What happens
Deputy District Attorney Dale Christian interviews Ellen Randall Dudley, a woman accused of murdering her husband, Robert Ames Dudley, after a coroner's jury recommended her arrest. Christian presses her to make a full confession, warning that a guilty plea and her own statement will shape her fate. Ellen describes her marriage, which began in Europe and grew bitter over her husband's drinking and infidelity. She speaks of the night of the killing and of how she came to feel that he had taken her life from her. Christian, eager to secure a conviction, moves between sympathy and pressure as he tries to get her account on record. The series is Suspense, and this episode first aired on September 18, 1960, with Rita Lloyd as Ellen and Mason Adams as Christian.
A sheriff's office in a county seat, where Ellen Randall Dudley is held after the coroner's inquest into her husband's death.
Characters: Dale Christian, Ellen Randall Dudley, John Bradford, Sheriff, Deputy P.G. Thaler, Robert Ames Dudley
Listen for: Christian's shifting tactics as he questions Ellen, and how her account of her marriage changes the tone of the interview.
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.