Cadillac, engine number 59877415.
When checking out this automobile, Ben and I had found that the engine number corresponded
with the salvage report concerning Herman Lester's place.
The one big item that did not jive was the fact that the engine was now mounted in a
different body than when the car left the factory.
A fact that had to be accounted for in complete detail.
When we had checked this automobile on the 11th of May at Herman's salvage yard, both
engine and body numbers corresponded.
In taking a close look at the car, it was obvious that the body had not been repaired
in any way.
It was clear that this particular car had not been in any kind of collision.
We went back to the rear of the lot and asked one of the salesmen not to sell the car without
informing us.
When we got back to the office, we started rechecking all of the auto theft reports.
We found five stolen Cadillacs, but all the body styles and models were different with
the exception of one.
A 1949 Cadillac sedan, reported stolen on May 14th.
It was registered in the name of William Brownell.
We checked his home and found that he was at work.
He was a superintendent for the North American Van Line.
We drove over and picked him up and took him to J.Q.'s car lot on Vermont Avenue.
This is the car, Mr. Brownell?
Mm-hmm.
Well, it's just like mine, but I don't think it's the one.
Are you sure?
For one thing, it's a different color.
My car was maroon.
You want to step over here, Mr. Brownell?
Huh?
Well, if you look very closely here on the door edging and on the jamb, right here, see?
This is the one place sometimes they miss with a spray gun if they're going to repaint.
Oh, yeah, there's a faint trace of red under the blue paint there.
Looks like it could be maroon, doesn't it?
Yeah, it does it there.
This car's been repainted.
It was maroon.
Mm-hmm.
Well, mine didn't have these kind of seat covers.
Let's see.
Same kind of upholstery I had, though, underneath here.
I don't know.
Mr. Brownell, there must be something other than the color and the upholstery that you'd
know your own car by.
Never give it much thought.
Well, it was usually some little identifying mark of some kind.
I know that on my car, the lens on the right headlight got broken, and I had to replace
it with one that didn't match.
Something like that, sir?
I see.
Could I look inside there a minute?
Sure.
All right, here under the speedometer, there was a thumbprint pressed into the factory.
It was pretty deep.
No, it's not there now.
Mm-hmm.
Now, don't forget that the car's been repainted.
It might have been covered up.
No, this was cleared out of the metal.
Apparently when they were installing the instruments at the factory, the panel wasn't
dry yet.
Not there now, and they couldn't have covered it up unless they made a special port of it.
Well, sometimes that's done.
Car thieves are kind of clever.
I'm sorry, gentlemen, I don't think this is my car.
Don't think I don't wish it was, but it's not.
Can you think of just one other thing, maybe?
Just one mark of identification is all we need.
No.
Even these tires aren't mine.
I had white sidewalls.
Well, it could have been switched.
They were pretty new.
Wait a minute, I think I remember something.
Oh, there's no rip-up there.
What's that, sir?
I just thought of something.
Some boys down in the office gave me a St. Christopher medal.
You know, the large metal kind you're supposed to bolt to your dashboard?
Yes, sir.
I didn't want to put it on, so I carried it around with me in the car.
There was a rip-up there in the inner lining of the top, but see, there's no rip-up in
this.
Let me see.
How about it, there?
Yeah.
Yeah, I can feel it.
Does it feel like a medal?
Let me get my pocket knife on it.
Okay.
What do you think, they replaced the cloth there?
I don't know.
Yeah.
Yeah, here it is.
Is this it, Mr. Brownell?
That's it.
Look, on the back there, my name's engraved on it, see?
Yes, sir.
Well, I sure didn't think this was my car.
I never would have known it.
That's what the guys figure who stole it.
The 1949 Cadillac was taken to the police garage and a complete and thorough check was
made.
The car, with the exception of the engine, was positively identified as the property of
William Brownell.
This definitely implicated Herman Lester and showed his dismay.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
He was a very good driver.
The story you just heard was true.
Only the names were changed to protect the innocent.
On August 15th, trial was held in Superior Court, Department 82, 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.
Friends, one of the first things a detective learns is that you can't rely on snap judgments
or first appearances.
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Herman W. Lester was tried and convicted on three counts of grand theft auto and two counts
of grand theft money, all sentences to run consecutively.
Grand theft auto is punishable by imprisonment for a term of one to five years, grand theft
money by a term of one to ten years.
The suspect was also filed on by federal authorities for violation of the Dior Act.
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, best of all long cigarettes, has brought you a Dragnet, portions transcribed
from Los Angeles.
Stay tuned for Counter Spy next over many NBC stations.