The Truth About Jerry Baxter

Originally Aired: June 14, 1951

Suspense #433, "The Truth About Jerry Baxter," tells the harrowing story of a teenage narcotics addict struggling to escape a life of crime and addiction. Gregory Peck stars in this hard-hitting drama based on actual events. Juvenile investigator McIntyre works to help sixteen-year-old Jerry Baxter, a boy who started using drugs to fit in with his crowd and eventually turned to dealing marijuana to support his growing habit. After Jerry's arrest for peddling narcotics in the high school yard, McIntyre sees past the angry, violent teenager to recognize a sick kid who needs help rather than more punishment. Despite Jerry's troubled record in correction school, including a vicious fight that lands him in the infirmary, McIntyre convinces the parole board to give the boy a second chance with a job in Oakland.

Freshly paroled with fifty dollars and a warning to avoid his former associates, Jerry accepts a ride from a well-dressed woman in a fur coat. Though temptation surrounds him at every turn, Jerry resists his criminal impulses. But when the woman leaves him alone in her car with the keys in the ignition and police arrive on the scene, Jerry finds himself in the worst trouble of his young life.