Suspense - Radio’s Outstanding Theater of Thrills

Originally Aired: October 11, 1955
Suspense #619, "Heaven's to Betsy," the ordinary Doyle family faces an extraordinary evening when a brilliant flash and explosion shake their suburban home during a thunderstorm. While young Dickie listens to his favorite space adventure program and mother Betsy nervously cooks dinner, neighbor Ella Gilbert calls to report a strange glow visible from her window. When banker Henry Doyle arrives home, the family discovers an eerie, radiant object in their backyard—something that defies easy explanation. Despite Betsy's fear and protests, Henry arms himself with his pistol and ventures into the rain to investigate, with his determined wife following close behind while Dickie watches anxiously from the window.
Henry recognizes this mysterious visitor as the great moment he's been waiting for his entire ordinary life. As the couple approaches the glowing phenomenon past the shrubs, Henry makes a stunning declaration: it's a UFO, a flying saucer. What began as a routine evening for the Doyles has transformed into an encounter that will soon involve government officials and Army personnel, changing their lives forever.

Originally Aired: October 4, 1955
Suspense #618, "Good-bye, Miss Lizzie Borden," imagines what life might be like one year after the infamous Lizzie Borden trial. Emma Borden, Lizzie's sister, prepares to flee to Fairhaven for a desperately needed escape from the oppressive atmosphere of the Second Street house. As the maid Maggie also departs—unable to endure Lizzie's constant spying and eerie silences any longer—Emma finds herself cornered by Nelly Cutts, a brash female reporter from Colorado's Cripple Creek Record. Nelly has come seeking an anniversary interview about the brutal axe murders that shocked Fall River.
What begins as an unwanted intrusion becomes a tense interrogation as Nelly presses Emma about the details of that terrible August morning when her father and stepmother were bludgeoned to death. Emma reveals the unbearable strain of living with Lizzie, who watches her every move from the shadows. As Nelly methodically dissects the evidence—the missing axe, the absence of blood, the triple-locked doors—the two women reconstruct the crime while Lizzie lurks upstairs, listening to every word.

Originally Aired: September 27, 1955
Suspense #617, "The Frightened City," Nick Crawford returns home from military service in Korea expecting a warm homecoming, but instead finds his town gripped by terror and his brother-in-law Johnny Stewart murdered. His sister Janie reveals that Johnny was shot down in the street on his way to tell something to the police chief, and she's been receiving threatening notes warning her to stay silent. When Nick demands answers, he discovers that four witnesses saw the killing, but fear has sealed their lips. A woman was brutally beaten and left in a vacant lot, another witness had a bomb thrown into his house, and the others refuse to speak.
Nick confronts each witness one by one—Johnny's employer Mr. Osburn, the traumatized Mrs. Mason, drugstore owner Mr. Nolan who had to scrub Johnny's blood from the sidewalk, and former G.I. Tom Roxton whose wife nearly died in the bombing. Each encounter reveals the same paralyzing fear as the word spreads through town that Nick is asking dangerous questions. He realizes he has returned not to the peaceful hometown he remembered, but to a frightened city where something sinister lurks in the shadows and speaking the truth can get you killed.

Originally Aired: September 20, 1955
Suspense #616, "The Stool Pigeon," the stifling heat of Devil's Island provides the oppressive backdrop for a deadly game of suspicion and betrayal. Four libres—prisoners free to roam the island but never leave it—gather in Canot's hut to race cockroaches and pass another miserable day. Exil, the narrator and embezzler, joins the volatile knife-wielding Canot, habitual criminal Makil, and the imposing Thibaut, a syndicate murderer who rules the prisoners through physical presence and grudging fairness. When their friend Emile is captured attempting escape and later dies from his beating, the men's simmering suspicions boil over. Someone on the island is informing the governor about escape attempts, but who? As Thibaut grows dangerously quiet and begins formulating plans for either better conditions or another escape attempt, the question haunts them all. The informer could be any one of a hundred prisoners, or perhaps someone much closer. In this pressure cooker of heat, desperation, and mistrust, the hunt for the stool pigeon becomes as dangerous as any escape attempt.

Originally Aired: September 13, 1955
In Suspense #615, "A Story of Poison," Dr. Neil Cream arrives in London seeking a fresh start after the death of his wife Emily in Hull. What the kindly boarding house proprietress Mrs. Minnes and her daughter Daisy don't know is that Cream methodically poisoned Emily over six months, watching with clinical detachment as she slowly succumbed. When Cream arrogantly submits an anonymous medical paper about the case to a journal, it catches the attention of Inspector Waring at Scotland Yard, who suspects the author may be describing his own crime.
As Cream settles into his new lodgings and charms his way into the Minnes household, he begins a romance with Mildred Vickers, a young woman he meets at a Hammersmith pub. He lavishes her with flowers, dinners, and theater outings, but when Millie casually announces she must end their relationship because her real sweetheart is returning from sea, Cream's veneer of civility cracks. What follows is a chilling demonstration of the cold-blooded killer's methods, leaving Cream haunted by nightmares as the police investigation begins to close in.

Originally Aired: September 6, 1955
Suspense #614, "Strange for a Killer," Henry Hayden arrives home from work to find his neighborhood surrounded by police. They're searching for Roy Jaleska, a dangerous fugitive who's been hiding in the boarding house next door to Henry's apartment building. When Henry calls his wife Jesse to warn her to stay inside with their baby Johnny, something in her voice tells him she's in terrible danger. Despite her words telling him everything is fine, Henry is certain someone is in the room with her, listening to every word. He convinces the police captain that Jaleska must have escaped across the rooftops and is now holding his family hostage.
Against the captain's warnings, Henry insists on going up to his third-floor apartment, promising to call if everything is safe. When he enters, his worst fears are confirmed. Jaleska is there with a gun, having used Jesse and the baby to evade the police dragnet. Now Henry faces the killer alone in his own home, with his wife and child caught in the crossfire. The police wait below for Henry's signal while inside, a desperate standoff unfolds between a terrified husband and a cornered, violent fugitive who has nothing left to lose.

Originally Aired: August 30, 1955
Suspense #613, "The Lady in the Red Hat," brings together three people connected to the city's most terrifying murder case. Newspaper columnist Mitch Mitchell has been writing psychological analyses of the serial killer known as the 13th Apostle, who has murdered five women in three months, each wearing something red. When Mitch receives an anonymous note promising important information about the Avenger if he meets at a community chapel at midnight, he discovers that fellow reporter Jeannie and Lieutenant Bill Dowell have received identical notes. Despite the police department's orders to stop his articles and warnings that this could be a trap, the three decide to keep the appointment.
As midnight approaches and the trio gathers in the dimly lit chapel, tension mounts. Each realizes that the killer may have deliberately summoned them together, perhaps to claim another victim or to play a sinister game. With an organist playing softly in the background and snow falling outside, they wait in the first pew, each wondering if one among them could be the 13th Apostle. The stakes grow higher as paranoia sets in and every glance becomes suspicious in this dangerous rendezvous with a murderer.

Originally Aired: August 16, 1955
Suspense #611, "A Study in Wax," Jack and Larry Cabell, two men working for the Canadian Geodetic Survey, face seven months of isolation in the frozen Northwest Territory. When their radio shack burns down in late October, they lose their only connection to the outside world, leaving them with just a small transmitter on a fixed channel. Cabell struggles with the loneliness while Jack seems content with the solitude. Their supervisor McLeod refuses to send a replacement receiver, forcing the men to endure the harsh winter cut off from civilization.
A week before Christmas, they open their gifts early, discovering a phonograph among the packages. Unfortunately, nearly all the records are broken except two: a collection of bugle calls and Khachaturian's "Sabre Dance." While the discovery initially lifts spirits, Cabell becomes obsessed with playing the classical piece repeatedly, grating on Jack's nerves. As the tension between the two men mounts in their confined quarters, their carefully maintained companionship begins to fracture, revealing just how fragile their partnership truly is in the face of endless winter isolation.

Originally Aired: August 9, 1955
Suspense #610, "Love, Honor or Murder," cab driver Harry rushes home with an unexpected discovery: a wallet containing twelve thousand dollars left behind by one of his regular fares, prominent news commentator Sidney Walker. While Harry knows he must return the money to his company before Walker reports it missing, his wife Helen sees a different opportunity. What begins as Harry's honest impulse to show his wife their momentary windfall quickly turns into something far more dangerous as Helen pressures him to keep the money, even threatening to leave him if he turns it in.
As the minutes tick by, Helen takes control of the situation, making calculated phone calls to determine whether Walker has reported the loss. She discovers that Walker suspects where he left his wallet and plans to give the finder a chance to return it before involving the police. But Helen's enigmatic smile and cryptic comments suggest she's formulating a plan that goes far beyond simply returning the money—a scheme that will test the boundaries of love, honor, and perhaps something much darker.

Originally Aired: August 2, 1955
In Suspense #609, “Black Death,” Dr. Gebhardt, director of a biological research institute, faces every scientist’s worst nightmare when an infected laboratory cat escapes into a crowded city carrying the deadly plague bacillus. As panic threatens to erupt, police launch a desperate citywide manhunt while the doctor races against time to prevent an epidemic. But the search becomes deeply personal when he discovers his young daughter has befriended the very animal everyone has been ordered to kill. A gripping medical thriller that blends scientific realism, emotional drama, and relentless suspense into one of the series’ most memorable postwar episodes.
Cast:
Edgar Barrier, William Conrad, Mary McGovern, Gil Fry, Jack Edwards, Jim Musser, Joe Cranston, Barney Phillips