User Reviews

Review - The Big Mother Aired 1-31-52 Sergeants Friday, Jacobs are working the night-watch out of Homicide responding to a call from Mercy Hospital, the Superintendent of Nurses, made the call. The hospital nursery was left unattended for 90 seconds, in that time, a newly born baby was taken from its crib. How long could a three-day-old-baby survive in the hands of a kidnapper? A reason to call homicide, for fear of the worse. No other division would fit, save missing persons, but the urgency to find a few day old infant is paramount.

The guys certainly had help with this one, as fellow officers found an accessible entrance that wasn't supposed to be. A tip from a lowly hotel clerk gave a description of the kidnapper that was used to validate the suspect. A neighbor called police describing the child as blond, the woman bringing the child home was not blond. The baby was not blond, either, but the tip did provide the suspect.

The kidnapper was a woman recently giving birth, whose baby had passed, while at the hospital in another state. She took the baby, because she was under complete mental strain. She finally confesses to her crime, as Sergeants Friday, Jacobs are relieved they found the baby they were looking for and it was healthy. This story is believable from all angles, and well performed by its actors; worth a watch to follow the trail and admission to the crime.

***SPOILERS*** The loss of a child and motherly love is the theme of this "Dragnet" episode with Sgt. Joe Friday, Jack Webb, and his partner Sgt. Ed Jacobs, Barney Phillips, on the trail of a baby kidnapper who snatched the 3 day old infant out of his crib at the Mercy Hospital when the nurse in charge was on her coffee brake. It doesn't take long for Sgt. Friday & Jacobs to crack the case wide open in finding that the kidnapper was at the " Blue Bind" hotel with the child just blocks away from the hospital where he was kidnapped from.

Leading the police to a christening in the Mexican barrio of L.A the police find the infant boy, who's footprint proved he was the missing child,the center of attraction there and snatch him even before the ceremony began. It's was the baby's mom Roberta Salazar, Peggy Webber, who in fact kidnapped the child after she, in childbirth, lost her own. Afraid to tell her husband Frank, Henry Bartell,the sad news of their child's death she decided to kidnap, at the Mercy Hospital, one out of the nursery for herself which in fact made, for her and her husband, things even worse!

***SPOILERS*** As it turned out Roberta was diagnosed with severe mental and emotional strain and instead of being prosecuted for kidnapping she's sent to a sanitarium to be treated and chill out instead of prison that would do nothing to help her condition. You can see it was hard for both Sgt. Friday and Jacobs to do their job, in arresting Roberta, here in that she in fact was just as much a victim as the family who son's she kidnapped. But in her getting a child at the expense of someone else wasn't the right way to go about it. For her and those who's child she kidnapped and most of all the child himself!