The Eddie Garrett Case: Richard Diamond, Private Detective (August 27, 1949)

“The Eddie Garrett Case” is an episode of Richard Diamond, Private Detective, the old-time radio show, first broadcast August 27, 1949. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Richard Diamond is asked by Bill Garrett, a man on death row, to help keep his younger brother Eddie from following the same criminal path. Diamond visits Eddie's gang hangout and discovers the seventeen-year-old has become involved with Sam Parrish, a numbers racket boss who's recruiting the boys for car theft. When Diamond tries to intervene, he's beaten unconscious, and Eddie becomes entangled in kidnapping and violence that threatens innocent lives.

New York City, 1949: candy stores, a youth gang club called The Panthers on 26th Street, a warehouse at the foot of 14th Street, and various city streets and apartments.

Characters: Richard Diamond, Bill Garrett, Eddie Garrett, Sam Parrish, Bart Nippon, Nancy Hyde, Lieutenant Robinson, Lieutenant Walt

Listen for: The contrast between Diamond's hard-boiled cynicism and his willingness to help a death row inmate save his brother; the gang slang and street culture of post-war youth; the tense climax at Parrish's warehouse with the kidnapped girl.

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.