Rosemary Rice portrays a desperate woman in a race against time to save her husband from execution for a crime he did not commit. He was convicted of slaying of his wealthy uncle. She never believed he could do that, and works to convince others of his innocence. With little time to spare, she realizes she has little time left, and pursues her last possible effort to investigate once more. She finds indications that her brother-in-law would benefit financially from the combination of his uncle’s and her husband’s death, based on the terms of the uncle’s will. By the time she has gathered enough new evidence to prove her husband’s innocence, the execution is only minutes away. She does her best to get a call to the prison to at least get a delay in the execution. A violent storm interrupts telephone service, and no calls are going through. She despairs that she is unable to reach the governor, and her cause is hopelessly lost. That very storm, however, proves to be beneficial in the surprise ending.
The story was by Peter Fernandez, who also appeared in the cast.
If Fernandez were to write this story in these times of many different communications options beyond voice communications. At this time in the early 1960s, with significant reliance on above ground wires and virtually no satellite communications (because there were virtually no satellites). In 1960, twenty satellites were launched. In 2025 there are more than 6500 satellites in service for communications, mapping, weather, and many other uses. In 1961, loss of land line communications was a significant event. Today, phone systems can easily bypass problem areas and switch to alternatives, automatically, without detection by phone users.
One of the factors in the story is that the state in which the execution will be imposed has two different time zones. As of this writing, 14 of the 50 US states have a portion of their geographies in two different zones.
The program was recorded on Tuesday, June 27, 1961. The session was from 10:30am to 2:30pm.
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https://archive.org/details/TSP610702
THE CAST
Rosemary Rice (Emily), Ralph Camargo (Rutland), Alan Manson (Steve), Teri Keane (Muriel), Lawson Zerbe (Parker), James Stevens (Jim), Peter Fernandez (Jack)
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