by Hal Erickson
synopsis
The perpetrator this time around is a burglar who manages to escape capture by playing on the sympathies of his victims. Whenever he is caught in the act, the burglar sobbingly explains his actions by relating a story of a life of unrelenting hard luck. But Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) shed not a single tear when they finally catch up with the lachrymose criminal. Written especially for television, with no prior radio version, this episode was later adapted by Richard Deming as a chapter of a 1957 paperback Dragnet anthology, under the title "The Crybaby Case."
