The Big September Man

Originally Aired: September 27, 1951

Dragnet #120, "The Big September Man," Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ben Romero investigate the brutal murder of Adele Pryor, a 28-year-old secretary found beaten to death in a downtown Los Angeles office building. The crime scene yields almost nothing—just the murder weapon, a piece of steel pipe wrapped in manila paper, and no usable fingerprints. With no witnesses and no apparent motive, the detectives find themselves at a dead end until a patrol car picks up Robert French, a 34-year-old unemployed electrical engineer, beating his head against a brick wall just two blocks from the murder scene.

French is heavily intoxicated and mumbling incoherently about being a murderer who doesn't deserve to live. As Friday and Romero interrogate him in the station, French admits he knew the victim and visited her office the afternoon of the murder to borrow money. But is his drunken confession genuine, or is there more to his story? Friday suspects French isn't as intoxicated as he appears, and the detectives must determine whether they have their killer or just another dead-end lead.

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