Produced and directed by radio actor and director
Elliott Lewis, the program was a historical
true crime series, examining crimes and murders from the past. It grew out of Lewis' personal interest in famous murder cases and took a
documentary-like approach to the subject, carefully recreating the facts, personages and feel of the time period. Comparatively little
dramatic license was taken with the facts and events, but the tragedy was leavened with humor, expressed largely through the narration. The crimes dramatized covered a broad range of times and places, from ancient
Greece to late 19th-century
America. Each episode in the series was co-written by
Morton Fine and
David Friedkin, The cases ranged from famous assassinations (of
Abraham Lincoln,
Leon Trotsky, and
Julius Caesar) and the lives (and often deaths) of the likes of
Cesare Borgia and
Blackbeard to more obscure cases, such as
Bathsheba Spooner, who killed her husband Joshua Spooner in 1778 and became the first woman tried and executed in
America. The only continuing character was the host and narrator, Thomas Hyland, played by
Lou Merrill. (as Lincoln, Trotsky, and
Thomas Edwin Bartlett),
Jack Edwards (as
John Wilkes Booth and
Cole Younger),
Irene Tedrow (as
Lizzie Borden),
William Johnstone Episodes included "Good Evening, My Name Is Jack the Ripper" on June 30, 1954, with Betty Hartford portraying Mary Jane Kelly. Roy Rowan,
Larry Thor, The episode was not broadcast. ==References==