***SPOILERS*** Trying to pep up his boring and uneventful life pre-med student Jimmy Barrick, Arnold Merrith, seeks action and adventure by trying to be the coat hanger killer who's been terrorizing NYC for the last three months. Not having the guts or nerve to commit the murders himself Jimmy tries to take credit for them making a complete fool or idiot of himself in not knowing how the real murders were committed. In one last attempt to get his name in the papers and be famous as the next Jack the Ripper Jimmy actually tries to murder, with a coat hanger, his sweet and kindly next door neighbor Nora Brown, Loretta Leversee, that he met in the laundry room doing her wash.
Invited to her apartment to carry her laundry Jimmy suddenly goes crazy trying to strangle Nora with a coat hanger but can't bring himself to do it. Crazed & confused and wanted by the police Jimmy now tries to kill himself by jumping off the Grant Tumb Memorial with the police lead by Let. Dan Muldoon, John MacItire, hot on his tail. It turned out that Jimmy who didn't have to heart to kill Nora don't have the heart or will to do himself in either and meekly gave himself up to the police to be treated, at the local hospital, for his obvious mental illness.
There are a lot of people like Jimmy Barrick who feel that life had passed them by and want to be famous in any way that they can. But in his case in becoming or impersonating a serial murderer is the wrong way to do it. Find a cure for cancer or write the great American novel or even better just become a productive member of the community and you'll be famous enough Jimmy. If not to the world at large but to yourself and those around you. Which is far better then being known as the boy on the block that was committed to a mental asylum for trying to live out the criminal fantasies that are or were beyond his control!