William Carter Loses Memory: Richard Diamond, Private Detective (November 26, 1949)

“William Carter Loses Memory” is an episode of Richard Diamond, Private Detective, the old-time radio show, first broadcast November 26, 1949. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Private detective Richard Diamond is hired by the family of William Carter, a young man found wandering with amnesia after disappearing for a night. Under narco-synthesis at Bellevue Hospital, Carter confesses to killing a man named Herbert Fisher in the apartment of a woman named Helena. Diamond investigates and discovers the case is more complicated than it appears, with Helena herself becoming a suspect.

New York City, including Bellevue Hospital, the Fifth Precinct Police Station, and Helena Fisher's apartment on 51st Street

Characters: Richard Diamond, Dr. Edward Gerson, William Carter, Helena Fisher, Lieutenant Walt Levinson, Sergeant Otis, Herbert Fisher, Mrs. Carter

Listen for: The confrontation scene in Helena Fisher's apartment where the truth about the murder emerges, revealing that Helena, not William Carter, actually killed her husband with the poker.

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.