Joe Adams Drowned: Boston Blackie (May 14, 1947)

“Joe Adams Drowned” is an episode of Boston Blackie, the old-time radio show, first broadcast May 14, 1947. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

A woman named Valerie Johnson calls looking for Joe Adams, but discovers he has been murdered by criminals who drowned him in a bathtub. The killers plan to dispose of his body, but it ends up in the sea lion pool at the zoo where Boston Blackie and his friend Mary Wesley discover it while watching the animals being fed. Inspector Faraday arrives to investigate the death, initially believing it a suicide, but Blackie suspects foul play.

A small town and the city zoo, primarily at the sea lion pool where the body is discovered.

Characters: Boston Blackie, Tiny, Frank Horton, Plank, Joe Adams, Valerie Johnson, Smitty, Inspector Faraday

Listen for: The criminals' casual conversation about drowning Joe Adams and deciding where to dump his body; Blackie's deduction that the death was murder rather than suicide; the discovery of the corpse during the sea lion feeding time at the zoo.

Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.