The Big Look

Originally Aired: May 11, 1954 Dragnet #247, "The Big Look," Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Frank Smith respond to a brutal beating at 7982 Oakwood Avenue. The victim, Mrs. Irene Kieran, lies severely injured in her bedroom, unable or unwilling to describe her assailant despite being with him for half an hour. The neighbor who discovered her, Ms. Griffin, reports hearing screams while watching television and encountering a man fleeing the scene, though she can provide no useful description of him. As Friday and Smith investigate, troubling inconsistencies emerge. The crime scene appears staged—$120 sits untouched in a dresser drawer, and there's no sign of forced entry, suggesting Mrs. Kieran knew her attacker. Ms. Griffin mentions the Kierans' troubled marriage, revealing that Tom Kieran suspected his wife of infidelity and had threatened to kill her. With the husband nowhere to be found and the victim's strange silence about her assailant's identity, Friday and Smith begin piecing together a case that looks increasingly like it involves someone much closer to home than a random intruder.