25th precinct, Sergeant Waters. Where? How do you know he was killed? Now where is it? Between 3rd and 2nd elections or 2nd and 3rd? Well, who found him? Oh. Looks like he what? You are in the muster room at the 21st precinct, the nerve center. A call is coming through. You will follow the action taken pursuant to that call from this moment. Until the final report is written in the 124 room at the 21st precinct. Now look, the officers will be there right away. Well keep everybody from there if you can. That's right. Keep them back. The officers will be right there. You just stay around until I come. 21st precinct. It's just lines on a map of the city of New York. Most of the 173,000 people wedged into the nine tenths of a square mile between 5th Avenue and the East River wouldn't know if you asked them if they lived or worked in the 21st. Whether they know it or not, the security of their homes, their persons and their property is the job of the men of the 21st precinct. The 21st, 160 patrolmen, 11 sergeants and 4 lieutenants of whom I am the boss. My name is Kennelly, Frank Kennelly. I'm captain in command of the 21st. It was ten minutes after 8 a.m. I signed the blotter after I turned off the platoon and left the station house at the end of my night tour after having been on duty since 4 o'clock the previous afternoon. The morning was dark and chilly and it appeared that we were in for some snow. I walked to the corner and up Lexington a half a block to the barbershop. Come in. Come in. You're next captain. No waiting this morning. Oh, I do. Oh, no complaints. I think you're cold. Thanks. And the hat. Yep. In the chair, captain. You caught in a fight last night, captain? No, I was working. Boy, some fight. It was some fight. Yeah? I don't know how the guy stood on his feet as long as he did. I don't know. What would it be this morning? The work? No, just a heavy load. Just a heavy load, yeah. So how's the police business? Quiet. Knock on wood, huh? Knock on wood. I guess that is the only business in the world when you're in it, you like it to be quiet. Oh, you want a little more off on the top this time, captain? About the same. About the same. About the same. You come in to work or going? Oh, I just signed out. Oh. I never could get straight how you worked. Days, nights, what? Oh, I've been on the job since four o'clock yesterday afternoon. I was off at eight, and I'm not due back until eight tomorrow morning. Mm-hmm. And then what? Until six tomorrow night. Boy, some hours. Especially that four in the afternoon to eight in the morning, dear. Like the fighter last night. How could you stand on your feet? It's not so bad, Joe. If things quiet down about three, four o'clock in the morning, I get a little sleep on the couch in my office. It's not like being home in the bed, believe me. I believe you, Joe. They must be police department pay days. Two customers, two policemen. Hello, Captain. How are you, Sheriff? You're next. Golly. Lieutenant Gorman told me you thought you said you were coming here. What was he doing? He said he told you we've got a homicide, Captain. Where? 78th Street and 3rd Avenue. Homicide? What's that, murder? An unidentified male about 35 years old. Shot? They don't know yet, Captain. DPM has a street cut open for a new sewer connection there. Men came to work this morning, found the body at the bottom of the hole. Looks like a ride job. Some people. Hey, Joe, take this thing off. When? How can you go out unfinished? I'll be back. Can you believe me? Are you in a car or on foot, Coley? Sector car, too, Captain. I was instructed if you were here and wanted to take a ride over there to drop my partner on post and drive in. I want to go, yes. I helped you with a call, Captain. Thanks, Joe. What time did the call come in, Coley? About 14 minutes after 8, Captain. Don't forget to come back, Captain. I'll be here. Okay, because walking around like that, you're no recommendation for my work. I drove to the scene in sector car number two with patrolman Coley. It had started to snow and the flakes were coming down thick and wet as we pulled into the block. On the job were sector car number one, the sergeant's car, and the detective squad car. There were two trucks from the office of the borough president, Manhattan, parked near the street cut. And a dozen laborers who came to continue work on the sewer connection to a building under construction were standing around trying to keep warm. Sergeant Waters had pressed them into service to aid in keeping civilians back on the sidewalk and, incidentally, to keep the laborers out of the way. Coley pulled the car up as close as he could manage. All right, park it down the block, Coley. Yes, sir. No sense in tying this up, any worse. Excuse me there, will you? Police officers are coming through here. Sergeant Waters? Hello, Captain. How's it look like? Well, there he is, down the hole. All right, mister, I told you to stay behind the barricade. Now stay behind there. Who found him? The laborers came to work on the sewer connection and they... one of them spotted the body in that form and rang in. Now look, mister, I'm not going to tell you again. The detective's got on the job fast enough, doesn't he? Yes, sir. I'll go talk to Lieutenant King. Look, you're no better than anybody else. Stay behind that barricade. Hello, man. Hello, Captain. What have we got, man? Looks like homicide, all right, Captain? Who is he? No idea yet. We're waiting for the medical examiner and a photographer should be here any minute. Is that how we found him? Yes, sir. Right down there at the bottom of the trench. This is a pretty busy street. Surprising somebody didn't notice him before eight o'clock. Where was the man on post? Oh, I thought that too at first, Captain, but that slips only two feet wide and about four feet deep. From the side, somebody had to get almost to the edge of the trench to see the body. Nobody passed close to this edge because of that dirt piled on both sides. No one could see into the hole from that end because of the wooden barricade there along the sidewalk. That motor compressor blacks the view at the other end. No idea how long the body's been in there. No, sir. The crew quit working at four o'clock yesterday afternoon. Anytime between dark last night and dawn this morning. I got the names and addresses of all the BPM crew, Lieutenant. Good. Hello, Captain. What's that, Ali? The former wants to know how long it'll be before they can get on his job here. Better tell them it'll be an hour at least. We're waiting for the medical examiner, the homicide squad, and the photographer. Yes, sir. I'll tell them. What makes you so sure it's homicide, Matt? He could have been drunk, fallen in there. You haven't had a close look at him, Captain. He got a working over. He couldn't have gotten banged up that way falling into the ditch. He was thrown in there. Probably dragged out of a car and dumped. Any sign of a gunshot wound? He might have been shot. We can't tell from the position the body's in. We'll know more about that when we can move him. Wasn't any sign of anything in these piles of dirt, was there? If the body was dumped, whoever did it had to walk across these piles of dirt. There might have been, Captain, but there isn't now. When the first officer got on the scene, those twelve laborers were all over the place. Well, looks like this might turn into a pretty heavy snowstorm. Yeah, it moves. All I need is a homicide case and go home and shovel the snow. Captain Cannelly. Yes, Sergeant. I just rang in. Lieutenant Gorman told me there's a report of a safe burglary. And they're free, think? Yes, sir. The Fremhill Radio and Appliance Company, 734 East 82nd Street. They opened up the store this morning and found that burglars had been in during the night. They tried to get the safe downstairs, apparently. They found at the bottom of the steps, gone open. Did the desk officer ring the squad? Yes, sir. Gave it to Novak. Novak notified the safe and law squad and then went himself. See him while he howls. Aye, thanks, Bill. Yes, sir. Well, you don't have to worry about shoveling any snow, man. You won't get home until it's lost. You are listening to 21st Precinct, a factual account of the way police work in the world's largest city. Moving to Friday night. After this evening's program, listen for these police cases at their new night and time, beginning one week from this Friday. Don't forget, Captain Cannelly and his hardworking enforcers of the law will bring you their thrilling assignments again beginning Friday, December 4th, on most of these same CBS radio stations. Now back to 21st Precinct and Captain Frank Cannelly. Within another few minutes, detectives from the Manhattan East Homicide Squad and a deputy medical examiner had arrived at the scene. While the Homicide Squad photographer made the required pictures, Lieutenant King, as the ranking officer of the detective division present, dictated to the Homicide Squad stenographer a detailed description of the position and appearance of the body and of the surrounding conditions. No identification of any kind was found in the pockets of the victims. The medical examiner reported to Lieutenant King that preliminary observation revealed no gunshot wounds. Death appeared to have been caused by a fractured skull. Finally, patrolman Adam Austin, the first member of the force at the scene, placed a UF-95 tag on the body and it was removed to the Bellevue morgue for identification and autopsy. And the investigation began. I then went to the scene of the safe burglary at 734 East 82nd Street. Detectives of both the safe and lost squad and the 21st squad were on the job. The uniformed officers had already resumed patrol. I returned to the barbershop, still completing my haircut, and I walked around the corner to the station house where Lieutenant Gorman was desk officer and Sergeant Waters was now on telephone switchboard duty. Hello, Captain. Sergeant, this is Cannelly called. Oh, I forgot the phone. I got tied up when I explained it, Captain. I told her we had a homicide and a safe burglary. Oh, thanks, Bill. She said call her when you get a chance. I will as soon as I find the block. Yes, sir. Hello, man. 25th Precinct, Sergeant Waters. How many dogs? Well, there's no law against people having dogs, lady. I know. Well, but lady, lady, you'll have to take that up with your landlord. If he promised he wouldn't rent anybody with dogs, that's between you and him. Well, madam, there's nothing we can do about it. All right. You're welcome. What was that, Bill? She's allergic to dogs. Family's moving into a building with two of them. Hello, Captain. Man, I want to see you. I'd like to see you too, Captain. Well, how's it going? Nothing much yet. Come on into my office. For a minute, Captain Fischer's upstairs talking to those two men from the borough president's office. Go ahead. Thanks. The captain of the homicide squad is on his way up with the chief of detectives. Any identification on him yet? No, I just spoke to Vitaly. They rolled some prints off the man as soon as they got him to the Bellevue morgue. He just brought them into BCI and they're trying to get a make on him now. The man wasn't shot or stabbed, was he? No, sir. The medical examiner said death was apparently caused by a fractured skull. He's got other marks and bruises all over him. One thing's sure, the fall into the ditch couldn't have done it. He was dead before he got anywhere near the ditch. Now, what I wanted to find out is you were up at the safe burglary, right, Captain? Yeah, I'm there. Well, I've been running around in circles around this other deal. I've had a chance to speak to Novak and Howard about that. They were up there, and two men from the safe and loss squad. I've got the district captain upstairs now, the chief of detectives and probably the borough chief run away. I'll have to start throwing questions at me on the safe job. I haven't even been over there. Well, they didn't get anything out of there, Matt. It was a bust. Yes, and I know that. I was just radioing an appliance store, and they gained entry through a side door, the freight entrance. Give me the nightlamp. Apparently they went straight upstairs to the office on the balcony, trying to rip the safe. Didn't get very far with it. Might have thought they needed more tools or more time, decided to carry it out. Apparently it got away from them coming down the stairs. Yeah. Must have made a lot of noise, and they left in a hurry. They left all their tools on the ground. Probably stolen. Probably. Come in. Excuse me a second, Captain. Yes, Sergeant. There's a woman out there talking with Lieutenant Gorman. Yes? Her husband didn't show up at home last night. Anne? Captain. Sounds to me like she's talking about the man that was found in the ditch. Did you say anything to her? No, sir. Let's get her to come in here. Yes, sir. Mrs. Baline? Yes? Could you step in here a minute, please? You don't mind, Captain? No? Oh, that's all right, Captain. Do they know something? Come in, Mrs. Baline. Yes. Just have much obliged. All right, Sergeant. Yes, sir. Just sit down, please. Do you have Phil here? Arrested, I mean. No, we don't. Oh. I thought you did. How do you spell your name? Um, Baline. B-O-L-N-E-Y. Your husband's first name is Phil? Yes. Yeah, that's right. What's your first name? Louise. Where do you live, Mrs. Baline? At 3422 Lewis Avenue in the Bronx. I was led to believe that you did have Phil here. I thought he was arrested. What made you think that? Well, he said he had some business last night. He left right after supper, and he said he'd be home at 1 o'clock, no later. Well, about 11 o'clock, I turned off the radio, went to bed. Slept all night. When I woke up this morning, he wasn't in the bed. I don't know. I couldn't imagine what happened. Does he ever stay out all night? Well, late sometimes, but never all night. He always comes home no matter what time in the morning, always. He don't drink much, so I'm never worried about that. A few beers, maybe. I still don't understand what made you think he was arrested. A detective called. And spoke to you? No, but not to me, to the super of the building. We don't have a telephone. Did the detective leave his name? He just told the super if I'd come to the 21st precinct, they'd know all about Phil. Did the super say the man told me he was a police officer? Well, I don't know, but what else could he be? He said come to the 21st precinct. Baline, how old is your husband? Thirty-four. Thirty-four in March. Do you know his height? How tall he is? Well, not so tall, maybe four or five inches taller than me. About five-nine. About five-nine, yes. Listen, don't you know anything? I mean, who'd call him stay such a thing? And Phil's not coming home. Has your husband ever been arrested? Well, he's been in a little trouble, yeah. What kind of trouble? He was away. Where? Same thing. But he's been all right. He's had no trouble since he's been back, but no trouble at all. He was getting along fine. He's got a job. He's working every day. And the parole officer said he was doing very well. You said he was in the habit of staying out late at night. He's not supposed to do that if he's on parole. Not often. Do you know who he was out with last night, Mrs. Baline? Some friends, I don't know, on business. Excuse me. Where could he be? I don't know. 21st precinct, Captain Cannelli. Sergeant Waters, RTS, Captain. Detective Mattalli is ringing in for Lieutenant King. He says it's important. Ah, Matt. Yes. For you, Mattalli. Okay, thank you. Lieutenant King. Oh, hey, Lieutenant. Mattalli, Lieutenant. Where are you? Now at BCI. We got a make on the Prince of the Dead man. Yeah? Yeah, he's a good boy. He did a bit for Grand Liesley and some time before that, as a juvenile. What's the name? Balney. Philip Robert Balney. B-O-L-N-E-Y. Now the cops down here don't have a reason to dress on him, but he must have been reporting to the Board of Parole. I can check and see what address they've got. No, that won't be necessary for Telly. Yes, sir. You can get a mug shot from BCI and come on in here. All right, Lieutenant. Yes, sir. They got a make, Captain. Did they? Yeah. Where did your husband work, Mrs. Baline? On the docks, on the west side, along Sherman. Have any idea who he might have gone out with last night? Oh, no, not exactly. He had lots of friends. Which friend in particular do you think he might have been with last night? Well, he did say something. What? About Red, about not having to go someplace with Red. You know, on business. Red who? I don't know his last name. He talks about this Red all the time if there's somebody that works with him. You know, Doc Wallopin. Would you know this Red if you saw him? No, I never met him. I only heard Phil talk about him. Listen, if you don't have him arrested here, Phil, I mean, where is he? Where could he be? Do you think maybe he went right to work this morning? No, Mrs. Baline, I don't think so. I'm pretty sure we know where he is. Well, this is a fine time to tell me. You weren't to tell me before. But Captain, why didn't you tell me? We just found out about it. Oh, where is he? Down at Belleville, we think. What's he doing down there? Oh, is he sick? Who is he? Is that dead? Yes, he is. I'm sorry. After a few minutes, Lieutenant King took Mrs. Baline upstairs to the 21st Detective Squad. There she was questioned by Assistant District Attorney Lawrence Shapir in the presence of Lieutenant King and the top command of the Detective Division, the Chief of Detectives, the Borough Chief, the Homicide Captain, and the District Captain. She was able to give no information other than the fact that she thought her husband might have been in the company of a friend named Red, nor could she suggest a reason this Red or anyone else would want to murder him. At 11.30 a.m., Mrs. Baline was driven to the Belleville morgue to identify the body of her husband. I remained in my office and cleaned up some paperwork that had hung over. A little after 12, the top command of the Detective Division signed the blotter and left the precinct. I walked out of my office and into the lieutenant's locker room where a pot of coffee was on the fire. Captain. Oh, come in, man. Well, I guess there won't be much snow to shovel without him home or not. Topped? Yeah. How about a cup of coffee? Yes, thanks. Grab a cup. Smell the dread. Sugar's in the drawer. No, thanks. Well, how are you doing? Oh, all right, I guess. She identified the body of her husband. Red is a fellow named John Gilliam. He didn't show up for a job on the docks this morning. Well, that's a good sign. For us? Yes, sir, not for him. I've got six men out looking for him. Oh, your bosses seem to think it's in pretty good shape, man. I saw them troop out of here. Well, they can't sit around and twiddle their thumbs, Captain. Don't have much to go on yet. What kind of fellow is this, Red? Well, he's been in a couple of jams. Never any convictions, but he's been questioned in connection with some burglary deals. Oh, incidentally, anything on the safe job? No, not much, Captain. Listen, Matt, did you speak to the medical examiner again on this Phil Bolney? Yes, I was. All these fractures and bruises he had, were they all internal injuries? No open cuts? No, sir. You know something? What? Bolney did time for grand larceny. The information you got is that this Red was picked up a couple of times for investigation of burglary. Yes, sir. Are you willing to listen to a wild guess? I don't listen to anything, Captain. It washes out a homicide case for you. That's the last thing I need, Captain, a homicide case. I'm listening. After I finished my conversation with Lieutenant King, at 1.30 I signed the blotter and left the station house. All that day and that night, detectives of the 21st squad and the homicide squad beat the brush for John Gilliam, also known as Red Gilliam. They were waiting at the pier where he usually worked at the afternoon shape-up. He did not appear. They traced out his home address, a furnished room in the West 20s. He hadn't been seen. The place was planted. Detectives spoke to all the acquaintances of Red Gilliam and Philip Bolney they could locate. None had any information regarding the whereabouts of the fugitive. The plants at Red's rooming house and at the address of a girlfriend were maintained throughout the night. At 8.20 a.m. the next morning there was a phone call for Detective Vitale from one of the acquaintances of Red Gilliam he had spoken to the previous afternoon. The caller, another longshoreman, told Vitale that he had seen Red Gilliam at a Greenwich Village bar during the night. Red told the informant he was broke and needed a loan. He had promised a small loan if Red would come to the pier where he worked just before the whistle blew for the afternoon shape-up. Vitale gave this information to Lieutenant King. Along with five other detectives all dressed in work clothes, he was instructed to cover this pier in the event that Red Gilliam showed up. This looks like a box, Whitey. Yep. He'll blow the whistle for the shape-up in a minute. If Red hasn't shown up by now, he won't. Where's his friend? I don't see him now. No, I got him. There. He's against the fender of that truck, the pickup. Oh, yeah. Oh, there comes the hiring boy. When they're safe, let's move in with them. Okay. Come on. Yeah. I think we ought to wait around here until I get off the job this afternoon, Red Bible will come then. I'll call the lieutenant, whatever he says. Yeah. Hey, Whitey. Yeah. Where is that thing? Where? Jacket jacket, no hat. Headed for the truck. Yeah, it's him. All right, let's grab him. Watch yourself, he might be here. Don't worry. Red? Yeah? Wait a minute. We want to talk to you. How much fellow coming on, right? We're police officers, Red. Oh. Turn around and lean up against that truck. I'll go on. Yeah. All right, hold still. I'm clean. I'm not carrying anything. That's what we want to make sure of. Listen, what's the beef? What do you want me for? Don't you know, Red? How should I know what you guys want? We always want to know something. Yeah, Red. We always want to know something. So come on, let's go. I have been on duty since 8 a.m. At 1 20, I was upstairs in the detective squad office conferring with Lieutenant King about a renewal application for a pistol license, which must be investigated by detectives and endorsed with a recommendation by the commanding officer of the precinct. The applicant was a retired cop with a good departmental record now working as a money guard in the precinct. There was a suspicion, however, that his eyes had gone bad on him and that he was no longer qualified for a permit. That's a hard thing to say, Captain. Yeah, I know, man. I hate to do that to the man. He was a good cop when he was in the job. He had a good employment record with this company. But supposing there's some trouble over that guy and his eyes are bad, we can't help that. Yeah, I guess we can. Yes? Tell him. Come in, V. All right, Red. This side. Sit down over there, Red. Here? That's good. Sit right there. Set the door, will you, V? Yeah, sure, Lieutenant. He says he doesn't know a thing, Lieutenant. This is where you come to learn, eh, Red? What's it all about? That you've got to tell me. We'll start off with introductions. This is Captain Kennelly. I'm Lieutenant King. So? We won't waste any time, Red. We want some straight answers. About what? You were out with Phil Balney the night before last, right? Who said that? William. No. Where were you? I spent practically the entire evening with a girl. From about 3.30, 4 o'clock this morning. Well, if that's so, it'll clear up a lot of things, Red. What girl is that? Her name is Isabelle. Isabelle Gamer. Where did she live? Down on 17th Street, near 9th. You know that's a lie, Red. No, it's not. Detective Vitale spoke to Isabelle yesterday. She said she didn't see you since Sunday. Isn't that right, V? That's right, Lieutenant. So it's right. Look, Red, we've got a lot of things out of mind around here. We don't want to waste any time. What do you think I'm doing? You think this is accomplishing something for me? Phil was found dead on the street. Our information is that you were with him that night. And what about the truth? If I told you the truth, you wouldn't believe it. Wouldn't we? I guarantee you wouldn't. Better try us, Red. Because you're looking a murder beef right in the face. If the truth is going to help you, you better let us have it. You wouldn't believe it. Maybe we already know the truth, Red. Maybe we just want to hear it from you. You won't believe it. I guarantee it. But if you want it, all right. What? Well, you see, Phil and I were together, yeah. We've been doing a few things together. I had this store spotted over in the East 80s. I don't know. The safe looked like an easy touch. Well, we went in there together and tried to rip the face off. It wouldn't come. So we decided to go down the stairs with it and load it in the car. It was small enough. Now we started down. It was below and I was up above. The thing slipped or he slipped or something. Anyway, he went rolling down the stairs with it. I thought he was just knocked out. Yeah. Well, that's all. I figured get him out. Get him out fast, though. I load the car up. And when I got a few blocks away, I saw he was dead. Well, what was I going to do with him? I passed by this place where they had the street dug up. That looked good enough for me, so I dumped him in there. And that was that. Was it? Well, there you see, you wanted the truth. That's it. Where did he get me? Did you call his wife? Yeah, the next morning. I figured he's got to know. He's got to find out, at least. Well, don't look at me like I was an idiot. That's what happened. That's exactly what happened. The truth is, the old man was dead. The truth, it's the honest to goodness truth. If I had a stack of barbers, it wouldn't be any more the truth. I didn't kill him. I didn't lay a finger on him. We know it, Rad. We believe you. Do you? Why shouldn't we? The captain had it figured the same afternoon. The whole thing sounds so screwy, so much. I'm going to get caught in a set of circumstances. Now, Rad, you're caught in a little bit more than a set of circumstances. You're caught in a safe burglary. Twenty-first precinct, Sergeant Waters. What did you say about a gun? Oh. To get a license to carry one. And so it goes, around the clock, through the week, every day, every year. A police precinct in the city of New York is a flesh and blood merry-go-round. Anyone can catch the brass ring, or the brass ring can catch anyone. Twenty-first precinct, a police precinct, a factual account of the way the police work in the world's largest city, is presented with the official cooperation of the Patrolman's Benevolent Association, an organization of more than 20,000 members of the police department, city of New York. Everett Sloan in the role of Captain Canale, Ken Lynch as Lieutenant King. Featured in tonight's cast were Louis Van Ruten, Bill Lipton, Harold Stone, Les Damon, and Julie Stevens. Written and directed by Stanley Ness, produced for CBS Radio by John Ives. Art Hanna speaking.
