August 20, 2025 • 29 mins
Chronicles the cases of a law enforcement officer in the American West, blending traditional Western themes with modern investigative techniques. The stories are based on real cases.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Tales of the Texas Rangers, starring Joel McCrae as Ranger
Chase Pearson. Another authentic reenactment of a case transcribed from
the files of the Texas Rangers.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Name, dates, and places.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
In the following story are fictitious for obvious reasons. The
events themselves are a matter of records.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
In this election year, this station is making it possible
for you to follow the campaign of the next president.
On NBC Tuesday, y July first, be sure to hear
another of NBC's pre convention broadcasts. This program is called
Convention City. It will offer you a complete description of
the arrangements being made in Chicago, the host city of
both the Republican and Democratic conventions this year. Jim Hrbert
(01:15):
of NBC Chicago will serve as your host. The program
will include interviews with Chicago officials in charge of the
convention arrangements.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
You will hear the unusual.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Problems resulting from the almost gigantic task of entertaining the
two major party conventions. We're sure you'll find this a
fascinating program, so consult your local newspaper for broadcast time
and join us Tuesday, July first for Convention City. This
is another special program brought to you so you may
follow the campaign of the next president on NBC Now
(01:48):
Tales of the Texas Rangers and now from.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
The files of the Texas Rangers. It's the case called
x Con.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
It is ten thirty in the morning of September fourteenth,
nineteen forty ten miles outside the town of High Point
in southwest Texas. A thin, worn looking woman sits in
the back room of a run down house. She's sowing
a patch on a pair of child's dungarees when she
hears the front door open.
Speaker 6 (02:26):
Who's asked?
Speaker 7 (02:27):
It's me, Tom?
Speaker 6 (02:31):
What you doing home this time of day?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
We're the kids?
Speaker 6 (02:34):
I playing somewhere. Why ain't you down to the packing house?
Didn't the new job work out?
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (02:40):
It worked out real good for an hour, the whole hour.
To let me clean up the place. Now, suddenly do
that now, wasn't it, Liz?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
What happened?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Same thing that's happened before. I seen somebody whispering to
the Boston point and at me. I could see this
guy's fat mouth making the words killer ex con, same
words everybody or always whispers.
Speaker 8 (03:00):
When they look at me.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
And the boss comes out and says he got somebody
else from a job.
Speaker 6 (03:04):
Did he pay you?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, here seventy cents.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Get some meat and milk for the kids, and don't
forget to put what's left in a bank.
Speaker 6 (03:13):
Talking like that, he ain't gonna help now.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I don't know what helps a quick nagging.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
I'm sick and tired of it telling me what I
should and shouldn't do.
Speaker 7 (03:22):
Shut up, shut up, I tell you.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Liz, Oh, Liz, honey Comb. I didn't mean it, Honey,
I'm sorry. No, it's just everything's all wrong. I don't
know what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 6 (03:37):
I got a feeling everything's gonna be all right. But
there was even a morning. You're looking for you this morning?
Speaker 2 (03:43):
What kind of man?
Speaker 6 (03:44):
Yeah, real good clothes on a pretty car putting.
Speaker 9 (03:48):
Could be that fellow from over at the brickyard.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
He almost give me a job when I get out
of the pens that do it?
Speaker 7 (03:53):
Must me.
Speaker 10 (03:54):
Maybe he's got a job for me loading bricks.
Speaker 6 (03:56):
See my bunt you offul ball.
Speaker 11 (03:57):
But he was talking loading.
Speaker 7 (03:58):
Bridge in bad work.
Speaker 10 (04:00):
To get a whole buck an hour easy, maybe a
bucket of quarter.
Speaker 7 (04:03):
Sure you will.
Speaker 6 (04:04):
I don't want to worry no more about.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
What you get somebody outside. Don't jack, Oh, I can't
let him see me. And he's dirty.
Speaker 6 (04:11):
Cl It won't make no difference.
Speaker 7 (04:12):
Do a little.
Speaker 6 (04:13):
Corrier, just fine, Tom? Where you hang over your hands?
Speaker 10 (04:17):
Donald?
Speaker 9 (04:17):
Here?
Speaker 11 (04:19):
Oh you look just fine.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
I got a funny feeling in my stomach.
Speaker 6 (04:23):
Don't be every toney, I'm coming.
Speaker 7 (04:28):
I'll be right there.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Sorry, keep ah, it's you.
Speaker 9 (04:34):
I'll talk to you.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Doesn't just a second. I'm going outside, honey.
Speaker 7 (04:39):
Don't you want to bring it up?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
How many times I gotta tell you to stay away
from me?
Speaker 7 (04:45):
Oh? Look, it ain't enough.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
If you come clawing around me in town. Now you
gotta come up to my house. I'm only trying to
offer your job. I come to your farm for a job.
You turned me down that I was different. But it's
okay to ask me to do your dirty work.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
And don't look at it that way, ay Dowson, Well,
we're just helping each other.
Speaker 9 (05:02):
I told you before.
Speaker 7 (05:03):
I don't go for killing it.
Speaker 5 (05:05):
Suppose I give you a thousand for the job instead
of five hundred. By wait a minute, there's a business proposition, Dawson.
Speaker 9 (05:13):
I know you can't get a job.
Speaker 7 (05:14):
I care along.
Speaker 9 (05:15):
Daving fired you down the packing house. You never get
a job runn here?
Speaker 7 (05:19):
You let me worry about that.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
You already warring plenty.
Speaker 9 (05:22):
I can see that.
Speaker 6 (05:24):
I listen.
Speaker 9 (05:24):
It's an old lady in the town north here, and
all you gotta do.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Is get rid of her.
Speaker 7 (05:28):
Why'd you come to me?
Speaker 9 (05:30):
Cause you're the only one I know can do it.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Oh but I beat your lousy face.
Speaker 9 (05:34):
Now, will your rock cut out that stuff? This is business,
thousand dollars for easy job. I buy it, doesn't I?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
All right?
Speaker 9 (05:46):
Well that's more like bella.
Speaker 5 (05:50):
Here's a name and address on a slip of paper,
and here's a gunner.
Speaker 6 (05:55):
I don't care how.
Speaker 9 (05:55):
You do it, but try and make it look like robbery.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
What about the money?
Speaker 9 (06:00):
There's a hundred? Now get the rest when I read
about it in.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
The papers where you're gonna be away with friends for
a few days, and I don't need money to.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Get up there and back.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
All right, Yeah, there's another hundred. I don't waste any
time getting started. I wanna be reading good news in
the papers soon. Yeah, it's jerdy, lousy.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
If you give me your husband, here's some money, a hundred.
Speaker 6 (06:29):
You be studied, work it? How come you give you
a her mind.
Speaker 7 (06:33):
I take the money. Well you shut up. I gotta
go up north for day, so you're not.
Speaker 6 (06:39):
Gonna work the brickyard.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
No, and quit asking questions.
Speaker 6 (06:43):
What'd you just put in that?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Say nothing?
Speaker 10 (06:45):
I want to see you get away from here.
Speaker 6 (06:46):
List kid, how do you could do this?
Speaker 12 (06:49):
Cool?
Speaker 7 (06:50):
I told you to keep a wanney.
Speaker 6 (06:51):
Get something bad. You gonna get in trouble again, get
all the it's time. I don't want yard about the kids.
Speaker 7 (06:59):
You want to go I've known.
Speaker 9 (07:03):
Yeah, go ahead say it.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
No when I follows a car, what I wright? Three
years in that penn and you get the name for
life anyhow?
Speaker 7 (07:12):
So well, my dam we were on.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Tom, I'll see as soon as I get back.
Speaker 7 (07:17):
No, no, Tom, believe me alone. Tom, don't do it.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
Ten minutes after Tom Dawson left the house, his wife
took the children to her neighbors. At noon, she appeared
at a Texas Ranger Company headquarters.
Speaker 9 (07:39):
The distressed woman told her story to Range her Jason Pierson.
Speaker 6 (07:44):
I'm sorry, Ranger. I don't mean to keep rolling like.
Speaker 7 (07:49):
That's all right now, don't eat mad.
Speaker 6 (07:52):
Nobody knows that Ben and me. I didn't want to
come here, but he couldn't keep him getting locked up again.
Speaker 13 (08:00):
We'll do everything we can to help. Now, about this
man who came to your place this morning. You say
you never saw him before.
Speaker 6 (08:06):
This morning was first time, and you.
Speaker 8 (08:08):
Don't know what he paid your husband to do.
Speaker 6 (08:10):
No, but it must have been something bad else.
Speaker 7 (08:14):
He wanted to give Tom a gun.
Speaker 8 (08:16):
You sure your husband said he was heading north.
Speaker 6 (08:17):
I'm sure that Tom was a fool with a gun before.
He wouldn't hurt nobody on purpose. But he's got an
awful bad temper.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
I'm afraid we already know that from his record, ma'am.
Speaker 6 (08:29):
The trouble he got into before that was an accident.
He didn't mean to kill Bob peters An wouldn't give
him his wages, and Tom got mad and hit him.
Speaker 13 (08:38):
He served his time for that, Missus Dawson. Our problem
is to keep him from getting into any more trouble.
Speaker 6 (08:43):
I don't know what I'll do if he has to
go to jail again.
Speaker 7 (08:46):
It's awful.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
The last time, Oh Ranger, you got us top Tom
from doing something bad.
Speaker 7 (08:52):
You got to We.
Speaker 13 (08:53):
Will, ma'am, if we can find him. I'd put out
in all points bulleting on Tom Dawson. Then took missus
Dawson home. Sheriff Simson high Point agreed to help me
in the search. We decided on the bus station. It's
the first likely place to check. At two fifteen that afternoon,
we entered the Trailways bus depot and off toward the
(09:15):
ticket window.
Speaker 14 (09:17):
Yeah, he'd think a fella like Gospel would have learned
enough to keep out of trouble.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
But he was here.
Speaker 7 (09:21):
He's up too loud and.
Speaker 13 (09:22):
Might be anything, Sheriff Burglary stick up, even killing him right,
whatever it is, I hope we.
Speaker 8 (09:26):
Can get to him before it's too late.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
We sure hope we can get a lead here.
Speaker 6 (09:30):
Suppose can I help you range your sheriff?
Speaker 8 (09:33):
And I'd like to ask you a few questions?
Speaker 6 (09:35):
Miss sure? Oh excuse me a second.
Speaker 15 (09:38):
I got to announce that busy now. Oh sure, I'm glad,
but not two thirty bus leaves. He ain't only got
another half.
Speaker 6 (09:53):
Hour to work.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Uh huh?
Speaker 8 (09:56):
Do you mind taking a look at that photo? You've
seen this in here today?
Speaker 10 (10:02):
Well?
Speaker 11 (10:02):
I think I have.
Speaker 15 (10:03):
Yeah, he was in here, bought a ticket for me
where too see now it was somewhere up north.
Speaker 11 (10:10):
I'm sorry, Sheriff, I don't remember I just pay up.
Speaker 8 (10:12):
You were sure he was here though, Well I'm sure.
Speaker 11 (10:15):
That all right.
Speaker 15 (10:16):
Reason I'm so positive that gave me a hundred dollar
bill when I gave him change it couldn't he have
cleaned out in the car straw?
Speaker 8 (10:21):
What time was this?
Speaker 11 (10:22):
Well I knew it was some time afternoon, but I'm
not two short winds.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
What buses do you have going north in the afternoon?
Speaker 11 (10:28):
Just too the one thirty and the call fifteen.
Speaker 8 (10:31):
I miss thanks a lot.
Speaker 14 (10:33):
No everybody's ticket before it had a one thirty month
I left he could be on it.
Speaker 13 (10:37):
Gee, yeah, I figure it's gonna take us just about
two hours to find out if he is. We drove
north and overtook the one thirty bus after it and
traveled a little over a hundred miles. Dawson was not aboard.
We checked the four fifteen bus. He wasn't on it either.
(11:00):
By eleven the next morning, we'd combed all of the
town's where he could have stopped off, still no trace
of him. He gave up the search and headed back
towards high Point. By noon we were just coming into town.
Speaker 14 (11:11):
I'm really beat, Jason. When I get to bed, I'm
not gonna move for two days.
Speaker 8 (11:15):
It's sure have been a long night.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
The worst part of it is we didn't accomplish a thing.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
We can be pretty sure whatever Dawson got paid to do.
Speaker 8 (11:21):
He's probably done it by now.
Speaker 14 (11:23):
I sure feel sorry for that wife his If Dawson
gets filled up, now it's gonna be prolong.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
What are you stopping here for?
Speaker 8 (11:30):
Over there, Sheriff coming out of that feed store.
Speaker 9 (11:33):
Well, I'll Dawson right on Main Street.
Speaker 8 (11:37):
Let's go.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
He must see it.
Speaker 8 (11:41):
But he don't seem to bother him.
Speaker 9 (11:42):
He's just standing there.
Speaker 13 (11:44):
He could be playing at KG. Watch yourself. Yeah, Jesse's
starting to.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Move all at Dawson.
Speaker 7 (11:50):
What do you gonna want?
Speaker 8 (11:51):
We like to talk to you.
Speaker 9 (11:52):
What about about a bus ride you took yesterday?
Speaker 13 (11:55):
You crazy?
Speaker 2 (11:56):
I ain't been on a bus months.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
Risking, Sheriff, put your hands over your head.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Why can't you guys leave me alone?
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Just because there's spent a few years and if no gun, jess,
what are you talking about?
Speaker 7 (12:06):
Gun? I never had no gun.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
Here's his wallet, nothing, not even the dollar that's right?
Speaker 3 (12:12):
And you know why, because you guys won't leave me
alone so as I can get a.
Speaker 7 (12:15):
Job like just down at feet.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Start that there's sending in this inside pocket.
Speaker 8 (12:20):
Yeah, a slip of paper.
Speaker 13 (12:22):
I wanted to say, bellolass RFD twelve.
Speaker 8 (12:25):
Odessa, give me that was Bellows.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
That's my business.
Speaker 14 (12:28):
Odessa is north here, Jas, It's only two hundred mile.
Duncan could have made it up and back since yesterday?
Or you and our best the last night Dawson, Then
where were you?
Speaker 7 (12:36):
Well?
Speaker 2 (12:36):
I always am knights home and you prove it.
Speaker 7 (12:38):
Sure, go talk to my wife.
Speaker 10 (12:40):
She'll tell you I was home the whole night.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
In just a moment, we will continue with Tales of
the Texas Rangers, starring Joel McCrae as Ranger Jace Pearson.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
There's a price tag in almost everything. Whether you drive
a Shining You nineteen fifty two model or a pre
war Jilloppy, you had to pay the price. And when
you are driving that car, remember that speed also has
its price, death or injuries that can cripple you for life.
You may speed at times and get away with it,
but the odds are too strongly against you that in
some tight spot you will make a mistake while speeding.
(13:22):
It'll be curtains for you, or you'll have it on
your conscience for the rest of your days that you
took a life that you, and you alone, could have avoided.
Speaker 8 (13:30):
If you weren't speeding.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
The price tag on speed violations last year was fifteen
thousand killed and five hundred thousand injured. This year, thousands
of lives can be saved if you and millions of
other motorists come to the sober realization that speed is
the biggest killer on the highways. You can do your
part at all times. Drive as though your life depends
(13:52):
on it.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
It does.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Now we return to the Texas Rangers.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
We continue now with tales of the Texas Rangers and
our authentic story.
Speaker 7 (14:10):
X Con.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Tom Dawson continued to insist that he'd been home the
night before.
Speaker 13 (14:21):
He wanted to check his story, so we left him
at the Sheriff's office and drove out to see his wife.
Speaker 8 (14:28):
How can we come in, missus Dawson?
Speaker 6 (14:31):
Yeah, yeah, you need to me. Thanks, What do you want?
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Just like to talk to you about your husband.
Speaker 6 (14:38):
Tom ain't done nothing.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
We're not saying he has, but after talking to him
in town, we got a few things.
Speaker 8 (14:42):
We want to clear up.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
You talk to town where the sheriff's office seem.
Speaker 6 (14:46):
Done up, And I'll tell you wish I'd never come
to you. I should have yelled.
Speaker 7 (14:50):
It wouldn't bring.
Speaker 6 (14:50):
Nothing but trouble.
Speaker 8 (14:51):
Where was your husband last night?
Speaker 6 (14:53):
He was here home with me the whole night.
Speaker 13 (14:55):
Yesterday you told me he left the house carrying a gun.
You were afraid he was gonna get into trouble.
Speaker 6 (15:00):
Know why I come and told you that once in
the w I I get play your days. It never happened,
Like I didn't dreaming.
Speaker 7 (15:06):
You join the rangel.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
A man came up here and paid your husband to
do something for him?
Speaker 6 (15:09):
Was that a dream too? I I don't know. Maybe
it was. I don't know nothing no more.
Speaker 13 (15:16):
Missus Dawson. Do you know a woman up in a
desta named Bella Ross?
Speaker 8 (15:20):
No ever hear your husband talk about it?
Speaker 10 (15:22):
No?
Speaker 6 (15:22):
Why you keep picking on top?
Speaker 7 (15:24):
When to leave?
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Must be I got a feeling, ma'am. You're not telling
us everything you know?
Speaker 6 (15:28):
Oh nothing to tell. I made a mistake yesterday and.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Force you to tell us anything. But we'll find out
what we wanna know. And if your husband has done
something wrong with.
Speaker 6 (15:37):
He ain't gonna tell you.
Speaker 7 (15:39):
He ain't tell nothing.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Wrong, alright, ma'am what'll be going now.
Speaker 10 (15:45):
Range?
Speaker 8 (15:45):
Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 12 (15:49):
Nothing.
Speaker 8 (15:50):
Goodbye, Miss Dawson, Ja.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
Said, woman's stories full of holes. She's lie.
Speaker 6 (15:58):
I know.
Speaker 8 (15:59):
I was kind of hope when she'd save us that
trip to Orbessa.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
You need to check on bellar Ross.
Speaker 13 (16:03):
Yeah, let's get up there and see if she fits
into this. When we arrived in Ardessa, we made inquiries
about Bella Ross. We learned she was a widow who
lived alone on her ranch ten miles out of town.
Oil had been discovered on her land several years before,
making a wealthy woman. We drove to a ranch, the
(16:25):
main house was locked and the blinds were drawn. Began
to suspect that Dawson's connection, whether there might have been
robbery or even murder. Just as we were about to
return to town and get a want to enter the house,
we spotted a cloud at best a few miles away.
We took the car and headed across the range. As
we approached, we saw if the best was made by
a group of men branding calves in a makeshift corral.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Jace, I think we're just wasting tern coming out here.
I don't think any of these boys.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
That have a cheated a house and if performer's out here,
he might.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Hey the man over there and here you got a
kid to the.
Speaker 7 (17:01):
Loss ranch house?
Speaker 10 (17:04):
Jeez?
Speaker 8 (17:05):
Yeah, are you bella loss?
Speaker 10 (17:08):
What about it?
Speaker 13 (17:09):
I mind your piercing. This is Sheriff Simmons. If you'd
like to ask you some questions ma'am when the share
go ahead? Have you noticed any strangers around your place
the last day or so?
Speaker 11 (17:18):
No, can't, says I have.
Speaker 8 (17:19):
Why you know a man named Dawson?
Speaker 9 (17:21):
Excuse me a second rate jo?
Speaker 7 (17:23):
Yeah, you jam?
Speaker 15 (17:25):
They care for how I handlem cad don't cost money.
Speaker 11 (17:29):
All these hands now.
Speaker 7 (17:30):
Dads just got no respect for stock.
Speaker 10 (17:33):
What's that feller's name?
Speaker 3 (17:34):
He was just asking about Dawson, Tom Dawson.
Speaker 11 (17:36):
No, I don't think I know him here from.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
Odessa from a high point.
Speaker 7 (17:40):
Oh, only one I know? Dom marries my nephew.
Speaker 9 (17:42):
Nephew I French, my dead sister's born.
Speaker 6 (17:45):
Only kind of got you know him?
Speaker 4 (17:46):
I have met him.
Speaker 6 (17:47):
Missus is a fine boy.
Speaker 9 (17:49):
Heindy, Well, that's your life, he is.
Speaker 15 (17:51):
I set him up on the tup pim a few
years ago, told him he just gonna get all my
money some day after prun he could make some on
his own ha's he been done just fine.
Speaker 9 (18:00):
If I'm never weak, then.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
You haven't been old there lately.
Speaker 11 (18:02):
No, But I'm a figuring to go down there soon.
I wrote and told Hi a couple of weeks ago
I was coming down. Look, I said, I didn't mind
answering questions, but I'd kind of like to know what
this is all about.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
A lot of alarm here, missus Ross.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
I may be long, but we think someone's trying to
make trouble for.
Speaker 7 (18:17):
You make trouble.
Speaker 11 (18:18):
Who'd want to do anything to me?
Speaker 13 (18:20):
That's something we can't say that we do a little
more checking. But in the meantime we'd like you to
stay in your house till we can get you a
police guard.
Speaker 11 (18:27):
Police guard that's done.
Speaker 9 (18:29):
Like crazy, reader, I can take care of myself.
Speaker 13 (18:32):
I'm afraid we'll have to insist on it. If you
don't mind, we'll take you back to the house with
us right now.
Speaker 15 (18:36):
Well, you probably know what you're doing, but I still
think it's crazy.
Speaker 11 (18:42):
Then I talk to my farm and then I'll be
right back with you.
Speaker 14 (18:45):
If your hairs do is if he's made the success
of his firm to bake, sure don't know about it.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
How do you mean bench has got the firm mortgaged
up to the hill.
Speaker 8 (18:53):
Thanks.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
I I ready to take it over.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
You've ever been out there or races any shall or
that'll be ever worked it?
Speaker 8 (18:59):
Maybe he's got our interests.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
I knowed Hars.
Speaker 14 (19:02):
He's got a reputation around time for being a no
good playboy.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
We've had him up on dirt charges a.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Couple of times, and I'm sure managed to fool his hand.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
Yeah, jeez, you starting to think the same as me,
that lady.
Speaker 14 (19:14):
It's Finch who's trying to get his hand out of
the way.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Maybe he's got everything to gain from it, and then
you reckon.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
Maybe we better pick him up and talk to it.
Speaker 13 (19:22):
We need something on him first. The only person who
can help us with that is Tom Dawson. And we
went back to high Point and began to question Dawson.
We told him we thought Finch had hired him to
kill Missus Ross. He continued to deny he had been
(19:42):
hired to kill anyone. I saw we were getting to
know where and figured Missus Dawson might be able to
help us make her husband talk, and drove out to
pick her up. The way into town, I told her
our suspicions. From her reaction, I was convinced she still
didn't know the nature of the job her husband had
been paid for. She told me she was sure Dawson
had changed his mind on his own accord. He had
returned home just before supper and had stayed there the
(20:04):
whole night. When we reached the Sheriff's office, I asked
missus Dawson to wait from the cordor. Then I joined
the sheriff, who was still questioning her husband and getting nowhere.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I tell you, I got nothing to say.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
And why do you guys keep trying to push me around?
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Nobody's trying to push you around.
Speaker 8 (20:19):
You get that idea out of your head, Dawson.
Speaker 16 (20:20):
We'll get along a lot better, uh me getting along
with cops.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Look, we know you didn't kill Bella Ross.
Speaker 13 (20:27):
We're pretty sure you didn't even try. But you were
hired to do it, weren't you.
Speaker 7 (20:31):
Well what if I was, I didn't do it?
Speaker 4 (20:32):
What made you change your mother?
Speaker 2 (20:33):
That's my business?
Speaker 7 (20:34):
Who hired you?
Speaker 8 (20:35):
Bench?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
You ain't going to make a stool pigeon out of me.
I don't tell nosey cops nothing. Why are you protecting him?
Don't you know you'll be convicted right along with him.
Speaker 7 (20:42):
Well what I didn't go through with him.
Speaker 8 (20:44):
Oh but you were in on the plans and that
makes you guilty.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
With your record, you could.
Speaker 8 (20:48):
Get ten years just for that ten years.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Oh what's it?
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Mate? Might as well be back in Huntsville as trying
to make a living outside.
Speaker 13 (20:58):
Nobody cares any Yeah, I think you're wrong about that.
You can come in now, missus Dawson.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Hello, Tom, Liz, what are you doing here range your bropping?
Speaker 6 (21:14):
You had not to come anyhow?
Speaker 7 (21:17):
What fur cause I love you.
Speaker 11 (21:20):
I don't want you locked up.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
You don't bother with me. I'm no good, Yes you are.
Speaker 11 (21:26):
If it's no good you to come through with that killing.
Speaker 6 (21:29):
If it's no good, I wouldn't ask the ranger to
stop you.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
You told the con.
Speaker 6 (21:33):
Yes, Tom, it did kill me, but I do it again.
I don't want you in jail.
Speaker 7 (21:38):
If on you mean the kid, sure to watch all
three your star.
Speaker 6 (21:42):
You'll make you out sooner or later.
Speaker 7 (21:44):
People will forget you ever been in jail. They ain't
never forget.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Man make a mistake, he paste for it all his life.
I go on, Liz, get yourself another man.
Speaker 6 (21:54):
That's the way you want it, Tom, that all you
care about me and the kid?
Speaker 7 (21:59):
Oh? Well, years I've been thinking your love.
Speaker 6 (22:01):
That's the way we love you.
Speaker 7 (22:03):
I reckon, I was wrong. List don't talk that way.
Why not?
Speaker 3 (22:06):
It's trying it nor it ain't your Can't you see
everything I've done was for you?
Speaker 7 (22:14):
Something works out over south?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Tom, don't what if we're gonna do really.
Speaker 7 (22:26):
Well looking to do?
Speaker 6 (22:30):
Tell them what they want to know the only way
we're gonna make a real clean start.
Speaker 7 (22:37):
Tell him Tom all right?
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Finch hides me. I couldn't go through with it. I
cached in the bus.
Speaker 16 (22:47):
Ticket, and then I took the gun and the money
back to his farm.
Speaker 8 (22:52):
What did he say? He wasn't there.
Speaker 16 (22:55):
I forgot he was gonna be away a few days.
I wrapped him up with a note and give him
to Finch's neighbor. And as far as Finch knows, you're
still going through the job. I reckon, So Dawson, it's
not gonna be easy to catch Finch. There's nothing that
says you have to do this, but we need your help.
Speaker 8 (23:12):
How about it?
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Come all right? I help you.
Speaker 13 (23:23):
We picked up the package containing the gun and money
and took it back.
Speaker 8 (23:26):
To Dawson's house.
Speaker 13 (23:27):
I figured it wouldn't be long before Finch got curious
and showed up there. Our job was to get the
evidence that would convict him. I sent for a couple
of labmen and had him ring a camera and a
hidden microphone in the brush near the house. We placed
the tape recorder inside the house, and we coded the
gun and money with a die that would come off
in a man's hands and could only be seen on
the ultraviolet light.
Speaker 8 (23:47):
We sent Missus, Dawson and.
Speaker 13 (23:48):
The children over to a neighbor's and then we waited
the first day.
Speaker 8 (23:51):
Nothing happened.
Speaker 13 (23:52):
On the evening of the second day, just after dark,
sheriff and I were standing in front of Dawson's house there.
Speaker 6 (23:58):
I don't know, Jeez could be Winch.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
He didn't read in the paper's bout his head being daid.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
He figured Dawson backed out of the job, and he
wanna know why.
Speaker 14 (24:05):
Maybe so, but I still think we ought to get
out of all poets on it.
Speaker 13 (24:08):
Suppose we did pick him up, he'd say, Dawson dreamed
the whole thing up in a court, and it just
be his word against Dawson.
Speaker 8 (24:14):
So I reckon we.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
Do need more evidence of regard, but all the same.
Speaker 7 (24:17):
Right?
Speaker 12 (24:17):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (24:17):
What cool?
Speaker 10 (24:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 9 (24:20):
I see the headlights.
Speaker 8 (24:21):
This could be him.
Speaker 7 (24:22):
Boys.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
You ready with the camera. Yeah right, let's get inside.
Speaker 9 (24:25):
Yeah uh, I wish it was still daylight. Those flash
balls will only give him more than chairs to get
the picture.
Speaker 8 (24:30):
Anybody can get a tight can.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
A common ranger.
Speaker 13 (24:34):
Somebody is better get ready and get over by the recorder, sheriff,
keep laws so he can't see us through the window.
Speaker 8 (24:39):
Yeah you ob me to switch over to the corner bay,
not you, Dawson. Yeah, sure to hand him the gun
so he won't know the bullets are missing.
Speaker 9 (24:47):
Okay, let him knock again. Now, I don't talk to
you a dust. Okay, I'll get the recorder.
Speaker 8 (25:06):
Okay, Jason, I've.
Speaker 17 (25:11):
Been watching the papers. I haven't seen any good news.
I ain't going through it. What you better get somebody else.
Here's a gun and the money, or give.
Speaker 10 (25:19):
Me boil it.
Speaker 17 (25:20):
It's more money than you has. All your hundred and
ninety dollars here, I use ten for groceries. I'll have
to pay you back when.
Speaker 10 (25:26):
I can adors some muck. I I give you two
thousand dollars.
Speaker 6 (25:29):
To get um.
Speaker 10 (25:30):
Yeah, it's no use. Four or three thousand. Yeah, you
want this stuff. I'll listen to me. That woman's my aunt.
She gonna leave me a lot of money. Good for you.
Speaker 18 (25:38):
Well now that she finds I ou't have done anything
with that farm she give me. She'd be down any time,
but dous missing me. I'll give you ten thousand dollars
to kill Bena Ross. If you don't take this stuff,
I'm gonna drop it.
Speaker 10 (25:47):
On the ground. Now, ticket and get out of here.
Speaker 18 (25:49):
Ten thousand bus a lot of food. Take it alright.
If you're thinking, what was that?
Speaker 7 (25:55):
Good over the life? What's going on here?
Speaker 13 (26:00):
You just had your picture taking fince and now you're
coming with us. Oh for trying to murder your aunt.
Speaker 9 (26:05):
Now gonna get me glad it Jays, come back here.
Speaker 7 (26:08):
I'll tell you with that gun.
Speaker 8 (26:12):
Put out your hands, let me a roll with it.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Go now, we're going to town.
Speaker 13 (26:16):
And see how that picture turns out. I got an idea.
It's one your.
Speaker 12 (26:19):
Aunt won't be proud to having her family album.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
In just a moment, we will tell you the results
of the case you have just heard.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
On Thursday, July third, NBC will bring you the third
in the special series of broadcasts in advance of the
Republican National Convention, which will take place in Chicago. The
program will feature well known NBC newsman assigned to the
headquarters of the major candidates. You will find you a
favorite commentators and reporters in Chicago, w W, Chaplain Meryl,
(27:00):
Richard Harkness and Bob Lets. These NBC newsmen will describe
campaign headquarters operations and they will interview campaign managers and
other key figures in the camps of Tafft, Eisenhower, Warren
and Stassen. Yes, the NBC microphones will listen in to
every detail and report it to you. Consult your local
newspaper for broadcast time and be sure to join us Thursday,
(27:22):
July third for headquarters report. This program is another step
forward making it possible for you to follow the campaign
of the next president on NBC Now Tales of the
Texas Rangers and.
Speaker 7 (27:50):
Now here are the results.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
In the case you have just heard, I Fence was
tried for conspiracy to commit murder.
Speaker 7 (27:56):
Because of Dozen's.
Speaker 19 (27:57):
Assistance and obtaining evidence for the state, the court dismissed
the case against him. The judge convinced the local farma
to give duson a probationary job.
Speaker 9 (28:05):
He was later taken on permanently.
Speaker 19 (28:07):
Arfrench was sentenced to ten years in Huntsville Benitentiary.
Speaker 7 (28:14):
Next week Joel McClean.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Another authentic reenactment of the case from the files on
the Texas Rangers Technical Advisor was Captain Mt. Lonewolf, Consolate
(28:45):
of the Texas Rangers. This story was transcribed and adapted
by Charles E. Israel, and the program was produced and
directed by Stacy Keach.
Speaker 7 (28:53):
He'll give me speaking.
Speaker 12 (29:00):
M H.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
Wednesdays here the Best of Croud Show on nbc
Speaker 10 (29:13):
B
Tales of the Texas Rangers, starring Joel McCrae as Ranger
Chase Pearson. Another authentic reenactment of a case transcribed from
the files of the Texas Rangers.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Name, dates, and places.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
In the following story are fictitious for obvious reasons. The
events themselves are a matter of records.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
In this election year, this station is making it possible
for you to follow the campaign of the next president.
On NBC Tuesday, y July first, be sure to hear
another of NBC's pre convention broadcasts. This program is called
Convention City. It will offer you a complete description of
the arrangements being made in Chicago, the host city of
both the Republican and Democratic conventions this year. Jim Hrbert
(01:15):
of NBC Chicago will serve as your host. The program
will include interviews with Chicago officials in charge of the
convention arrangements.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
You will hear the unusual.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Problems resulting from the almost gigantic task of entertaining the
two major party conventions. We're sure you'll find this a
fascinating program, so consult your local newspaper for broadcast time
and join us Tuesday, July first for Convention City. This
is another special program brought to you so you may
follow the campaign of the next president on NBC Now
(01:48):
Tales of the Texas Rangers and now from.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
The files of the Texas Rangers. It's the case called
x Con.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
It is ten thirty in the morning of September fourteenth,
nineteen forty ten miles outside the town of High Point
in southwest Texas. A thin, worn looking woman sits in
the back room of a run down house. She's sowing
a patch on a pair of child's dungarees when she
hears the front door open.
Speaker 6 (02:26):
Who's asked?
Speaker 7 (02:27):
It's me, Tom?
Speaker 6 (02:31):
What you doing home this time of day?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
We're the kids?
Speaker 6 (02:34):
I playing somewhere. Why ain't you down to the packing house?
Didn't the new job work out?
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (02:40):
It worked out real good for an hour, the whole hour.
To let me clean up the place. Now, suddenly do
that now, wasn't it, Liz?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
What happened?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Same thing that's happened before. I seen somebody whispering to
the Boston point and at me. I could see this
guy's fat mouth making the words killer ex con, same
words everybody or always whispers.
Speaker 8 (03:00):
When they look at me.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
And the boss comes out and says he got somebody
else from a job.
Speaker 6 (03:04):
Did he pay you?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, here seventy cents.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Get some meat and milk for the kids, and don't
forget to put what's left in a bank.
Speaker 6 (03:13):
Talking like that, he ain't gonna help now.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I don't know what helps a quick nagging.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
I'm sick and tired of it telling me what I
should and shouldn't do.
Speaker 7 (03:22):
Shut up, shut up, I tell you.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Liz, Oh, Liz, honey Comb. I didn't mean it, Honey,
I'm sorry. No, it's just everything's all wrong. I don't
know what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 6 (03:37):
I got a feeling everything's gonna be all right. But
there was even a morning. You're looking for you this morning?
Speaker 2 (03:43):
What kind of man?
Speaker 6 (03:44):
Yeah, real good clothes on a pretty car putting.
Speaker 9 (03:48):
Could be that fellow from over at the brickyard.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
He almost give me a job when I get out
of the pens that do it?
Speaker 7 (03:53):
Must me.
Speaker 10 (03:54):
Maybe he's got a job for me loading bricks.
Speaker 6 (03:56):
See my bunt you offul ball.
Speaker 11 (03:57):
But he was talking loading.
Speaker 7 (03:58):
Bridge in bad work.
Speaker 10 (04:00):
To get a whole buck an hour easy, maybe a
bucket of quarter.
Speaker 7 (04:03):
Sure you will.
Speaker 6 (04:04):
I don't want to worry no more about.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
What you get somebody outside. Don't jack, Oh, I can't
let him see me. And he's dirty.
Speaker 6 (04:11):
Cl It won't make no difference.
Speaker 7 (04:12):
Do a little.
Speaker 6 (04:13):
Corrier, just fine, Tom? Where you hang over your hands?
Speaker 10 (04:17):
Donald?
Speaker 9 (04:17):
Here?
Speaker 11 (04:19):
Oh you look just fine.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
I got a funny feeling in my stomach.
Speaker 6 (04:23):
Don't be every toney, I'm coming.
Speaker 7 (04:28):
I'll be right there.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Sorry, keep ah, it's you.
Speaker 9 (04:34):
I'll talk to you.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Doesn't just a second. I'm going outside, honey.
Speaker 7 (04:39):
Don't you want to bring it up?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
How many times I gotta tell you to stay away
from me?
Speaker 7 (04:45):
Oh? Look, it ain't enough.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
If you come clawing around me in town. Now you
gotta come up to my house. I'm only trying to
offer your job. I come to your farm for a job.
You turned me down that I was different. But it's
okay to ask me to do your dirty work.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
And don't look at it that way, ay Dowson, Well,
we're just helping each other.
Speaker 9 (05:02):
I told you before.
Speaker 7 (05:03):
I don't go for killing it.
Speaker 5 (05:05):
Suppose I give you a thousand for the job instead
of five hundred. By wait a minute, there's a business proposition, Dawson.
Speaker 9 (05:13):
I know you can't get a job.
Speaker 7 (05:14):
I care along.
Speaker 9 (05:15):
Daving fired you down the packing house. You never get
a job runn here?
Speaker 7 (05:19):
You let me worry about that.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
You already warring plenty.
Speaker 9 (05:22):
I can see that.
Speaker 6 (05:24):
I listen.
Speaker 9 (05:24):
It's an old lady in the town north here, and
all you gotta do.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Is get rid of her.
Speaker 7 (05:28):
Why'd you come to me?
Speaker 9 (05:30):
Cause you're the only one I know can do it.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Oh but I beat your lousy face.
Speaker 9 (05:34):
Now, will your rock cut out that stuff? This is business,
thousand dollars for easy job. I buy it, doesn't I?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
All right?
Speaker 9 (05:46):
Well that's more like bella.
Speaker 5 (05:50):
Here's a name and address on a slip of paper,
and here's a gunner.
Speaker 6 (05:55):
I don't care how.
Speaker 9 (05:55):
You do it, but try and make it look like robbery.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
What about the money?
Speaker 9 (06:00):
There's a hundred? Now get the rest when I read
about it in.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
The papers where you're gonna be away with friends for
a few days, and I don't need money to.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Get up there and back.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
All right, Yeah, there's another hundred. I don't waste any
time getting started. I wanna be reading good news in
the papers soon. Yeah, it's jerdy, lousy.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
If you give me your husband, here's some money, a hundred.
Speaker 6 (06:29):
You be studied, work it? How come you give you
a her mind.
Speaker 7 (06:33):
I take the money. Well you shut up. I gotta
go up north for day, so you're not.
Speaker 6 (06:39):
Gonna work the brickyard.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
No, and quit asking questions.
Speaker 6 (06:43):
What'd you just put in that?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Say nothing?
Speaker 10 (06:45):
I want to see you get away from here.
Speaker 6 (06:46):
List kid, how do you could do this?
Speaker 12 (06:49):
Cool?
Speaker 7 (06:50):
I told you to keep a wanney.
Speaker 6 (06:51):
Get something bad. You gonna get in trouble again, get
all the it's time. I don't want yard about the kids.
Speaker 7 (06:59):
You want to go I've known.
Speaker 9 (07:03):
Yeah, go ahead say it.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
No when I follows a car, what I wright? Three
years in that penn and you get the name for
life anyhow?
Speaker 7 (07:12):
So well, my dam we were on.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Tom, I'll see as soon as I get back.
Speaker 7 (07:17):
No, no, Tom, believe me alone. Tom, don't do it.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
Ten minutes after Tom Dawson left the house, his wife
took the children to her neighbors. At noon, she appeared
at a Texas Ranger Company headquarters.
Speaker 9 (07:39):
The distressed woman told her story to Range her Jason Pierson.
Speaker 6 (07:44):
I'm sorry, Ranger. I don't mean to keep rolling like.
Speaker 7 (07:49):
That's all right now, don't eat mad.
Speaker 6 (07:52):
Nobody knows that Ben and me. I didn't want to
come here, but he couldn't keep him getting locked up again.
Speaker 13 (08:00):
We'll do everything we can to help. Now, about this
man who came to your place this morning. You say
you never saw him before.
Speaker 6 (08:06):
This morning was first time, and you.
Speaker 8 (08:08):
Don't know what he paid your husband to do.
Speaker 6 (08:10):
No, but it must have been something bad else.
Speaker 7 (08:14):
He wanted to give Tom a gun.
Speaker 8 (08:16):
You sure your husband said he was heading north.
Speaker 6 (08:17):
I'm sure that Tom was a fool with a gun before.
He wouldn't hurt nobody on purpose. But he's got an
awful bad temper.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
I'm afraid we already know that from his record, ma'am.
Speaker 6 (08:29):
The trouble he got into before that was an accident.
He didn't mean to kill Bob peters An wouldn't give
him his wages, and Tom got mad and hit him.
Speaker 13 (08:38):
He served his time for that, Missus Dawson. Our problem
is to keep him from getting into any more trouble.
Speaker 6 (08:43):
I don't know what I'll do if he has to
go to jail again.
Speaker 7 (08:46):
It's awful.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
The last time, Oh Ranger, you got us top Tom
from doing something bad.
Speaker 7 (08:52):
You got to We.
Speaker 13 (08:53):
Will, ma'am, if we can find him. I'd put out
in all points bulleting on Tom Dawson. Then took missus
Dawson home. Sheriff Simson high Point agreed to help me
in the search. We decided on the bus station. It's
the first likely place to check. At two fifteen that afternoon,
we entered the Trailways bus depot and off toward the
(09:15):
ticket window.
Speaker 14 (09:17):
Yeah, he'd think a fella like Gospel would have learned
enough to keep out of trouble.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
But he was here.
Speaker 7 (09:21):
He's up too loud and.
Speaker 13 (09:22):
Might be anything, Sheriff Burglary stick up, even killing him right,
whatever it is, I hope we.
Speaker 8 (09:26):
Can get to him before it's too late.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
We sure hope we can get a lead here.
Speaker 6 (09:30):
Suppose can I help you range your sheriff?
Speaker 8 (09:33):
And I'd like to ask you a few questions?
Speaker 6 (09:35):
Miss sure? Oh excuse me a second.
Speaker 15 (09:38):
I got to announce that busy now. Oh sure, I'm glad,
but not two thirty bus leaves. He ain't only got
another half.
Speaker 6 (09:53):
Hour to work.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Uh huh?
Speaker 8 (09:56):
Do you mind taking a look at that photo? You've
seen this in here today?
Speaker 10 (10:02):
Well?
Speaker 11 (10:02):
I think I have.
Speaker 15 (10:03):
Yeah, he was in here, bought a ticket for me
where too see now it was somewhere up north.
Speaker 11 (10:10):
I'm sorry, Sheriff, I don't remember I just pay up.
Speaker 8 (10:12):
You were sure he was here though, Well I'm sure.
Speaker 11 (10:15):
That all right.
Speaker 15 (10:16):
Reason I'm so positive that gave me a hundred dollar
bill when I gave him change it couldn't he have
cleaned out in the car straw?
Speaker 8 (10:21):
What time was this?
Speaker 11 (10:22):
Well I knew it was some time afternoon, but I'm
not two short winds.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
What buses do you have going north in the afternoon?
Speaker 11 (10:28):
Just too the one thirty and the call fifteen.
Speaker 8 (10:31):
I miss thanks a lot.
Speaker 14 (10:33):
No everybody's ticket before it had a one thirty month
I left he could be on it.
Speaker 13 (10:37):
Gee, yeah, I figure it's gonna take us just about
two hours to find out if he is. We drove
north and overtook the one thirty bus after it and
traveled a little over a hundred miles. Dawson was not aboard.
We checked the four fifteen bus. He wasn't on it either.
(11:00):
By eleven the next morning, we'd combed all of the
town's where he could have stopped off, still no trace
of him. He gave up the search and headed back
towards high Point. By noon we were just coming into town.
Speaker 14 (11:11):
I'm really beat, Jason. When I get to bed, I'm
not gonna move for two days.
Speaker 8 (11:15):
It's sure have been a long night.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
The worst part of it is we didn't accomplish a thing.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
We can be pretty sure whatever Dawson got paid to do.
Speaker 8 (11:21):
He's probably done it by now.
Speaker 14 (11:23):
I sure feel sorry for that wife his If Dawson
gets filled up, now it's gonna be prolong.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
What are you stopping here for?
Speaker 8 (11:30):
Over there, Sheriff coming out of that feed store.
Speaker 9 (11:33):
Well, I'll Dawson right on Main Street.
Speaker 8 (11:37):
Let's go.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
He must see it.
Speaker 8 (11:41):
But he don't seem to bother him.
Speaker 9 (11:42):
He's just standing there.
Speaker 13 (11:44):
He could be playing at KG. Watch yourself. Yeah, Jesse's
starting to.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Move all at Dawson.
Speaker 7 (11:50):
What do you gonna want?
Speaker 8 (11:51):
We like to talk to you.
Speaker 9 (11:52):
What about about a bus ride you took yesterday?
Speaker 13 (11:55):
You crazy?
Speaker 2 (11:56):
I ain't been on a bus months.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
Risking, Sheriff, put your hands over your head.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Why can't you guys leave me alone?
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Just because there's spent a few years and if no gun, jess,
what are you talking about?
Speaker 7 (12:06):
Gun? I never had no gun.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
Here's his wallet, nothing, not even the dollar that's right?
Speaker 3 (12:12):
And you know why, because you guys won't leave me
alone so as I can get a.
Speaker 7 (12:15):
Job like just down at feet.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Start that there's sending in this inside pocket.
Speaker 8 (12:20):
Yeah, a slip of paper.
Speaker 13 (12:22):
I wanted to say, bellolass RFD twelve.
Speaker 8 (12:25):
Odessa, give me that was Bellows.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
That's my business.
Speaker 14 (12:28):
Odessa is north here, Jas, It's only two hundred mile.
Duncan could have made it up and back since yesterday?
Or you and our best the last night Dawson, Then
where were you?
Speaker 7 (12:36):
Well?
Speaker 2 (12:36):
I always am knights home and you prove it.
Speaker 7 (12:38):
Sure, go talk to my wife.
Speaker 10 (12:40):
She'll tell you I was home the whole night.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
In just a moment, we will continue with Tales of
the Texas Rangers, starring Joel McCrae as Ranger Jace Pearson.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
There's a price tag in almost everything. Whether you drive
a Shining You nineteen fifty two model or a pre
war Jilloppy, you had to pay the price. And when
you are driving that car, remember that speed also has
its price, death or injuries that can cripple you for life.
You may speed at times and get away with it,
but the odds are too strongly against you that in
some tight spot you will make a mistake while speeding.
(13:22):
It'll be curtains for you, or you'll have it on
your conscience for the rest of your days that you
took a life that you, and you alone, could have avoided.
Speaker 8 (13:30):
If you weren't speeding.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
The price tag on speed violations last year was fifteen
thousand killed and five hundred thousand injured. This year, thousands
of lives can be saved if you and millions of
other motorists come to the sober realization that speed is
the biggest killer on the highways. You can do your
part at all times. Drive as though your life depends
(13:52):
on it.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
It does.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Now we return to the Texas Rangers.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
We continue now with tales of the Texas Rangers and
our authentic story.
Speaker 7 (14:10):
X Con.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Tom Dawson continued to insist that he'd been home the
night before.
Speaker 13 (14:21):
He wanted to check his story, so we left him
at the Sheriff's office and drove out to see his wife.
Speaker 8 (14:28):
How can we come in, missus Dawson?
Speaker 6 (14:31):
Yeah, yeah, you need to me. Thanks, What do you want?
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Just like to talk to you about your husband.
Speaker 6 (14:38):
Tom ain't done nothing.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
We're not saying he has, but after talking to him
in town, we got a few things.
Speaker 8 (14:42):
We want to clear up.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
You talk to town where the sheriff's office seem.
Speaker 6 (14:46):
Done up, And I'll tell you wish I'd never come
to you. I should have yelled.
Speaker 7 (14:50):
It wouldn't bring.
Speaker 6 (14:50):
Nothing but trouble.
Speaker 8 (14:51):
Where was your husband last night?
Speaker 6 (14:53):
He was here home with me the whole night.
Speaker 13 (14:55):
Yesterday you told me he left the house carrying a gun.
You were afraid he was gonna get into trouble.
Speaker 6 (15:00):
Know why I come and told you that once in
the w I I get play your days. It never happened,
Like I didn't dreaming.
Speaker 7 (15:06):
You join the rangel.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
A man came up here and paid your husband to
do something for him?
Speaker 6 (15:09):
Was that a dream too? I I don't know. Maybe
it was. I don't know nothing no more.
Speaker 13 (15:16):
Missus Dawson. Do you know a woman up in a
desta named Bella Ross?
Speaker 8 (15:20):
No ever hear your husband talk about it?
Speaker 10 (15:22):
No?
Speaker 6 (15:22):
Why you keep picking on top?
Speaker 7 (15:24):
When to leave?
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Must be I got a feeling, ma'am. You're not telling
us everything you know?
Speaker 6 (15:28):
Oh nothing to tell. I made a mistake yesterday and.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Force you to tell us anything. But we'll find out
what we wanna know. And if your husband has done
something wrong with.
Speaker 6 (15:37):
He ain't gonna tell you.
Speaker 7 (15:39):
He ain't tell nothing.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Wrong, alright, ma'am what'll be going now.
Speaker 10 (15:45):
Range?
Speaker 8 (15:45):
Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 12 (15:49):
Nothing.
Speaker 8 (15:50):
Goodbye, Miss Dawson, Ja.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
Said, woman's stories full of holes. She's lie.
Speaker 6 (15:58):
I know.
Speaker 8 (15:59):
I was kind of hope when she'd save us that
trip to Orbessa.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
You need to check on bellar Ross.
Speaker 13 (16:03):
Yeah, let's get up there and see if she fits
into this. When we arrived in Ardessa, we made inquiries
about Bella Ross. We learned she was a widow who
lived alone on her ranch ten miles out of town.
Oil had been discovered on her land several years before,
making a wealthy woman. We drove to a ranch, the
(16:25):
main house was locked and the blinds were drawn. Began
to suspect that Dawson's connection, whether there might have been
robbery or even murder. Just as we were about to
return to town and get a want to enter the house,
we spotted a cloud at best a few miles away.
We took the car and headed across the range. As
we approached, we saw if the best was made by
a group of men branding calves in a makeshift corral.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Jace, I think we're just wasting tern coming out here.
I don't think any of these boys.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
That have a cheated a house and if performer's out here,
he might.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Hey the man over there and here you got a
kid to the.
Speaker 7 (17:01):
Loss ranch house?
Speaker 10 (17:04):
Jeez?
Speaker 8 (17:05):
Yeah, are you bella loss?
Speaker 10 (17:08):
What about it?
Speaker 13 (17:09):
I mind your piercing. This is Sheriff Simmons. If you'd
like to ask you some questions ma'am when the share
go ahead? Have you noticed any strangers around your place
the last day or so?
Speaker 11 (17:18):
No, can't, says I have.
Speaker 8 (17:19):
Why you know a man named Dawson?
Speaker 9 (17:21):
Excuse me a second rate jo?
Speaker 7 (17:23):
Yeah, you jam?
Speaker 15 (17:25):
They care for how I handlem cad don't cost money.
Speaker 11 (17:29):
All these hands now.
Speaker 7 (17:30):
Dads just got no respect for stock.
Speaker 10 (17:33):
What's that feller's name?
Speaker 3 (17:34):
He was just asking about Dawson, Tom Dawson.
Speaker 11 (17:36):
No, I don't think I know him here from.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
Odessa from a high point.
Speaker 7 (17:40):
Oh, only one I know? Dom marries my nephew.
Speaker 9 (17:42):
Nephew I French, my dead sister's born.
Speaker 6 (17:45):
Only kind of got you know him?
Speaker 4 (17:46):
I have met him.
Speaker 6 (17:47):
Missus is a fine boy.
Speaker 9 (17:49):
Heindy, Well, that's your life, he is.
Speaker 15 (17:51):
I set him up on the tup pim a few
years ago, told him he just gonna get all my
money some day after prun he could make some on
his own ha's he been done just fine.
Speaker 9 (18:00):
If I'm never weak, then.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
You haven't been old there lately.
Speaker 11 (18:02):
No, But I'm a figuring to go down there soon.
I wrote and told Hi a couple of weeks ago
I was coming down. Look, I said, I didn't mind
answering questions, but I'd kind of like to know what
this is all about.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
A lot of alarm here, missus Ross.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
I may be long, but we think someone's trying to
make trouble for.
Speaker 7 (18:17):
You make trouble.
Speaker 11 (18:18):
Who'd want to do anything to me?
Speaker 13 (18:20):
That's something we can't say that we do a little
more checking. But in the meantime we'd like you to
stay in your house till we can get you a
police guard.
Speaker 11 (18:27):
Police guard that's done.
Speaker 9 (18:29):
Like crazy, reader, I can take care of myself.
Speaker 13 (18:32):
I'm afraid we'll have to insist on it. If you
don't mind, we'll take you back to the house with
us right now.
Speaker 15 (18:36):
Well, you probably know what you're doing, but I still
think it's crazy.
Speaker 11 (18:42):
Then I talk to my farm and then I'll be
right back with you.
Speaker 14 (18:45):
If your hairs do is if he's made the success
of his firm to bake, sure don't know about it.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
How do you mean bench has got the firm mortgaged
up to the hill.
Speaker 8 (18:53):
Thanks.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
I I ready to take it over.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
You've ever been out there or races any shall or
that'll be ever worked it?
Speaker 8 (18:59):
Maybe he's got our interests.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
I knowed Hars.
Speaker 14 (19:02):
He's got a reputation around time for being a no
good playboy.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
We've had him up on dirt charges a.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Couple of times, and I'm sure managed to fool his hand.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
Yeah, jeez, you starting to think the same as me,
that lady.
Speaker 14 (19:14):
It's Finch who's trying to get his hand out of
the way.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Maybe he's got everything to gain from it, and then
you reckon.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
Maybe we better pick him up and talk to it.
Speaker 13 (19:22):
We need something on him first. The only person who
can help us with that is Tom Dawson. And we
went back to high Point and began to question Dawson.
We told him we thought Finch had hired him to
kill Missus Ross. He continued to deny he had been
(19:42):
hired to kill anyone. I saw we were getting to
know where and figured Missus Dawson might be able to
help us make her husband talk, and drove out to
pick her up. The way into town, I told her
our suspicions. From her reaction, I was convinced she still
didn't know the nature of the job her husband had
been paid for. She told me she was sure Dawson
had changed his mind on his own accord. He had
returned home just before supper and had stayed there the
(20:04):
whole night. When we reached the Sheriff's office, I asked
missus Dawson to wait from the cordor. Then I joined
the sheriff, who was still questioning her husband and getting nowhere.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I tell you, I got nothing to say.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
And why do you guys keep trying to push me around?
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Nobody's trying to push you around.
Speaker 8 (20:19):
You get that idea out of your head, Dawson.
Speaker 16 (20:20):
We'll get along a lot better, uh me getting along
with cops.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Look, we know you didn't kill Bella Ross.
Speaker 13 (20:27):
We're pretty sure you didn't even try. But you were
hired to do it, weren't you.
Speaker 7 (20:31):
Well what if I was, I didn't do it?
Speaker 4 (20:32):
What made you change your mother?
Speaker 2 (20:33):
That's my business?
Speaker 7 (20:34):
Who hired you?
Speaker 8 (20:35):
Bench?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
You ain't going to make a stool pigeon out of me.
I don't tell nosey cops nothing. Why are you protecting him?
Don't you know you'll be convicted right along with him.
Speaker 7 (20:42):
Well what I didn't go through with him.
Speaker 8 (20:44):
Oh but you were in on the plans and that
makes you guilty.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
With your record, you could.
Speaker 8 (20:48):
Get ten years just for that ten years.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Oh what's it?
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Mate? Might as well be back in Huntsville as trying
to make a living outside.
Speaker 13 (20:58):
Nobody cares any Yeah, I think you're wrong about that.
You can come in now, missus Dawson.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Hello, Tom, Liz, what are you doing here range your bropping?
Speaker 6 (21:14):
You had not to come anyhow?
Speaker 7 (21:17):
What fur cause I love you.
Speaker 11 (21:20):
I don't want you locked up.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
You don't bother with me. I'm no good, Yes you are.
Speaker 11 (21:26):
If it's no good you to come through with that killing.
Speaker 6 (21:29):
If it's no good, I wouldn't ask the ranger to
stop you.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
You told the con.
Speaker 6 (21:33):
Yes, Tom, it did kill me, but I do it again.
I don't want you in jail.
Speaker 7 (21:38):
If on you mean the kid, sure to watch all
three your star.
Speaker 6 (21:42):
You'll make you out sooner or later.
Speaker 7 (21:44):
People will forget you ever been in jail. They ain't
never forget.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Man make a mistake, he paste for it all his life.
I go on, Liz, get yourself another man.
Speaker 6 (21:54):
That's the way you want it, Tom, that all you
care about me and the kid?
Speaker 7 (21:59):
Oh? Well, years I've been thinking your love.
Speaker 6 (22:01):
That's the way we love you.
Speaker 7 (22:03):
I reckon, I was wrong. List don't talk that way.
Why not?
Speaker 3 (22:06):
It's trying it nor it ain't your Can't you see
everything I've done was for you?
Speaker 7 (22:14):
Something works out over south?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Tom, don't what if we're gonna do really.
Speaker 7 (22:26):
Well looking to do?
Speaker 6 (22:30):
Tell them what they want to know the only way
we're gonna make a real clean start.
Speaker 7 (22:37):
Tell him Tom all right?
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Finch hides me. I couldn't go through with it. I
cached in the bus.
Speaker 16 (22:47):
Ticket, and then I took the gun and the money
back to his farm.
Speaker 8 (22:52):
What did he say? He wasn't there.
Speaker 16 (22:55):
I forgot he was gonna be away a few days.
I wrapped him up with a note and give him
to Finch's neighbor. And as far as Finch knows, you're
still going through the job. I reckon, So Dawson, it's
not gonna be easy to catch Finch. There's nothing that
says you have to do this, but we need your help.
Speaker 8 (23:12):
How about it?
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Come all right? I help you.
Speaker 13 (23:23):
We picked up the package containing the gun and money
and took it back.
Speaker 8 (23:26):
To Dawson's house.
Speaker 13 (23:27):
I figured it wouldn't be long before Finch got curious
and showed up there. Our job was to get the
evidence that would convict him. I sent for a couple
of labmen and had him ring a camera and a
hidden microphone in the brush near the house. We placed
the tape recorder inside the house, and we coded the
gun and money with a die that would come off
in a man's hands and could only be seen on
the ultraviolet light.
Speaker 8 (23:47):
We sent Missus, Dawson and.
Speaker 13 (23:48):
The children over to a neighbor's and then we waited
the first day.
Speaker 8 (23:51):
Nothing happened.
Speaker 13 (23:52):
On the evening of the second day, just after dark,
sheriff and I were standing in front of Dawson's house there.
Speaker 6 (23:58):
I don't know, Jeez could be Winch.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
He didn't read in the paper's bout his head being daid.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
He figured Dawson backed out of the job, and he
wanna know why.
Speaker 14 (24:05):
Maybe so, but I still think we ought to get
out of all poets on it.
Speaker 13 (24:08):
Suppose we did pick him up, he'd say, Dawson dreamed
the whole thing up in a court, and it just
be his word against Dawson.
Speaker 8 (24:14):
So I reckon we.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
Do need more evidence of regard, but all the same.
Speaker 7 (24:17):
Right?
Speaker 12 (24:17):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (24:17):
What cool?
Speaker 10 (24:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 9 (24:20):
I see the headlights.
Speaker 8 (24:21):
This could be him.
Speaker 7 (24:22):
Boys.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
You ready with the camera. Yeah right, let's get inside.
Speaker 9 (24:25):
Yeah uh, I wish it was still daylight. Those flash
balls will only give him more than chairs to get
the picture.
Speaker 8 (24:30):
Anybody can get a tight can.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
A common ranger.
Speaker 13 (24:34):
Somebody is better get ready and get over by the recorder, sheriff,
keep laws so he can't see us through the window.
Speaker 8 (24:39):
Yeah you ob me to switch over to the corner bay,
not you, Dawson. Yeah, sure to hand him the gun
so he won't know the bullets are missing.
Speaker 9 (24:47):
Okay, let him knock again. Now, I don't talk to
you a dust. Okay, I'll get the recorder.
Speaker 8 (25:06):
Okay, Jason, I've.
Speaker 17 (25:11):
Been watching the papers. I haven't seen any good news.
I ain't going through it. What you better get somebody else.
Here's a gun and the money, or give.
Speaker 10 (25:19):
Me boil it.
Speaker 17 (25:20):
It's more money than you has. All your hundred and
ninety dollars here, I use ten for groceries. I'll have
to pay you back when.
Speaker 10 (25:26):
I can adors some muck. I I give you two
thousand dollars.
Speaker 6 (25:29):
To get um.
Speaker 10 (25:30):
Yeah, it's no use. Four or three thousand. Yeah, you
want this stuff. I'll listen to me. That woman's my aunt.
She gonna leave me a lot of money. Good for you.
Speaker 18 (25:38):
Well now that she finds I ou't have done anything
with that farm she give me. She'd be down any time,
but dous missing me. I'll give you ten thousand dollars
to kill Bena Ross. If you don't take this stuff,
I'm gonna drop it.
Speaker 10 (25:47):
On the ground. Now, ticket and get out of here.
Speaker 18 (25:49):
Ten thousand bus a lot of food. Take it alright.
If you're thinking, what was that?
Speaker 7 (25:55):
Good over the life? What's going on here?
Speaker 13 (26:00):
You just had your picture taking fince and now you're
coming with us. Oh for trying to murder your aunt.
Speaker 9 (26:05):
Now gonna get me glad it Jays, come back here.
Speaker 7 (26:08):
I'll tell you with that gun.
Speaker 8 (26:12):
Put out your hands, let me a roll with it.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Go now, we're going to town.
Speaker 13 (26:16):
And see how that picture turns out. I got an idea.
It's one your.
Speaker 12 (26:19):
Aunt won't be proud to having her family album.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
In just a moment, we will tell you the results
of the case you have just heard.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
On Thursday, July third, NBC will bring you the third
in the special series of broadcasts in advance of the
Republican National Convention, which will take place in Chicago. The
program will feature well known NBC newsman assigned to the
headquarters of the major candidates. You will find you a
favorite commentators and reporters in Chicago, w W, Chaplain Meryl,
(27:00):
Richard Harkness and Bob Lets. These NBC newsmen will describe
campaign headquarters operations and they will interview campaign managers and
other key figures in the camps of Tafft, Eisenhower, Warren
and Stassen. Yes, the NBC microphones will listen in to
every detail and report it to you. Consult your local
newspaper for broadcast time and be sure to join us Thursday,
(27:22):
July third for headquarters report. This program is another step
forward making it possible for you to follow the campaign
of the next president on NBC Now Tales of the
Texas Rangers and.
Speaker 7 (27:50):
Now here are the results.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
In the case you have just heard, I Fence was
tried for conspiracy to commit murder.
Speaker 7 (27:56):
Because of Dozen's.
Speaker 19 (27:57):
Assistance and obtaining evidence for the state, the court dismissed
the case against him. The judge convinced the local farma
to give duson a probationary job.
Speaker 9 (28:05):
He was later taken on permanently.
Speaker 19 (28:07):
Arfrench was sentenced to ten years in Huntsville Benitentiary.
Speaker 7 (28:14):
Next week Joel McClean.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Another authentic reenactment of the case from the files on
the Texas Rangers Technical Advisor was Captain Mt. Lonewolf, Consolate
(28:45):
of the Texas Rangers. This story was transcribed and adapted
by Charles E. Israel, and the program was produced and
directed by Stacy Keach.
Speaker 7 (28:53):
He'll give me speaking.
Speaker 12 (29:00):
M H.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
Wednesdays here the Best of Croud Show on nbc
Speaker 10 (29:13):
B
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Law & Order: Criminal Justice System - Season 1 & Season 2
Season Two Out Now! Law & Order: Criminal Justice System tells the real stories behind the landmark cases that have shaped how the most dangerous and influential criminals in America are prosecuted. In its second season, the series tackles the threat of terrorism in the United States. From the rise of extremist political groups in the 60s to domestic lone wolves in the modern day, we explore how organizations like the FBI and Joint Terrorism Take Force have evolved to fight back against a multitude of terrorist threats.