Paid in Full: Tales of the Texas Rangers (May 13, 1951)

“Paid in Full” is an episode of Tales of the Texas Rangers, the old-time radio show, first broadcast May 13, 1951. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

West Texas farmer Nick Hubbard refuses to pay his sharecropper Jose Morales the full amount owed him for cotton work, offering only fifty dollars and forcing him to leave the land. Two days later, Morales is found dead in a thicket, shot in the back of the head with a shotgun. Texas Ranger Jase Pearson arrives to investigate and begins questioning those connected to the case.

West Texas, August 1941. A farm, a thicket near a shortcut path to town, and rural roads.

Characters: Ranger Jase Pearson, Nick Hubbard, Min Hubbard, Jose Morales, Sheriff

Listen for: The ranger's logical deduction about where and how Morales was killed based on the position of the body and the undisturbed thicket.

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.