User Reviews

When you consider these stories are adapted from real case files the tragic nature of this story hits a lot harder. A young man is found holding a significantly older woman, he is brought in for interrogation and initially remains silent before claiming to have murdered the woman. By the end of the story its revealed this man is not at all well and has an uncomfortable unconventional relationship with the deceased. As his family is reveled it's shown there isn't ally of love between the suspect and his father, eventually the revelation comes the woman died of other complications related to heart disease brought on from alcoholism. While the suspect is acquitted his declining mental state displayed during his interrogation and probable being cut off by his father left the boy to take his own life. I'd rank this in the top 3 darkest Dragnet Cases of all time.

Review - The Big Hate Aired 2-12-53 This is a story from police files, as with all the others, depressing, but we are in a police station, not backstage in a play. The suspect is brought in to the station for questioning because he was found by police holding a dead woman in his arms in a rail yard's box car. The police know who he is from his driver's license, unable to get anything from the man on the woman's identification. Only fingerprints and a record of drunken arrests, six in fourteen months, give the officers the woman's identification. Now it is Friday's job to find out why he killed her, or did he? The sister is brought in after police call for a phone number based on the address given on the license. The suspect is less than cooperative, the sister comes into the station and the father. The father is belligerent, making a quick exit. The sister provides some insight to the relationship between her brother and the dead woman. The suspect gives more explanation to why he loved the dead woman, despite she was 52, he 25. It was a case of the suspect finding comfort from her which he could not get from a mother that was gone when he twelve. The suspect friend was a drunk, he realized he wasn't to be person she goaded him into thinking he was. The relationship was doomed from the start, but he did not kill her. She died of natural causes brought on by her lifestyle with alcohol. He was a lost soul clinging to someone who had less feeling for him, and more for the bottle. He was exonerated for her death; the coroner's report helped release him from custody. He unfortunately took his own life less than two years later. Gordon Miller is portrayed as age 25, but he has a hard time hiding his actual age of 38. The actress, playing the sister, with few acting credits, is obviously older; Herb Vigran is back, this time as the father. This episode is one of many in the file Dragnet chose to use, because that was basis of the program, real police file stories. Sam Edwards does a strong job acting as the suspect. Good acting overall by all, but a pathetic story to tell. Title likely is from the feelings the father and daughter had for the son's friend.