by Hal Erickson
synopsis
A twelve-block residential area has been targeted by an elusive thief who preys on small businesses. The thief's MO is a strange one; he follows no set pattern, and never steals more than five dollars' worth of merchandise. Detectives Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) finally catch up with the perpetrator, high school sophomore Harry Dunbar (Bobby Driscoll), who has been stealing to provide food for his dangerously undernourished siblings--and liquor and cigarettes for his boozehound mother (Vivi Janiss). Capped by a heartbreaking denoument, this episode was adapted from the Dragnet radio broadcast of July 19, 1951.
