…and that would be McFadden Publications’ True Detective Magazine, which lent its name to True Detective Mysteries—an anthology series developed by Bill Sweets and Dana Noyes which debuted over CBS Radio May 16, 1929. Although there were more than a few gaps in its broadcast history, Mysteries had a nearly thirty-year run on radio, finally departing the airwaves on June 2, 1958. Considered by many sources to be network radio’s first detective series, it paved the way for later programs such as The Detective Story Hour (which evolved into The Shadow), The Eno Crime Club and The Blue Coal Mystery Revue.

Technically, the “mysteries” in the show’s title is a bit of a misnomer; this series focused less on “whodunit” and more on crime dramatizations of a Gangbusters-ish vein. The series often spotlighted cases that were more than twenty years old, but all of them determinedly demonstrated the old aphorism that “Crime does not pay.” (As my father the cynic would add, “…as well as it used to.”)

After a season on CBS, True Detective Mysteries took a long hiatus from the airwaves, but resurfaced on Mutual in 1936-37 and 1938-39—and also a transcribed syndicated version in the late 1930s. It was only after the program’s return to Mutual on April 29, 1944 that True Detective Mysteries began its best remembered and most durable format, with the stories narrated by magazine editor John Shuttleworth (played by Richard Keith). (Later, Shuttleworth would be replaced by an unnamed editor, portrayed by John Griggs.) The series had a semi-documentary motif—introduced, as related in Jim Cox’s Radio Crime Fighters, as “a real story of a real crime solved by real people with a real criminal brought to justice.” (So I guess it was realism the show was after.) It was also during this time that the show was sponsored (1946-53) by Oh Henry! candy bars—which Mysteries plugged in a tongue-in-cheek manner as “public energy number one.”

The program I checked out last night at work was not from that time frame, but rather an August 19, 1937 broadcast entitled “Murder in the Horror House.” A farmer/vegetable merchant named Tony Naroni charms a pretty young waitress named Antoinetta into quitting her job and working for him as chief cook and bottle washer at his farm. Shortly thereafter, she and Naroni’s two partners mysterious disappear—and the townsfolk begin to suspect that something is amiss, particular since Naroni is a jealous individual with a violent temper. (He also has an overripe, lip-smacking acting style, which sort of makes it hard to take this episode too seriously.)

True Detective Mysteries borrowed a page from Gangbusters and began offering rewards of $500 (later increased to $1000) to listeners who could provide information leading to the capture of wanted and dangerous criminal types, and it provided descriptive clues (scars, deformities, etc.) at the end of each broadcast—this gimmick worked on this show as well as Gangbusters, and several arrests resulted from tips supplied by the general public. So if you’re curious about the origins of why this still works today on America’s Most Wanted, I invite to check this series out—approximately two dozen broadcasts of this show are extant today.
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