The run
- Network
- Mutual
- Years active
- 1937–1944
- Surviving broadcasts
- 10
- Genre
- docudrama
True Detective Mysteries dramatised cases taken from True Detective magazine, broadcast on Mutual from 1937 and later sponsored by Listerine and Oh Henry. Each week presented the case history of a real crime, often narrated from the offender's point of view, and several broadcasts closed with an appeal for information on a fugitive still at large. Public-domain transfers from the Internet Archive.
Source collection
Internet Archive audio collections
Rights
Public domain — no renewed US copyright
Cataloguing
Air dates and notes from the Archive item record
The shape of the run
What survives, year by year
5 dated broadcasts across 8 years on the air, with 7 years where nothing is known to survive. Brightness is transfer quality; empty cells are months lost to time.
Episodes
Start here
Listen to the run in order
Restored broadcasts from 1937, in original transmission order.
- 1. Rattlesnake Barefoot Bride · 8 Mar 1937
- 2. Horror In A Hospital Ward · 25 Mar 1937
- 3. Black Legion Secrets Never Told Before · 1 Apr 1937
Rattlesnake Barefoot Bride
8 Mar 1937 · 26 min
True Detective Mysteries dramatised cases taken from True Detective magazine, broadcast on Mutual from 1937 and later sponsored by Listerine and Oh Henry.
Horror In A Hospital Ward
25 Mar 1937 · 24 min
True Detective Mysteries dramatised cases taken from True Detective magazine, broadcast on Mutual from 1937 and later sponsored by Listerine and Oh Henry.
Black Legion Secrets Never Told Before
1 Apr 1937 · 25 min
True Detective Mysteries dramatised cases taken from True Detective magazine, broadcast on Mutual from 1937 and later sponsored by Listerine and Oh Henry.
Buddha Man Mystery
8 Apr 1937 · 26 min
True Detective Mysteries dramatised cases taken from True Detective magazine, broadcast on Mutual from 1937 and later sponsored by Listerine and Oh Henry.
Helen Clevenger Case
22 Apr 1937 · 24 min
True Detective Mysteries dramatised cases taken from True Detective magazine, broadcast on Mutual from 1937 and later sponsored by Listerine and Oh Henry.
Trailing Red Ryan
29 Apr 1937 · 26 min
True Detective Mysteries dramatised cases taken from True Detective magazine, broadcast on Mutual from 1937 and later sponsored by Listerine and Oh Henry.
Death In Step Ins
6 May 1937 · 26 min
True Detective Mysteries dramatised cases taken from True Detective magazine, broadcast on Mutual from 1937 and later sponsored by Listerine and Oh Henry.
Black Legion
12 Jun 1937 · 25 min
True Detective Mysteries dramatised cases taken from True Detective magazine, broadcast on Mutual from 1937 and later sponsored by Listerine and Oh Henry.
Also on Mutual
Mutual in 1937–1944
Other series the network carried while True Detective Mysteries was on the air.
Same seasons
docudrama on the air then
Series in the same genre whose runs overlapped this one.
What it became
History, dramatised
A historical event staged with actors and a narrator who insists on the date. Cavalcade of America and You Are There made the past into scenes.
Lineage is written by our editors, not inferred from listening data.
Descendants
Working in the tradition of True Detective Mysteries
Modern series carrying this form forward.
If you liked this
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