The Lie

Originally Aired: April 28, 1949

Suspense #338, "The Lie," starring Mickey Rooney, presents a twisted tale of murder and family dysfunction. Martin Delavan, a young man expelled from college for the third time, returns home to find his despised stepmother Glad dead on the bed with a broken neck. His father's telltale cigarette butts and newspaper suggest Dad came home early and discovered Glad on the phone with another man. Believing his long-suffering father finally snapped and killed the manipulative, unfaithful woman who tormented them both, Martin makes a desperate decision. He destroys the evidence, tears his own clothes, scratches his face with Glad's fingernails, and calls the police to confess to the murder himself.

But Lieutenant McTavish isn't buying Martin's story quite so easily. As the young man eagerly repeats his confession, the detective grows increasingly suspicious of how convenient and theatrical the whole scene appears. Martin insists he's guilty and demands to be taken downtown and booked, but the lieutenant wants to film a reenactment first. When McTavish's assistant discovers warm ashes from a burned newspaper in the kitchen stove, the investigation takes a new turn that threatens to unravel Martin's carefully constructed lie.