Memory is Weird

Heard on the Big Broadcast

I was listening to WAMU's Sunday evening classic radio show, and there was a 1950 episode of Dragnet on titled, "The Big Badge."

The perp in the story pretends to be a cop, and  robs and rapes couples who are "parking" in remote areas, pretending to be a cop, and disorienting his victims with a flashlight.

I'm listening to this, and it hits me, "Holy sh%$, it's Caryl Chessman," who was sentenced to death, and later executed, under California's "Little Lindburgh Law," which allowed the death penalty for kidnapping where no death results.  (It does not any more)

The last time I was encountered Chessman's story was in high school in the late 1970s, when I read an essay from Chessman about the death penalty.

As an aside, that California kidnapping statute provides one of the only clear data points on the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent.

Specifically, it led to the Onion Field Murders, where a police officer was killed BECAUSE of the death penalty attached to the law.

You now have the results of an old memory, followed up by way too much time going down the Google/Wikipedia rabbit hole.