The Ruth Nelson Murder Case: Broadway Is My Beat (October 11, 1952)

“The Ruth Nelson Murder Case” is an episode of Broadway Is My Beat, the old-time radio show, first broadcast October 11, 1952. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Detective Danny Glover investigates the murder of Ruth Nelson, a woman found stabbed in her rooming house on the same day she was released from a 30-year prison sentence for killing her husband with an axe. The case leads him to interview the prison warden and a mysterious secretary named Louise Downey who had visited Ruth just before her death.

New York City, including a rooming house, a women's state prison farm upstate, and a mansion on Fifth Avenue

Characters: Detective Danny Glover, Margaret, Ruth Nelson, Miss Fembrass (prison warden), Louise Downey, Jonathan Hartch

Listen for: The atmospheric opening describing Broadway at dusk; the discovery of Ruth Nelson's murder weapon and prison discharge papers; the revelation that Ruth served 30 years for killing her husband; the lead to Louise Downey as a person of interest.

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.