The Big False Move

Originally Aired: May 17, 1953

Dragnet #204, "The Big False Move," opens with Sergeant Joe Friday arriving at the Robbery division office suffering from debilitating headaches and ringing in his ears. His partner Frank Smith insists the problem is a salt deficiency and plies Friday with salt tablets and bottled Poland water before they can investigate their case. The detectives proceed to interview Thomas Stanford, a suspect who has been arrested for robbing a grocery store at gunpoint. Stanford seems unusually cooperative, readily confessing to the crime and providing details about how he held up the female store owner with a 32 automatic, locked her in a back room, and emptied the cash register.

However, as Friday and Smith work through their routine questioning, small inconsistencies begin to emerge in Stanford's account. He claims to have disposed of the gun in Griffith Park and spent all the stolen money on clothes and nightclubs, but something about his story doesn't quite add up. Friday methodically works through the details of the case, his professional instincts working despite his persistent headaches.