This ingenious "Lone Ranger" episode relies on a scheme where the villain commits a major crime but allows himself to be arrested for a minor crime so he can fool the authorities. Red Randall (Jim Bannon of "War Arrow") has red hair so he persuades an accomplice,gullible Lefty Hayes (Jimmy Lloyd of "Cigarette Girl") to dye his hair red, too. While Lefty is in town stirring up trouble and making certain that everybody, including storekeeper Jim Blair (one-time only actor Ed Dooley) sees his auburn thatch, Red is waiting out on the trail with his Winchester ready to ambush a single horseman carrying $100-thousand dollars. After Red bushwhacks the courier and stashes the money in a mined out area called Devil's Pass, he meets up with Lefty who created enough of a ruckus in town to have everybody talking about a man who smashed a window in a merchandise store and stole a Stetson. No sooner has Lefty provided Red with an alibi than Red murders him in cold blood. Leaving Lefty's body in the wilderness alongside the dead courier, Red rides into town, presents himself to the local lawman, Sheriff Brice (Marshall Bradford of "The Night Runner") and confesses his crime of stealing the hat. The flabbergasted Brice locks Red up. While in the calaboose, Red runs into another familiar face, Beef Corson (Gene Evans of "The Steel Bayonet"), but Beef knows Red's real identity. Anyway, Red plans to stick around for 10 days. He figures by then that the authorities will have given up searching the area for the stolen money. The Lone Ranger and Tonto find the murdered accomplice and the slain mail rider. Our hero notices that Lefty has red hair, but his roots are black so the Ranger deduces that he dyed his hair. They meet with Brice and he listens with interest to his yarn about Red. At this point, nobody knows Red's true identity. The Ranger decides to smoke out Red by sending in Tonto to serve time with him. Tonto explains to Red that a new gold strike in Devil's Pass has miners rushing by the scores to dig up the area. The Lone Ranger poses as an outlaw and frees Tonto and the two jailed owlhoots. The other prisoner is Of course, the treacherous Red and his new partner take the sheriff's six-guns and ride to Devil's Pass to find the loot. Earlier, the Ranger had searched the area, but he found no trace of the money. Naturally, Red double-crosses the Ranger and shoots him down like a dog. Afterward, he takes his partner to the loot, uncovers it, and shoots his new partner. The trouble is that the revolver that he took from the unconscious lawman discharges nothing but blanks. The Lone Ranger and Tonto get the drop on him and turn him over to the sheriff.
This is the earliest example that I have found of the villain staging one crime and having himself arrested for another.
This is the earliest example that I have found of the villain staging one crime and having himself arrested for another.