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THE CORPSE WAS IN THE KITCHEN

·40 min·2 clips

Anne connects delayed rigor mortis to Lillian's heated body, and Dawson steps out with a gun.

1. Hot Copy Radio Theater's The Corpse Was in the Kitchen recreates a Hot Copy episode first broadcast on Sunday, June 25th, 1944. 2. Rhonda Sigler-Weir voices Anne Rogers, Samantha Thompson voices Sprightly Poole, Jerry Kokich voices Lieutenant Mike Flanagan and Editor Graham, and Christian Newhouse voices Thomas Dawson. 3. The episode asks how a traffic arrest, a dead wife, and one apartment kitchen can fit the same timeline. 4. A traffic officer stops Thomas Dawson for speeding, hears that his wife is in danger, and still books him overnight. 5. By morning, the narrator says Lillian Dawson is found choked to death, and the city starts blaming the police response. 6. Mike Flanagan explains to Anne Rogers that Dawson is threatening to sue the city, which sends the matter up the police chain. 7. Mike, Anne, and Sprightly Poole walk to the Dawsons' apartment in a rough neighborhood near Tony Gianelli's Bubble Club. 8. Bridget Lafferty, the landlady, says she found Lillian Dawson and calls the apartment a place where blue coats have already caused enough trouble. 9. Anne and Mike overhear Dawson arguing through the door with Tony Gianelli about Lillian and hijacked liquor from the East Side. 10. Gianelli and Dawson trade blackmail over a 50,000-dollar payment, while Mike listens long enough to make an arrest call. 11. Anne's most important clue comes from the kitchen, where Lillian Dawson was found instead of somewhere more obvious. 12. Bridget Lafferty's explanation of the quarter meter turns the gas stove into a timing device instead of a background prop. 13. The open window, the turned-off oven, and the repeated quarter-meter clue all point to a timing problem. 14. The coroner's 4 a.m. estimate only works if the body was not heated for hours before discovery. 15. Anne's newspaper work matters because she keeps pressing the mechanical detail instead of accepting the first police theory. 16. The episode turns that tiny gas-meter fact into the key to the whole murder timeline. 17. The performances use brisk 1940s radio pacing, with quick scene changes and direct narration. 18. Anne, Mike, and Sprightly trade jokes and hardboiled lines while the sound design stays theatrical. 19. Fans of old-time radio mysteries and clue-driven crime stories will get the most out of it. 20. Listeners wanting modern pacing or minimal melodrama can skip it.

As heard by us

A tense vintage murder mystery with Anne Rogers driving the case.

The Corpse Was in the Kitchen opens with a traffic stop and then tightens into blackmail and murder accusations. Thomas Dawson sounds rattled, Anne Rogers stays in reporter mode, and the story keeps its line of suspicion and threat clear.

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Why you'd press play

Press play for a roadside stop that flips into blackmail, murder suspicion, and newsroom deadline panic.

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