← The Great Detectives of Old Time Radio| Daily Mystery Dramas
The Great Detectives of Old Time Radio| Daily Mystery Dramas
The Big Story: The Corn Cob Killer (EP4942)
00:30:46
Today's Mystery:A reporter wants his paper to run a story identifying the murderer of a river boy, when no body has been found and there's no evidence he was murdered. Original Radio Broadcast: October 26, 1949 Originating from New York Starring:...
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Welcome to the Great detectives of Old Time Radio from Boise, Idaho. This is your host, Adam Graham. In a moment, we're going to bring you this week's episode of the Big Story. But first, I do want to encourage you if you're enjoying the podcast software and I want to highlight one of our other podcasts, the Old Time Radio Snack Wagon. And there every week we bring you a short form podcast. It can be across a wide variety of different genres, including music, comedy, drama and storytelling. Now from from October 26, 1949, here is the Corn Cob Killer.
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Now a big story about a reporter who found the solution to a murder before the murder was committed. Pell Mell presents the Big Story. Say, boss. What is it, feller? Here's that story I've been working on. I. I don't think you'll like it. Why not? Well, for one thing, I name the murderer in the lead. You name the what? The murderer. You haven't got a corpse, you haven't got an apparent crime. You don't even know there's been a murder and you name the murderer? Not in my paper, fella. Not in my paper. The Big Story here is America, its sound and its fury, its joy and its sorrow, as faithfully reported by the men and women of the Great American Newspapers, Huntington, West Virginia. From the pages of the Huntington Advertiser, the authentic story of the Corn Cob Killer. For his work in the case. To Harold Fowler, for his big story goes the Palmell Award. Huntington, West Virginia. The story as it actually happened. Harold Fowler's story as he lived it. A mountain lion with bunions is a purring pussycat compared to your city editor as he pinned your ears back for handing in a certain story. You, Harold Fowler of the Huntington Advertiser, have put one and one together to make two. Then two and two together to make a murderer. Deadline is riding page one. And you have X minutes to justify yourself and your story. And the boss keeps yelling, not in my paper, fella. Not in my paper. Why don't you read it first before I tear it up, you mean? Sure. Gimme. Ivy Rowe river boy is dead. His body lies at the bottom of the Ohio River. He is believed to have been murdered. By Charlie Grimes? No, no, no, no. Believed to have been by whom? By me. Will you let me prove it? Let you? Valor. I'm all ears. And into those unfriendly ears you pour out your yawn. But first, before those unfriendly eyes, you spread on the desk a map of West Virginia. Boss, now look. Follow the Ohio river here down to the little town of Antiquity. That's where this whole thing started. Antiquity. No kidding. Where the only thing that moves is the Ohio River. And even that slow and easygoing. You tell the boss about this. Way down by the river. Oh, darn it. So lazy and slow. Sort of do it. I'm fixing my engine. Oh. To see if she'll go. She's gone, dad. No doubt fixing. Yeah. She's a rolling and a fur hide. She sure is, folks. Howdy. Howdy. You sure walk quiet, mister. Uh. Huh. Boat for sale? Nope. Not even for $50? Nope. 75. Well, maybe hundred. Yeah. Would a man be a fool to pay that there for this year? I'm a fool. One thing, though. What's that? I don't have the cash money on me. She's in the bank down the river, Point Pleasant. I got an Uncle Billy down there. All right, then you ride me down that a ways and I'll give you the money there. Let me talk to my boy a minute, mister. You go ahead. I'll look the boat over. I don't trust him, Ivy. But $100 is a lot of money. Yeah, I don't like his hopper grass legs nor his catfish mouth nearly. But a hundred dollars, dad, it's so needful all right, but I still don't trust him. Oh, don't fret about me. All right, mister. Bought myself a boat. Got yourself a pilot, too. You move your finger on the map down the Ohio to Point Pleasant where Uncle Barry lives, and you tell the boss his story. There's my Uncle Barry. I'm done. Hi. Hi, Uncle Barry. Who's that? It's me, Uncle Barry. Why, honey boy, land. How you gone in, Groed? What you doing down river? I saw the pilot in this fellow, Uncle Bear. He's done bought the boat. Going to pay me out of the bank. Well, come on up to the house and bring your friend. Reckon, ain't Ulysses got enough grits and greens? Extra mighty kind of you, friend, but me and the boy don't want to put you out none. Well, suit yourself, stranger. I have a boy. You come on into the office and telephone you Aunt Ulie. When she learns you've been and gone without her seeing you, well, she'll just naturally feed me to the catfish. Well, come on, boy. I'll give you a hand. Ivy, boy. Who's that stranger? Just a fellow. Happened along, bought the boat. I don't like him. I don't like to see you taken up with a stranger. Ivy, Ivy, Ivy, don't go with it. I got to. We need that boat money. Besides, I'm grown up enough to catch for myself. Shucks, the way you talk, you'd think he was fixing to kill me or something. Come on, Ivy, we gotta get gassed up. You got more traveling to do. Where for? Down the river. Meet that right Ivy, huh? Oh, sure, sure. We're going on down the river, Uncle Barry. Going on down. Now, you put your finger on a town 70 miles down the Ohio. Portsmouth. But first you tell the boss about this. Veri. This year's Ivy's dad. Why, howdy. Let me talk to the boy. Well, he ain't here. Ain't he there? He ain't here. I thought he was still with you. Oh, no, sir. He gone on down the river. Call the law. Ask him to search the river up and down and search it good. I want my boy. All that you had found out by digging in Antiquity and in Point Pleasant. But there all traces of the boat itself. Fire and the boy had ended. Soon, however, the police sent this message. Boat found in river off Portsmouth. And you sent this one back hold man and boy for questioning and got this reply. What man and boy? Question mark, question. Boat had nobody on board. After you tell him that you lay just one more thing on the boss's desk. It's a clipping from his own paper. Your own paper. Your own story. Just one week old. And you refresh him on the story it tells you the story you yourself cover. That story began in the powerhouse of West Virginia State Prison at Moundsville. Two convicts, one a trustee, are at their work, knocking off time, Charlie. Yeah, and time you was too. Was what? Man knocked off. A quick flash at the generator belt and the prison is plunged into complete darkness. And of the two prisoners, the trustee lies dead. And the other? Over the wall. Boss. That escaped convict with Charlie Grimes serving life for murder. He took a life to escape. So look at your map. Here's Antiquity and here's Moundsville. The time lag is perfect. A tall, soft spoken stranger turns up at Antiquity one day after the break. Saves a hundred dollars for a beat up boot. Goes off in the boat with Ivy Rowe. And Ivy disappears from sight. One and one makes two. The way you lay it out, Fowler, it makes sense if you only had a little more to go on than to hunt. I have. Then why didn't you say so? What is it? The last person to see them together, the boy and the stranger, was Uncle Ver. Yeah. I confronted Uncle Ver with a rogues gallery picture of Charlie Grimes. He identified Grimes as the man with his nephew Ivy. Fine. But do you know the boy is dead? No. Do you know a crime has been committed at all? Well, no. Might I ask what you do know? I know Grimes is a born killer. He used to throw corn cobs in the air and plug them. And then say, I'd as soon shoot a man as a corn cob. And I know the life of a river kid wouldn't mean any more than a corn cob to Charlie Grimes if he thought for one second the kid was onto him. And I know the one way to stop him from killing again is to spread the story so the rest of the state is on the watch. And what's more, I've got a picture of Grimes to go with the story. Will you print the picture? No. Then will you print the story? Then? Yes. Sticking my neck out. But here goes. Copy. It goes through the desk, the linotypes and makes page one. And then your phone begins to ring. What are you trying to do? Terrorize the community? You ought to be horsewhipped. What are you trying to do? Tip off that killer? We're looking for him. You show your head around state police and you'll get it chopped off. But that's not all. The next day a Lean, quiet man appears at your desk. Mr. Fellow? Yes? You know who I am? No. No, sir, I don't. Shang Row Ivey's dad. Oh. Somebody read out for me what you wrote up in the paper about my boy, that he was lying on the river bottom. Mr. Rowe, I was only trying to. You see, I can't read, so I got to have things spelled out for me. The Bible, papers, letters and such. Till it was read out to me about my boy. I was hiding my fearfulness behind my hope. But you killed my hope. Now I'm all fear. That ain't what I come to tell you, though. What is it, Mr. Rowan? What can I do for you? You done it already. Not for me, do we. What I come to let you know was I been a keeping all this from Ivy's ma. I see. And you see, Mr. Newspaper Writer, it's Ivy's ma reads me the papers and such. I wanted you to know what you done. Maybe it was smart. I don't know about that. All I know is it warn't good nor kind. He lives and doghouse is the name for where you are. And the boss is no help either. He does it the subtle way. Got your bag packed, feller? No. What? You mean you aren't looking for another job? Oh, now look, boss, that's going too far after all, now he talks about going too far. Fellow, if that boy turns up alive, there's only going to be one way to spell your name and mine. M U D Mud. There's only one good thing that story accomplished. What? The police are dragging the river for a corpse. It might not even be there at all if there is a corpse. Sure, the police are dragging the river, but they turn up nothing but old rubber boots and empty bottles. The next day, however, things look a little better. City desk. You got a fellow named Fowler working on your paper? For the time being. Why? Well, you better send him on down to my town. Hopper's Ferry, that is. Who are you? Sheriff. Hold it a minute, Fowler. Pick up your phone and listen to this. Go ahead. Well, you the man rode up how Ivy Rowe was killed by Charlie Grimes. I am. Why? You better get on down here. Why? Just cause. He just checked in the hotel here. Who, Grimes? Nope. Ivy Rowe. This is Cy Harris returning it to your narrator and the big story of Harold Fowler as he lived it and wrote it. You, Harold Fowler of the Huntington Advertiser, have the paper and yourself out on a nice juicy limb with a story that Ivy Rowe, river boy, has been murdered by Charlie Grimes. Mountain man. And its. The only thing wrong with the story is that you had nothing to go on but a hunch and a fake. But now a phone call has just sawed that limb right off behind you. So you better get on down here. He just checked in the hotel. Who? Ivy Ro. How do you know? We just signed the register. And I can read you hang up. The look on the boss's face says censored. You reach for your hat and where do you think you're going? Down there. At least the kid's story is the story. Go ahead. While you're at it, see if you can get me a new job, too. Sheriff. Well, I'm debity. Can I help you? Yeah, I'm looking. Where's the sheriff? Just retired. Be out the hospital two, three weeks maybe. What happened? Guy held up the post office, shot the sheriff. Oh. Was. Was the fellow named Ivy Rowe? How'd you know? You count up to 10 and then to 10 again while the deputy shows you. See here. This here is a signature in the register. This he dropped out in his pocket in the fuss. Newspaper clipping, huh? My story. Well, at least I've got one admirer. While you're waiting for them to get your office on the phone, you wonder, had Charlie persuaded the kid to take up crime, too? Or blackmailed him into it, maybe? Charlie Valor. Boss, I have news for you. Look. It seems. Wait. I've got news for you. But boss. But me? No bosses. They found Ivy Road. Where? Where? Right where you sat. The bottom of the river with a bullet in his back. So you are right. Now, it's easy to figure Grimes use the kid's name. But from now on, you're going to make it harder for him to work in the open and hammer at him in the paper day after day till somebody spot him. Sure big talk. Every paper in the state carries his picture. Every post office, every crossroads general store from Frisch Creek to Dry Fork, from Harper's Ferry to Canova. And what happens? He drops out of sight. One month. Two months now. Hide in a hair of Charlie Grimes. Then you get mad. You hit the road. And while you're in Charleston lecturing on law enforcement, somebody holds up a store in Fort Gay on the Big Sandy, and the word comes back it was Charlie Grimes. You backtrack digging into his past, trying to find out where he might hide out. But before you can get a lead, somebody hijacks a cruiser where the Sandy meets Tug fork. And the word comes back, that's him. Well, I know that face. That's Charlie Grimes. It was him. Big Sandy, Tug Fork. Bossy's heading south along the streams out of the state. Sure. And always sticking around people he can meld into. River peep, mountain people. A gas station in Maran, on the middle fork, in Virginia, in Mount Holly, on the Koba, in North Carolina. I'll just trouble you for that mail tag, ma'. Am. This here's a real gun, too. Following the rivers and the mountain valleys, Boss. Sooner or later, he has. Hello, Mr. Feller? Yes. This is town marshall of Newberry, South Carolina. I've been carrying around one of your stories about this Charlie Grime. Yes, yes. And if the fella just got off the train down here ain't him, I ain't. Marshall, why don't you come on down here and we'll take him together? Marshall, I'm. Yes, sir. I know how you've been going up and down the state on this fellow's trail, making speeches and quizzing suspects, and you kind of got me all eager to help you out. Yeah, that's what I hoped would happen, but where is it? Well, he got off the train and headed straight for the hotel right across the square there. And he ain't come out yet. Has it got a back door? Sure. And the back door has got a watcher. You're sure it's Grimes? If it ain't, you've been printing a picture of his twin brother. Cause ain't got like. We're just talking the time away. Just come out fighting cocks, mister. Why, I got a pair of Lundy roundheads will gaff the gizzards out of your hog toppies and your white hackles as soon as. All right, he's gone into the grocery. Come on. Wait. Look through the window. That him? That's Grimes. Stand behind. Now, Ms. Gentry, just a minute. Let me take care of this gentleman. Gentleman, huh? All right, buddy, put up your hands. Me? I ain't pointing this gun at nobody else. I ain't got no gun, mister. Maybe so, but keep your hands up and turn to the wall. Mr. Fowler, look in his pockets and drop what you find on the floor. You're making a mistake. I got no gun. There's 1, 2, 3, 4. No gun, huh? 5, 6. Anything else? Yeah. Hunting knife, jackknife and a razor bath stone. Man, you're a walking arsenal. What's in your back pocket? Wallet. What's the name on it? Marshall Roe. Ivy Roe. Come on, Grimes. Maybe when all the rewards for you are in, I can buy a pair of handcuffs. Right now, I don't need them. Five hours later, after you've promised him headlines galore, Charlie Grimes is on the train for Point Pleasant. There to face the parents of Ivy Rowe, the boy he killed. Why? Well, it is. This way, Mister. When are you gonna give me my money? Pretty soon, Sonny. I gotta get home to my dad. He needs me for the work. What you gonna tell him about me, huh? Nothing. Why? Ain't you gonna say? I told you I wasn't aiming to pay you nothing for no boat. You ain't gonna do that to me. You gotta give me what's coming to me. I aim to, Sonny. Well, then I ain't gonna tell my daddy nothing. Just look counter, Sonny. Big catfish just busted water. What? I just figured sooner or later he'd know who I was. So I killed him. They fell it. What if ask any questions? Sure. How'd you predict just what I done? I knew the kind of mind you had, you know. Ain't that tough to know. You know, it's a pity you got me into this here jam. Why, you were plenty smart. You and me could have made a right good team. When you wrote that there story about me, the one you carried in your pocket. Yeah, that's the one. When you wrote that one up, I figured on killing you next. Thanks for the compliment. Yeah, I sure did. Never got the chance, though. Never got the chance. In just a moment, we'll read you a telegram from Harold Fowler of the Huntington Advertiser with the final outcome of tonight's big story. Now we read you that telegram from Harold Fowler of the Huntington Advertiser. Escaped life termer in tonight's big story was returned to West Virginia State Prison. He was subsequently tried for both the murders of young Ivy Rowe and the trustee he killed in escapee. In each case, he received another life sentence. Consequently, he's probably the only prisoner in the United States serving three life sentences for three separate murders. Thanks a lot for tonight's Pell Mell award. Thank you, Mr. Fowler. The makers of Pall Mall famous cigarettes are proud to present you the Pall Mall $500 award for notable service in the field of journalism. Listen again next week, same time, same station, when Palmel will present another big story. A big story from the front pages of the Clovis, New Mexico News Journal byline, Jack Hull. A big story about a reporter who met a murderer who found that the killing of two men instead of one involved the freedom of a third. The big story is produced by Bernard J. Proctor with music by Vladimir Silinsky Tonight's program was adapted by Alan Sloan from an actual story from the front pages of the Huntington Advertiser. Your narrator was Bob Sloan. Beryl Firestone played the part of Harold Fowler. In order to protect the names of people actually involved in tonight's authentic big story, the names of all characters in the dramatization were changed, with exception of the reporter, Mr. Fowler. This is Ernest Chapel speaking for the makers of Pall Mall famous cigarettes. It can happen to you. Yes,
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welcome back. Well, supporting Mr. Firestone in the cast were Hazel Logan, Jim Bowles, Jim Stevens, Scott Tennyson, Bob Dryden, and Sandy Bickhart. An interesting case that does seem to kind of mess with some of the chronology, as this was about his first attempt to break prison in 1919 20, and the prison break happened pretty much as told, and he killed another prisoner in the process of escape because the other prisoner resisted him taking the boat, while the radio episode treats the taking of the boat as a separate incident with a separate victim. Now, of course, Mr. Griffith was up for a murder, but he'd already been convicted of two murders at the time of his escape, and this would be the third, meaning the third life sentence. Now, sometime after this program, there would be a push for his parole since he was said to be totally reformed and a model prisoner. And this failed 17 different times. He did get released for medical reasons in 1967, but he escaped his supervision and so ended up going back to prison. And that information comes from the stories behind the big story by Dr. Joe Webb and anyone who helped him work on that. Well, now it's time to thank our Patreon supporter of the day. And I want to go ahead and thank Blaine, patreon Supporter since January 2017, currently supporting the podcast at the rookie level of $2 or more per month. Thanks so much for your support, Blaine. And that will do it for today. If you're enjoying the podcast, please follow us using your favorite podcast software and be sure to rate and review the podcast wherever you download it from. We'll be back next Tuesday with another episode of the Big Story, but join us back here tomorrow for Broadway's My Beatw.
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Hi, Danny. And it's all there waiting for you. Detective Mugavan. And the boy in worn denims, a faded wool shirt, sprawled in final exhaustion across the silk sheet of the hotel bed. The boy dead of a knife wound. Quite a party next door, you think, in a hotel this class, they thicken the wall. All right, Magnuman, what else have you got? A kid there stabbed under the heart. Couldn't find the knife. Danny. Couldn't even pry a visitor out of the hotel. Management they're discreet, they tell me. Don't notice unannounced visitors like this kid must have had. That's why. Just tell me what I was going to say, Danny. They're so discreet in this hotel. That's why the party keeps going next door. Nobody knows there's someone dead except the manager and a couple of bellhops. What made them sit up and take notice? Kid's phone was off the hook. Kept lighting a light on the switchboard, but nobody said they wanted anything. A bellhop came up to find out why.
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I hope you'll be with us then. In the meantime, send your comments to box Thirteenreatetectives.net Follow us on Twitter at radiodetectives and check us out on Instagram. Instagram.com greatdetectives from Boise, Idaho, this is your host, Adam Graham, signing off.
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