22 Rifle for Christmas

Originally Aired: December 20, 1951 Dragnet #132, "22 Rifle for Christmas," Sergeants Joe Friday and Ben Romero respond to a disturbing case just three days before Christmas. Nine-year-old Stanley Johnstone has vanished from his backyard, and Highland Park Juvenile officers Harry Levinson and Doherty have discovered fresh bloodstains along the walkway behind the family's green stucco home on Collis Avenue. Lieutenant Lee Jones from the crime lab also finds a spent .22 caliber shell casing near the rose bushes, adding an ominous element to the boy's disappearance. As the detectives question Stanley's mother, Ruth Johnstone, she initially believes her son has simply run away as he did once before after being scolded. However, her certainty begins to waver when she realizes there was no recent argument to prompt such behavior. Mrs. Johnstone's husband George, a city fireman working at Engine Company 12, owns a .45 automatic pistol, but Ruth reveals another gun in the household—a rifle George purchased as Stanley's Christmas present. With bloodstains, a mysterious shell casing, and a missing child, Friday and Romero face a race against time to uncover what happened in that backyard.