The Big Story - 1950-08-16 Cornered Rats Always Squeal [Chester Potter, Pittsburgh Press]
The story begins in 1924, as Frank Steggert gets an early start in his criminal behavior. In 1932, he was sentenced to 40 years behind bars. He failed in his attempts for clemency, but he was finally released in 1947. He soon returns to criminal activity. Police are called to a jewelry store where the owner was found with multiple gunshot wounds, dead. Nothing seems to be missing... and they're confused if it's a holdup or a suicide. Seems like way too many shots for a suicide! The case is unsolved for days... weeks... months... Finally! A break in the case. Pittsburgh gangsters are apprehended! Steggert confesses to killing a fellow criminal... and goes to prison... A break in the jewelry store murder case... Steggert rats out one of his fellow perpetrators, Harold Hess... and finally, the killer of Joshua Lipman, jeweler, is known. Reporter Ray Sprigle, also a Big Story honoree, explains how the numbers rackets were keeping money in Lipman's safe! Steggert wanted to be certain that people believed his confession, and volunteered to be administered truth serum to be sure. Steggert is held for trial, and enters a guilty plea. He receives a life sentence, as does Hess. While in jail, Stettgert becomes ill, and is diagnosed with leukemia. A request is made for his release so he can die at home, away from prison. By the time his request is approved, he has already died at age 46. Hess, Lipman's killer, is still in jail through the 1960s. Lipman's son is a prominent nationally-respected rabbi in the Reform Judaism movement, living in the Washington, DC area. In 1971, he and his siblings asked for a pardon for Hess, which was granted. Rabbi Lipman was active in many social causes until his death in 1994 at age 74. Hess died in May 1992; he was 71. Chester Potter came from a newspaper family. His parents worked as reporters and his father later worked as a political writer. His father, however, did not want him to follow in his footsteps and told local editors his wishes. The newspaper editors held firm, even after his father died in 1921. Unable to get work in his native Pittsburgh, Chester left town in 1924 and worked for newspapers in New England and Philadelphia. He finally secured his long-sought hometown position when he joined the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1942. He later moved to the Pittsburgh Press in 1945. Chester passed away in October, 1956, succumbing to cancer at age 57. His mother, Jeanne O. Potter, was living in California. At 83, she was still writing a column for a local newspaper there. She was 96 when she died in 1969, in San Diego.
This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.