Three Victims: Tales of the Texas Rangers (August 24, 1952)

“Three Victims” is an episode of Tales of the Texas Rangers, the old-time radio show, first broadcast August 24, 1952. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

Listen to Tales of the Texas Rangers free, live around the clock: every episode, in the order it first aired. No sign-up.

What happens

On a Saturday afternoon in August 1935, a young couple discovers three shooting victims on a rural Texas road: a man and woman dead in their car, and a wounded teenage boy named Henry Elman. A Black man named Joe Cartwright is found near the scene, and Texas Rangers bring him in for questioning as suspicion falls upon him.

Rural Texas, 18 miles south of Horton, August 1935. A hilly section of Texas countryside and the sheriff's office in town.

Characters: Henry Elman, Joe Cartwright, Jim Duncan, Alice Duncan, Ranger Jay Spierson, Sheriff, Young couple on horseback

Listen for: The Rangers' investigation into the shooting, Joe Cartwright's interrogation and contradictory statements, the discovery of blood on his sleeve, and the promise that Henry Elman may provide crucial identification.

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.