Get this and get it straight. Crime is a suckers road and those who travel it wind up in the gut of the prison of the grave.

The story you are about to hear is true, only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

The Adventures of Sam Spade Detective.

The Adventures of the Saints starring Vincent Prize

Bob Bailey in the exciting adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account

America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator.

Yours truly, Johnny Deller. the Hello and welcome to Down These Mean Streets. This week our old time

radio detective review is going way back in time for some of history's most

infamous murders in the outstanding anthology drama crime classics.

Combining top-notch writing, some of Radio's best actors, and masters of direction and music behind the scenes,

Crime Classics is one of a kind, and while it technically isn't a radio detective series,

it's one of the best shows ever produced during the Golden Age of Radio.

Crime Classics was the brainchild of producer, director, and actor Elliot Lewis.

Lewis, who directed Broadway as my bead, as well as several seasons of suspense was a murder buff and a student of famous crimes through history.

Working with his Broadway as my beat writers, Morton Fine, and David Friedkin, Lewis developed an anthology

dramatizing the infamous and unusual murders throughout history from all

around the world. The show's first episode told the story of Bathsheba Spooner, the first woman tried and executed for murder in the United States.

Other shows dramatize the stories of Lizzyie Borden, Billy the Kid, Blackbeard, and Jack the Ripper,

as well as less well known crimes like that of Harvard Medical Professor John White Webster, who dismembered his victim as well as legends

set in the court of King Arthur. Ancering the show was actor Lou Merrill as the

dry droll Thomas Highland, introduced each week as a

connoisseur of crime, student of violence, and teller of murders. Highland

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