# The Big Story: More Tragic than Murder (EP5027)

An episode of [The Great Detectives of Old Time Radio| Daily Mystery Dramas](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/335549005), 28 Jul 2026, 34 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pdrl.fm/997ffb/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/73208258/gd5027.mp3

Today's Mystery: When rumors spread through rural Kansas that a woman has concealed her mother's death for years, Hiawatha Daily World reporter Virgil Hill uncovers a heartbreaking truth that proves far more tragic than murder. Original Radio Broadcast: April 25, 1951 Originating from New York Starring Bill Lipton as Virgil HillAlso featuring Agnes Young, Ethel Owen, James Stevens, Bill Smith, Charles Eggleston, Bill Griffiths, and Jason Johnson Support the podcast monthly at https://patreon.greatdetectives.net Patreon Supporter of the Day: Stuart, Patreon supporter since November 2022 Support the show on a one-time basis at https://support.greatdetectives.net Mail a donation to:Adam Graham PO Box 15913 Boise, ID 83715Take our listener survey at https://survey.greatdetectives.net Give us a call: 208-991-4783 Follow us on Instagram at https://instagram.com/greatdetectives Follow us on Twitter/X at https://twitter.com/radiodetectives Join us again next time for another true newspaper story on The Big Story.

## Transcript

[0:28] Speaker 1: Welcome to the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio from Boyse, Idaho.
[0:35] Speaker 1: This is your host, Adam Graham. In a moment, we're
[0:39] Speaker 1: going to bring you this week's episode of The Big Story. First, though,
[0:43] Speaker 1: I want to encourage you if you're enjoying the podcast,
[0:46] Speaker 1: please follow us using your favorite podcast software. And I
[0:50] Speaker 1: want to encourage you to check out our other podcasts.
[0:53] Speaker 1: We are nearing the end of our Columbo Killers in
[0:57] Speaker 1: Old Time Radio series. Please check that out at amazing
[1:02] Speaker 1: dot Great Detectives dot net as part of our amazing
[1:05] Speaker 1: World of the Radio. You'll enjoy it. There are so
[1:08] Speaker 1: many episodes in different mini series we've done, and again
[1:12] Speaker 1: you can check that at amazing dot Great Detectives dot net.
[1:16] Speaker 1: But now, from April twenty fifth, nineteen fifty one, here
[1:22] Speaker 1: is more tragic than murder.
[1:30] Speaker 2: The Big Story.
[1:44] Speaker 3: Well, Missus Stone, mighty nice of you to come.
[1:48] Speaker 4: I would miss it for the world. You'r Ma's birthday
[1:51] Speaker 4: and her being the oldest person in Seneca.
[1:54] Speaker 3: How is she? I'll have to ask you not to
[1:56] Speaker 3: come in. Not that she's sick, of course, just a
[1:59] Speaker 3: little indus.
[2:00] Speaker 4: Oh I'm sorry, Missus. Mayton sends regards of my daughter.
[2:04] Speaker 4: Bake these muffins.
[2:05] Speaker 3: She'll be delighted and so sorry she can't see.
[2:08] Speaker 4: You, and give her all our love. Ninety years.
[2:11] Speaker 3: Oh, the poor dear soul. Well, that was nice of her,
[2:23] Speaker 3: specially to bring the muffins you like so much. Ma.
[2:26] Speaker 3: You have them later with your dinner. It's too bad
[2:30] Speaker 3: you can't enjoy the mother. They look mighty tasty. It's
[2:33] Speaker 3: a shame you've been dead these two and a half years.
[2:50] Speaker 5: Hiawatha, Kansas. From the front pages of the Hiawatha, Kansas
[2:55] Speaker 5: Daily World comes the story of a small town reporter
[2:59] Speaker 5: who proved there are things more tragic in this world
[3:03] Speaker 5: than murder. Hiawatha, Kansas. The story is it actually happened,
[3:12] Speaker 5: Virgil Hills story as he lived.
[3:15] Speaker 6: In your paper, Verge Hill.
[3:35] Speaker 7: The Hiawatha Daily World services a community of maybe seven thousand,
[3:40] Speaker 7: two thousand and Hiawautha itself four thousand, scattered in surrounding
[3:45] Speaker 7: Brown County and the rest scattered in Niemaha County adjacent.
[3:51] Speaker 7: This is the Kansas corn Belt. And you write everything
[3:54] Speaker 7: that goes into the paper, from the leads, through the
[3:57] Speaker 7: golden wedding announcements, through the class of fine ads. And
[4:01] Speaker 7: all the big news there is a has been for
[4:03] Speaker 7: the past two months is the weather one hundred and two,
[4:07] Speaker 7: mine said one hundred and four. And bad jokes about
[4:11] Speaker 7: the weather and the corn crop, the humor of men
[4:14] Speaker 7: and desperation.
[4:16] Speaker 8: Well, we ought to make a hundred bushels this year.
[4:19] Speaker 8: You're crazy corn a hundred bushels this year? Oh, I
[4:23] Speaker 8: didn't mean a hundred to the acre. I meant a
[4:25] Speaker 8: hundred to the county.
[4:27] Speaker 7: And those two notes, the temperature and the bad corn,
[4:30] Speaker 7: choke a page one until like a sour hot wind,
[4:36] Speaker 7: the rumor of the story from Seneca, Nimaha County begins
[4:41] Speaker 7: coming in.
[4:42] Speaker 8: I hear tell the old lady was going on ninety
[4:45] Speaker 8: and she had her laying there like that all the time.
[4:48] Speaker 9: She kept her partly in the trunk and the rest
[4:53] Speaker 9: of her.
[4:55] Speaker 7: I can't even talk about it. And since what happens
[5:05] Speaker 7: to anyone in a small town is known by everyone
[5:09] Speaker 7: almost before it happens, this incredible rumor of hideous murder
[5:15] Speaker 7: sends you Verge Hill and your Jalappi thirty miles from
[5:18] Speaker 7: Hiawatham to the beat up Seneca Courthouse and the tight
[5:23] Speaker 7: mouthed Sheriff of Seneca, Kansas, George Bama.
[5:26] Speaker 10: I, Sheriff, I'm sorry, Hill, now I have nothing to say.
[5:29] Speaker 11: Come on, Sheriff, after all these years, you can give
[5:32] Speaker 11: me a break.
[5:32] Speaker 10: Cants now, Hill, The truth is, I don't know my
[5:35] Speaker 10: fact yet. That's the honest truth. Now, some I got
[5:37] Speaker 10: some I ain't. Murder is a pretty serious accusation to make,
[5:41] Speaker 10: and I ain't making it. And a murder charge against
[5:44] Speaker 10: a woman going on fifty five name erda Herkimer, Well,
[5:48] Speaker 10: now that's something I ain't ready to put in words
[5:50] Speaker 10: until I know. Just could I talk to her, Sheriff?
[5:52] Speaker 10: When I know you can see her, I'll make your promise,
[5:56] Speaker 10: H'll you'll be the first one. What not till I know?
[5:59] Speaker 11: Well, how can I find out what happened?
[6:02] Speaker 1: Now?
[6:02] Speaker 6: Hell?
[6:02] Speaker 10: You know how small town is seem as I do,
[6:05] Speaker 10: going out and mask and look, there ain't much way
[6:08] Speaker 10: to hide what's going on in a small town, now
[6:11] Speaker 10: is there.
[6:17] Speaker 7: He's right, of course, to protect the woman if it's
[6:20] Speaker 7: just roma this hideous rumor you've heard, and doubly right
[6:25] Speaker 7: that you'll get your story by just walking around and
[6:28] Speaker 7: asking get more, probably than you boggain.
[6:32] Speaker 4: For my youngster used to come to me and say, Ma,
[6:35] Speaker 4: you better go over to miss Herkimer's where she lives
[6:37] Speaker 4: with her mother and Seey.
[6:38] Speaker 11: So you went over missus Stone.
[6:40] Speaker 4: I went over there once the youngster Miami said. It
[6:43] Speaker 4: only happened at night. And I've seen her walking out
[6:45] Speaker 4: in a white nightgown with the moon shining down on her,
[6:48] Speaker 4: walking around in the back of the house, outside the
[6:50] Speaker 4: ship just behind the house, five times in a circle,
[6:53] Speaker 4: walking around, and then just stood stockstill and talked. She
[6:57] Speaker 4: wasn't talking to no gard in the sky. He was
[7:00] Speaker 4: talking to the devil underfoot.
[7:01] Speaker 11: Or what do you think she did, mister Stone.
[7:03] Speaker 4: I've known them both, miss Herkimer and her mother going
[7:05] Speaker 4: on to forty years. She killed her ma. That's what
[7:08] Speaker 4: she done, killed her mother, As God is my witness.
[7:12] Speaker 7: With minor variations in the horror, the townfolk tell the
[7:16] Speaker 7: same story. And now you go out to the house itself,
[7:21] Speaker 7: which stands as some of the townfolk are described as Herkimer,
[7:26] Speaker 7: like some evil thing against the sky, a house of horror, impenetrable.
[7:34] Speaker 7: Two gods from the Sheriff's office planted there like trees.
[7:38] Speaker 7: I'm not admitting anyone just an unpainted black frame house
[7:44] Speaker 7: shades drawn, a building of mourning, like some evil thing
[7:51] Speaker 7: apart from everything else in this ordinary Kansas landscape. So
[7:56] Speaker 7: back you go to the sheriff's office.
[7:58] Speaker 11: Now, look sheriff, it's been f I have six hours.
[8:00] Speaker 11: Now you've got to tell me something.
[8:02] Speaker 10: Well, I'm as good as my promise.
[8:03] Speaker 11: You mean I can see her?
[8:04] Speaker 10: No, I don't mean that. I said i'd let you.
[8:07] Speaker 10: You're not it. Now I'm going out the house. And
[8:09] Speaker 10: since I got to take one reporter man with me,
[8:11] Speaker 10: you can be that one.
[8:12] Speaker 11: You said you were gonna let me see her.
[8:14] Speaker 10: I said, when I knew something, i'd give you a break.
[8:16] Speaker 11: What are you so touchy about?
[8:18] Speaker 10: Well, just come on and you'll see.
[8:28] Speaker 7: The house stands alone on the outskirts of town. Black
[8:32] Speaker 7: as before, but now that you're close, you see it's
[8:36] Speaker 7: the black of dirt, the black of unpainted wood, the
[8:42] Speaker 7: decay of decades. And the first thing that strikes you
[8:47] Speaker 7: is the odor. There are two rooms apart from the
[8:56] Speaker 7: small kitchen. The first has a death life veil over it,
[9:01] Speaker 7: a mustiness, a moist, musty, untouchable feeling. And only then
[9:08] Speaker 7: do you discover what it is.
[9:14] Speaker 2: Cats and the canary.
[9:16] Speaker 10: And look at that floor.
[9:18] Speaker 7: Almost unconsciously you reach down and touch it.
[9:22] Speaker 11: Cat fur and canary feathers must have been laying here
[9:26] Speaker 11: for years.
[9:27] Speaker 7: A carpet, perhaps an inch thick of fur and feathers,
[9:32] Speaker 7: blackened now with grime, blanketed the floor. Lay on the bed,
[9:37] Speaker 7: the double unmade bed, the broken dresser, the ancient pitcher,
[9:43] Speaker 7: and stand the ancient chair, the ancient clothes laid out
[9:48] Speaker 7: as for a birthday, a birthday party, with an inch
[9:52] Speaker 7: layer of feathers and fur overall, and in the midst
[9:56] Speaker 7: of the room on a chair.
[9:58] Speaker 11: A birthday cake. Happy birthday, mother, dear on your ninetieth birthday.
[10:12] Speaker 7: The second room is almost no room. No window can
[10:16] Speaker 7: be seen, no walls discerned, no furniture, merely an accumulation
[10:22] Speaker 7: of years of packages arrived and mostly unopened.
[10:29] Speaker 10: So, Lisita, how do I know? See for yourself a
[10:33] Speaker 10: dozen house dresses, about two dozen bonnets here, six.
[10:38] Speaker 11: Say, ten pairs of slippers never used.
[10:40] Speaker 10: About forty cans came mile.
[10:42] Speaker 11: T Asbury jam whomade, Preserve brand slips shoes Mary Sea
[10:48] Speaker 11: must be half a case of birthday candle. Sheriff, did
[10:50] Speaker 11: you notice, Yes, I saw they're all addressed to her mother,
[10:53] Speaker 11: missus letty herkimerle addressed to the.
[10:54] Speaker 10: Mother, and all unopened.
[10:58] Speaker 7: You'll breathe in deeply of the fresh in the six
[11:01] Speaker 7: feet that separates the house from the shed. But if
[11:05] Speaker 7: the air in the house was moist and dank, and
[11:08] Speaker 7: somehow more of it, what can.
[11:10] Speaker 6: You say about the shed? Just where?
[11:20] Speaker 10: She said it would be in the trunk.
[11:24] Speaker 11: But my wood, she must have been laying in here.
[11:28] Speaker 10: Too, And I half fears was that the hope?
[11:33] Speaker 11: I mean, it's everything there?
[11:36] Speaker 10: I mean, no, no, she said, look around the shed
[11:40] Speaker 10: near the trunk, and then she said, you'll find Let's
[11:45] Speaker 10: go back, she said, after you've seen it, ittle be
[11:48] Speaker 10: easier to talk. She says, she wants to confess.
[11:51] Speaker 11: I should think, so I should think in any kind
[11:54] Speaker 11: of a decent world, she would.
[11:56] Speaker 12: A This is Cy Harris, returning you to your narrator
[12:30] Speaker 12: and the big story of Virgil Hill as he lived
[12:33] Speaker 12: it and wrote it.
[12:35] Speaker 7: The temperature outside is one hundred and one, but inside
[12:39] Speaker 7: the cell it must be about one hundred and ten.
[12:43] Speaker 7: And she sits only a part of her face and
[12:46] Speaker 7: little wisps of hair visible. She sits under a huge
[12:50] Speaker 7: blanket shivering. It's Edgar Allan Poe and all the horror
[12:54] Speaker 7: stories you've ever read rolled into one soft spoken, thin,
[13:01] Speaker 7: incredible voice.
[13:03] Speaker 3: I killed my mo and I gotta die.
[13:06] Speaker 7: Five gaudy rings are on her fingers. She twists them
[13:10] Speaker 7: with trembling hands as she.
[13:12] Speaker 13: Took I'm fifty five. Mother was just thirty five years older,
[13:17] Speaker 13: and her last year she wasn't well. There were times
[13:20] Speaker 13: I thought she was losing her mind.
[13:22] Speaker 7: There's nothing to say. And you and Sheriff Bama, the
[13:25] Speaker 7: only two in the humid room, don't realize that you
[13:29] Speaker 7: stand there shivring as well, expectant, intense feeling. No matter
[13:34] Speaker 7: what is said, it cannot possibly be out of place.
[13:38] Speaker 3: I thought those things because those were the things she liked.
[13:41] Speaker 3: The came a mild tea and the raspberry jem, the
[13:44] Speaker 3: homemade preserved brand, and the slippers without the heels, and
[13:47] Speaker 3: the canary seed. Always be sure there's enough to feed
[13:51] Speaker 3: the birds, Etta, she said.
[13:53] Speaker 7: The gold watch ticks on her throat and its tiny
[13:56] Speaker 7: sound is enormous against her pauses.
[14:00] Speaker 3: After a while, she was on the bed for a
[14:02] Speaker 3: long time. I put her in the trunk, but she
[14:05] Speaker 3: didn't entirely fit. Why should I talk about it? I
[14:10] Speaker 3: told you what I did. I killed my mother. I
[14:13] Speaker 3: killed her. I gotta die, I gotta die. Why do
[14:16] Speaker 3: you keep me waiting? Only just promise me one thing
[14:21] Speaker 3: when I go, that I have a grave pleace next
[14:26] Speaker 3: to hers.
[14:35] Speaker 7: Everything she says is thoroughly and completely believable, and yet
[14:40] Speaker 7: not really so. She was devoted that you know? Then,
[14:44] Speaker 7: how could she have killed her?
[14:46] Speaker 6: This was a small.
[14:47] Speaker 7: Town, smaller even than Hiawatha. How could she have kept
[14:52] Speaker 7: hidden for so long? The fact of death, of murder
[14:56] Speaker 7: of a body kept two and a half years in
[14:59] Speaker 7: a shed. Weird yes, hideous, yes, But something else, something more,
[15:06] Speaker 7: And that sends you out of the stifling room and
[15:09] Speaker 7: under the quiet Kansas town. First to the postman, the
[15:14] Speaker 7: man who brought her daily mail, the man who first
[15:17] Speaker 7: discovered it.
[15:19] Speaker 14: Queer always knew she was Queer, her and her mother.
[15:22] Speaker 14: But then I began to get my suspicions.
[15:24] Speaker 11: Why was that?
[15:25] Speaker 14: Well? She her mother, missus herkamilad is. She was a
[15:27] Speaker 14: widow from the Civil War. She was one of the
[15:30] Speaker 14: few in the county as gets the Civil War pension.
[15:32] Speaker 14: So I always made a fuss deliver it.
[15:34] Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
[15:35] Speaker 14: Yeah, yeah, Well you gotta sign for that pension the
[15:38] Speaker 14: check that is the party getting it, that.
[15:40] Speaker 7: Is for her.
[15:41] Speaker 14: That is well, I would bring it and generally she'd
[15:44] Speaker 14: sign it, but starting a while back, mama's too sick now,
[15:48] Speaker 14: mister Hilliard. Mama's laying down. Now, mister Hilliard, you just
[15:52] Speaker 14: leave it and when you come back next time, I'll
[15:53] Speaker 14: have it signed for you. And sure enough it would be.
[15:57] Speaker 11: You mean she gave out her mother was a lie
[16:00] Speaker 11: in order to cast the pension check.
[16:02] Speaker 14: Could be there's a lot of money in the check,
[16:04] Speaker 14: like how much twenty two dollars and seventy five cents.
[16:16] Speaker 11: She'd always come and buy her groceries in general merchandise here.
[16:18] Speaker 15: That's right, never went nowheares else, matter of fact, nearest
[16:22] Speaker 15: teller general stores over mile away.
[16:24] Speaker 11: Well then what did she buy?
[16:26] Speaker 15: Well, she was to buy that cameramele tea. You'd say,
[16:30] Speaker 15: you keep a good stock of that camera male tea,
[16:32] Speaker 15: because that's kind my mother likes.
[16:34] Speaker 10: And I thirty eight house dress couldn't keep enough.
[16:39] Speaker 15: I had thirty eight house dresses for her and jam
[16:42] Speaker 15: nothing but raspberry and strawberry preserves kept saying as how
[16:46] Speaker 15: our ma wouldn't need no other jam. Imagine that poor
[16:51] Speaker 15: old lady laying dead there for two and a half years.
[17:04] Speaker 7: Why why had she maintained this fantastic, this elaborate pretense.
[17:10] Speaker 7: So the twenty two seventy five a month, so folks
[17:13] Speaker 7: would in gossip.
[17:14] Speaker 11: It doesn't that up.
[17:16] Speaker 7: Why there was something about a fire in the house.
[17:20] Speaker 7: Check the fireman, the fire chief.
[17:23] Speaker 15: Well it was going on last January. I guess she
[17:26] Speaker 15: had a neighbor call me up. She didn't have no phone,
[17:29] Speaker 15: says there's a fire in the house. Well, I go
[17:32] Speaker 15: in there, and have you ever been in there?
[17:35] Speaker 11: Yeah, I've been in there. Well, it's a wonder to me.
[17:37] Speaker 15: The whole place didn't go up like that, all those
[17:40] Speaker 15: feathers and dust around. Well, there was this truck and
[17:44] Speaker 15: it got sensed, and she says to me, would you
[17:46] Speaker 15: please take it out into the shed? I says yes, ma'am.
[17:50] Speaker 15: She says, on account of something very precious of mother's
[17:52] Speaker 15: is inside.
[17:53] Speaker 11: That's what she said. That's right. See what was inside?
[17:57] Speaker 11: Don't you know? No, blone, just tell me one thing.
[18:03] Speaker 11: Where was the trunk when you moved it?
[18:06] Speaker 15: Let me see? Oh, laying at the foot of the bed. Hey,
[18:11] Speaker 15: what was in it?
[18:16] Speaker 7: The next there's an item in the paper inserted two
[18:19] Speaker 7: days before the confession. This item ran in the Seneca paper.
[18:24] Speaker 11: Next Sunday will be the ninetieth birthday of missus Letty Herkimer.
[18:30] Speaker 11: Her friends are invited to send her a postcard shower.
[18:34] Speaker 11: Missus Herkimer is unable to walk, but sits up each
[18:38] Speaker 11: day in her chair and eats all their meals with
[18:40] Speaker 11: her daughter.
[18:40] Speaker 7: And the next day the following announcement inserted in the
[18:44] Speaker 7: same paper.
[18:45] Speaker 11: Missus Leeddy Herkimer, who was ninety yesterday, received many postcards
[18:50] Speaker 11: and other gifts, including a bouquet, two homemade cakes, and
[18:54] Speaker 11: her favorite brand of strawberry preserves and muffins. Missus Herkimer
[18:59] Speaker 11: was great lately pleased. Thanks all her friends. You were
[19:11] Speaker 11: the last person to call it her home.
[19:12] Speaker 4: Missus Stone, well, when she told me that the poor
[19:15] Speaker 4: soul wasn't fit to receive people, wasn't feeling up to it,
[19:18] Speaker 4: she said, I walked away, but I kind of walked
[19:21] Speaker 4: back and looked in and I saw her Ella that is,
[19:24] Speaker 4: standing in the shed and talking with a cup of
[19:26] Speaker 4: tea in her hand. To the trunk. Well, I said
[19:29] Speaker 4: to myself, Oh, the poor souls lost her mind entirely.
[19:32] Speaker 11: What did you do?
[19:33] Speaker 3: Well?
[19:33] Speaker 4: I ran back quick as I could, you can be sure,
[19:35] Speaker 4: and I got the sheriff and we both came back,
[19:37] Speaker 4: and not too soon either, because there she was with
[19:40] Speaker 4: a bottle half to her lips already, and the sheriff
[19:43] Speaker 4: ran in and took it away from her, and it
[19:44] Speaker 4: was a half pint of chloroform. She was trying to
[19:46] Speaker 4: do away with herself.
[19:48] Speaker 7: Why why a woman kills her mother, keeps the body
[19:52] Speaker 7: in the house for two and a half years? Why
[19:55] Speaker 7: is clothing for her shoes?
[19:57] Speaker 6: Canary?
[19:58] Speaker 7: See insert's notices and the paper thanks guests for calling
[20:03] Speaker 7: not only the lie, but the extent of the lie.
[20:06] Speaker 7: Why And so you go back to the house to find,
[20:10] Speaker 7: if possible, the answer, And there on the bed, under
[20:15] Speaker 7: the pillow, you'll find scraps of paper written on the pencil,
[20:20] Speaker 7: bound together with a rusty safety pin, a diary, something
[20:26] Speaker 7: not even an Edgar Allan Poe would ever have dreamed up.
[20:31] Speaker 7: And then back to ourselves, why.
[20:35] Speaker 3: Do you torture me? Why do you keep me waiting?
[20:37] Speaker 3: I said, I killed her, and I've got to die
[20:39] Speaker 3: why why.
[20:40] Speaker 11: Let me read you something. Mother is so sick, poor mother.
[20:45] Speaker 11: Her pain is terrible. Mother is so sick. If only
[20:49] Speaker 11: something happens, please let it happen.
[20:51] Speaker 3: Yes, she was, She suffered, so I prayed that it
[20:54] Speaker 3: would come quick. But it didn't.
[20:56] Speaker 11: Last night I put mother to bed at about eleven o'clock,
[20:58] Speaker 11: but she couldn't sleep, and she said she was frightened.
[21:02] Speaker 11: And she said, Darling, stay with me to night. I'm frightened.
[21:05] Speaker 3: Yes, she was very frightened.
[21:06] Speaker 11: I said, Mother, I've not slept in so long. Let
[21:09] Speaker 11: me into the other room to sleep.
[21:10] Speaker 3: Yes, that's right, that's what I said.
[21:13] Speaker 11: And then about twelve I looked in to see how
[21:16] Speaker 11: she was, and she was sleeping on her left side,
[21:20] Speaker 11: and the doctor said she shouldn't sleep on her left side.
[21:22] Speaker 11: And I said to myself, if I don't turn her over,
[21:26] Speaker 11: maybe she'll maybe the pain will go away, maybe she
[21:31] Speaker 11: won't ever have pain again.
[21:33] Speaker 3: But I didn't go in and turn her over. I
[21:35] Speaker 3: let her lay like that, and it killed her.
[21:36] Speaker 11: But it didn't. It didn't miss Herkimer. I spoke to
[21:39] Speaker 11: the doctor. I spoke to more than one doctor. They
[21:41] Speaker 11: all said it didn't make any difference. Which side she
[21:43] Speaker 11: lay on, she had come to her natural end.
[21:46] Speaker 3: I killed her. I left her like that, and I
[21:47] Speaker 3: killed her.
[21:48] Speaker 11: And the reason you signed the checks with her name
[21:50] Speaker 11: was to get the money for her things she'd have wanted,
[21:53] Speaker 11: just things your mother would want. Yes, yes, you never
[21:56] Speaker 11: spend any of the money for yourself, but only on
[21:59] Speaker 11: things that's your wanted.
[22:00] Speaker 3: That's right. Never said.
[22:02] Speaker 11: And then when you started it pretending that she was
[22:04] Speaker 11: still alive, you couldn't stop. And at night you used
[22:08] Speaker 11: to walk out at night because you didn't want to
[22:10] Speaker 11: leave your mother alone in the shed. Isn't that right? Yes? Yes,
[22:14] Speaker 11: And you talked to her, You told her what you
[22:16] Speaker 11: were going to get for her, and you did it
[22:18] Speaker 11: because it was the only way you knew to make
[22:20] Speaker 11: up to her, because you thought you killed her.
[22:21] Speaker 3: As God is my witness, that's the truth.
[22:24] Speaker 11: Miss Herkimer. You didn't kill anyone. Your mother died a
[22:28] Speaker 11: natural death, and all you did was act that way
[22:31] Speaker 11: because your conscience bothered you so because you felt you
[22:35] Speaker 11: neglected her. You hadn't. You didn't kill anyone. I didn't
[22:43] Speaker 11: know you didn't kill anyone.
[22:48] Speaker 3: What you say is the truth. If only I had
[22:52] Speaker 3: been able to say it. I wouldn't have had to
[22:55] Speaker 3: do what I did, would I. No, you wouldn't, young man.
[23:02] Speaker 3: I'm sorry for all the trouble I've caused you and
[23:05] Speaker 3: the others. I only hope the people in Seneca won't
[23:08] Speaker 3: go on saying what they're saying about me now that
[23:11] Speaker 3: I'm a horror woman.
[23:14] Speaker 11: I hope they won't.
[23:15] Speaker 3: And if I had known you were going to be
[23:17] Speaker 3: so nice, I would have made you a cup of
[23:20] Speaker 3: tea and put on my shoes.
[23:24] Speaker 7: And only then you notice looking down that she's been
[23:28] Speaker 7: sitting there with a blanket around her thin, emaciated body
[23:34] Speaker 7: and her feet. There's the day she was born.
[23:57] Speaker 5: Now we read you that telegram from Virgil Hill of Ohiowa,
[24:00] Speaker 5: the Kansas Daily World.
[24:02] Speaker 11: Edda Herkimer, a broken woman when released rejected by her townspeople,
[24:07] Speaker 11: was never able to live down her reputation as a
[24:09] Speaker 11: horror woman. She died broken hearted, a little less than
[24:12] Speaker 11: four years.
[24:13] Speaker 16: Later, and so ends another Big Story.
[24:25] Speaker 17: In order to protect the names of people actually involved
[24:28] Speaker 17: into Night's authentic Big Story, the names of all characters
[24:31] Speaker 17: and the dramatization were changed, with the exception of the
[24:34] Speaker 17: newspaper reporter, This is the United States Armed Forces Radio Service,
[25:32] Speaker 17: the Voice of Information and Education.
[26:49] Speaker 1: Welcome back. Here is the cast list again. We're going
[26:53] Speaker 1: from archive dot org and the original script pages posted
[26:57] Speaker 1: by the old time radio researchers. And starred as Virgil
[27:03] Speaker 1: was Bill Lipton and also in the cast Agnes Young,
[27:07] Speaker 1: ethel Owen, James Stevens, Bill Smith, Charles Eggleston, Bill Griffiths,
[27:15] Speaker 1: and Jason Johnson. There is no stories behind the Big
[27:21] Speaker 1: Story details on this case other than that the details
[27:26] Speaker 1: have been located and will be updated soon. But it's
[27:29] Speaker 1: not been added, and this would be a tricky story
[27:32] Speaker 1: to track down. You would probably have to go to
[27:37] Speaker 1: a physical location. I was able to find some of
[27:42] Speaker 1: these on newspapers dot com, but The Big Story didn't
[27:47] Speaker 1: take the position that these type of stories necessarily have
[27:51] Speaker 1: to come from lord cities. How Watha is and was
[27:57] Speaker 1: actually the big town in brown Own County, Kansas. Three thousand,
[28:02] Speaker 1: two hundred and ninety four people that lived there in
[28:06] Speaker 1: nineteen fifty and the number is pretty much the same today,
[28:11] Speaker 1: although the population did peak after the nineteen eighty census.
[28:16] Speaker 1: Seneca is also a small town in Kansas. Population in
[28:22] Speaker 1: nineteen fifty was under two thousand, and now it's slightly
[28:26] Speaker 1: above two thousand. The Wikipedia pays for Seneca boast that
[28:31] Speaker 1: it once had a baseball team, a Class D minor
[28:36] Speaker 1: league team that played a single season in nineteen ten
[28:40] Speaker 1: and had no team nickname, and there have been no
[28:46] Speaker 1: team since. So for a series that featured stories about
[28:52] Speaker 1: Dorothy Kilgaron, and this is about as rural a story
[28:57] Speaker 1: as you'll get in old time radio, and it's a
[29:01] Speaker 1: very different story. There's a definite mental health angle that
[29:07] Speaker 1: would be focused on a lot today.
[29:10] Speaker 10: But this also.
[29:11] Speaker 1: Gives us another side of small towns. I think that
[29:16] Speaker 1: there was back then, and to a degree still is now,
[29:20] Speaker 1: a bit of an aura around small towns of representing
[29:24] Speaker 1: this sort of innocence and the idea that they represent
[29:30] Speaker 1: real community, a place where everyone knows everyone else. And
[29:36] Speaker 1: I think that is true of quite a few small
[29:39] Speaker 1: towns in America, but not every small town. I've lived
[29:44] Speaker 1: in small towns where everything was very cliquish, and there
[29:49] Speaker 1: are also some weird small towns, and this gives us
[29:53] Speaker 1: a perspective of what life can be like in a
[29:56] Speaker 1: small town when you're kind of on the front of
[30:01] Speaker 1: the town. People know of you, but they don't really
[30:06] Speaker 1: know you, and so they'll do things that are social nasties,
[30:11] Speaker 1: like bringing a birthday present. They don't really look closer.
[30:16] Speaker 1: You know, it's a cliche. You can't hide anything in
[30:19] Speaker 1: a small town, and you just have to say, Okay,
[30:22] Speaker 1: this lady, not even a professional criminal or somebody particularly sneaky,
[30:29] Speaker 1: hit a dead body for two and a half years now.
[30:33] Speaker 1: I do not want to offend any rural listeners. I
[30:36] Speaker 1: am in no way anti small town. What I am saying, though,
[30:40] Speaker 1: is the size of the population doesn't determine whether it's
[30:45] Speaker 1: a good place to live. It depends very much on
[30:49] Speaker 1: the individual in question and the way that the community operates. Well,
[30:55] Speaker 1: now it's time to thank our Patreon supporter of the day.
[30:58] Speaker 1: Thank you so much to Stewart, Patreon supporter since November
[31:02] Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, currently supporting the podcast at the shawmus
[31:06] Speaker 1: level of four dollars or more per month. Thanks so
[31:08] Speaker 1: much for your support, Stuart, and that'll do it for today.
[31:12] Speaker 1: If you're enjoying the podcast, please follow us using your
[31:15] Speaker 1: favorite podcast software and be sure to rate and review
[31:18] Speaker 1: the podcast wherever you download it from. We'll be back
[31:22] Speaker 1: next Tuesday with another episode of The Big story. But
[31:25] Speaker 1: join us back here tomorrow for broadways my beat where.
[31:29] Speaker 18: Except what I told I see it might have take place.
[31:32] Speaker 18: I reported common decency.
[31:34] Speaker 19: I figured what you call it murder took place over
[31:36] Speaker 19: a week ago.
[31:37] Speaker 11: How come it took you so long to give in
[31:39] Speaker 11: to the call of decency.
[31:41] Speaker 18: You've got to point them, mister clo. Tell me see
[31:43] Speaker 18: if I can explain it to try hard with all
[31:46] Speaker 18: my money. I was a bookie, was like, I told you, you
[31:49] Speaker 18: told me, look, let me readcap it hunh. So maybe
[31:52] Speaker 18: it'll make sense to you. It takes me a week
[31:53] Speaker 18: plus to confess I saw a man push another man
[31:56] Speaker 18: off a roof.
[31:56] Speaker 19: You were a book You take it from there.
[31:58] Speaker 18: Yeah, a book, I'd tell you. Boys came up with
[32:01] Speaker 18: a thing to trotle, initiative, dull, a pioneer impulse of it.
[32:05] Speaker 18: So I pitted my brain against society. Try to come
[32:08] Speaker 18: up with a respectable die to earn my nut, waffles
[32:10] Speaker 18: and juice. But my mind has been in such a
[32:13] Speaker 18: tight rep with twelve years of making books.
[32:15] Speaker 9: All I can come up with is buglery.
[32:17] Speaker 19: That's when you saw it happen when you were robbing
[32:19] Speaker 19: an apartment in the east thirties.
[32:21] Speaker 18: You got a woman says I robbed. I didn't I
[32:23] Speaker 18: tell you this murder made such an impact.
[32:25] Speaker 9: On my conscience. I didn't rob and I never will.
[32:27] Speaker 19: According to our books, what you saw was a suicide
[32:29] Speaker 19: suicide of a man named John Elgin.
[32:33] Speaker 9: Her books can be mistaken as me.
[32:36] Speaker 19: I know you could identify the man if we found him.
[32:39] Speaker 19: The man you say porstealgient off the roof, the man
[32:41] Speaker 19: you say is a murderer.
[32:42] Speaker 9: Identify him.
[32:44] Speaker 18: I would draw my eyes into slits, pretend I was
[32:46] Speaker 18: in the emotional tumboil of over a week ago, witnessing
[32:49] Speaker 18: event from a fire escape across the airway, and I
[32:52] Speaker 18: would try to identify him.
[32:54] Speaker 9: You find him, and I sure would try. But I
[32:57] Speaker 9: make no promises.
[32:58] Speaker 19: Yeah, ask your pardon, mistery. It's okay, But for one,
[33:03] Speaker 19: I didn't let you finish telling me why it took
[33:05] Speaker 19: you this long to come.
[33:06] Speaker 11: To us with what you saw.
[33:07] Speaker 7: Forgetted kid.
[33:08] Speaker 1: Hope you'll be with us then in the meantime. Send
[33:11] Speaker 1: your comments to Box thirteen at Great Detectives dot net,
[33:16] Speaker 1: follow us on Twitter at Radio Detectives, and check us
[33:20] Speaker 1: out on Instagram, Instagram, dot com, slash Great detectives from Boise, Idaho.
[33:27] Speaker 1: This is your host, Adam graham Son and off.

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