The Sara Dearing Matter: Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar (June 8, 1954)

“The Sara Dearing Matter” is an episode of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, the old-time radio show, first broadcast June 8, 1954. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Insurance investigator Johnny Dollar arrives in the small desert town of Palmer, California to investigate the death of Sarah Dearing, a recluse who died in a bedroom fire and left a $100,000 insurance policy. The local newspaper editor has discovered a bottle containing powerful sedative residue at the scene and believes Dearing was murdered, but the county sheriff has dismissed the evidence as insignificant.

Palmer, a small village in the Santa Rosa Mountains overlooking the Mojave Desert in California, and the surrounding area including Sarah Dearing's Spanish villa

Characters: Johnny Dollar, Maggie Lacey, Sheriff Dan Cox, Hilda Brouwer

Listen for: The mystery of the two mysterious men who visited Sarah Dearing every year on the same day and were present on the day of her death; the significance of the prescription sedative found in her bedroom; and why the sheriff refuses to investigate further despite the suspicious circumstances.

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.