User Reviews

DRAGNET "The Big Casing" 1952

This is the 13th episode of the 283 episode run of the original Police Detective series, DRAGNET. This series ran from 1951 to 59.

Sgt Joe Friday (Jack Webb) and Detective Ed Jacobs (Barney Philips) are working the day watch out of Homicide Division. They get a call to an apartment building about a possible murder. A woman has been found shot and it looks like the husband did it. The man, Harry Bartel, swears that the wife had put a gun to her head and blew out her brains. They had been arguing and the woman had grabbed up Bartel's ex-army .45 and did the deed.

The problem here is that the evidence does not jive with what Bartel is saying. The main bit is the shell casing which is in the other room from the gun, too far to have ejected there. The boys from the crime lab are called in to take a look. The forensic boy's early investigation seems to agree with the Detective's take, it is murder. Bartel is cuffed and hauled off downtown for a bit of "face to face".

The Detectives lay into the man with how they see the event happening. They figure that Bartel had become upset during the argument with his wife and shot her. Other people in the apartment building are interviewed and they all say the couple were always screaming and yelling. The Detectives are sure they have their man.

However, the take on the crime scene changes as the forensic team completes their exam. It now looks like Bartel was telling the truth about the woman killing herself. Gunpowder residue tests and ballistics work prove Bartel innocent.

This is a rather interesting episode featuring an early take on what would become the CSI type program of the future. Jack Webb also directs and shows a firm hand on the material.

Review - The Big Casing Aired 6-5-52 Friday, Jacobs are working day-watch Homicide Detail, it was Sunday, March 9th. On March 12th the suspect was exonerated from any complicity in the death of his wife and he was released from custody. Unprecedented where in a few days the case is wrapped up by the crime lab evidence after Friday, Jacobs accuse the husband of murdering his wife.

The officers are called to the apartment of a man claiming the death of his wife was suicide. Lt. Harry Fremont informs the men what he found so far, being the first officer on the scene. Husband, Andy Robertson, explains he was arguing with his wife, he went to the store, came back, the words continued, she went to the drawer, where the .45 was kept. She said to Andy, this will put an end to the argument once and for all. She then pulled the trigger. Her dead body is shown on the kitchen floor. Robertson went to his wife, saw she shot herself, went to the neighbor to call police, came down to his apartment, waited, sitting on the couch for the police.

Friday, Jacobs suspect Andy Robertson killed his wife based on the neighbors saying they argued constantly, the spent casing was located where it should not be for a suicide, there was flour on the gun barrel not the butt. Their intensive suspect grilling at HQ did not move the story off the original given in the apartment by the same person claiming his innocence. Along comes crime scene photos of the actual wound, indicative of powder burns from a bullet fired at close range, a bullet found at a height in the cabinetry linking the victim's height with the shot, flour wiped from her hands onto her apron, the same flour on the gun barrel from falling onto a flour sack on top of the full kitchen wastebasket. Most conclusive was the casing stepped on in the kitchen linoleum floor, acting like a tiddlywink bouncing to the living room carpet. When the husband went to his wife after the shot he stepped on the casing making it bound away from its original location on the linoleum floor in the kitchen. Photos taken at the apartment prove the actions of the wife were suicide. The letter received from the woman's mother telling of suicidal tendencies capped off evidence to release the suspected husband.

Forensics in the form available at the time proved to be most helpful solving this case and making the episode worth watching. Thank you Lieutenant Jones. You helped the evidence be clearer than listening to neighbors' stories.