OM DENNE EPISODE
Originally Aired: April 24, 1952
Dragnet #150, "The Big Elevator," finds Sergeants Joe Friday and Bill Lockwood responding to a baffling case at Georgia Street Receiving Hospital. A young woman in her early thirties has been found dead in a hospital elevator, slumped in a wheelchair and dressed only in her nightgown, bathrobe, and slippers. Night nurse Grace Morgan discovered the body after hearing the elevator arrive but seeing no one exit. Dr. Terrell's examination reveals mysterious abrasions on the victim's shoulder and head, along with the smell of alcohol, but no clear cause of death. Most puzzling of all, the woman carries no identification, and receiving hospital attendant Ray Collins reports that a man brought her in around 11 p.m., requested a wheelchair, refused assistance, and then vanished.
Friday and Lockwood face a perplexing mystery with virtually no leads. The detectives must determine not only how the woman died, but who she is and why someone would bring her to a hospital only to abandon her alone in an elevator. With only the woman's clothing to examine and a vague description of the mysterious man from Collins, Friday and Lockwood begin their methodical investigation from the ground floor up.