Mystery - Sleepy Radio · Various Authors

Leonidas Witherall - The Corpse Meets a Deadline

March 18, 2026·28 min·2 clips

A reporter accuses his editor of deliberately killing his chance to become a foreign correspondent.

1. Mystery — Sleepy Radio presents 'The Corpse Meets the Deadline,' a wartime episode of The Adventures of Leonidas Witherall on WOR. 2. Walter Hamden plays Leonidas Witherall, a New England schoolmaster described as resembling Shakespeare; supporting cast includes Ethel Ramey as Mrs. Mullet and Jack McBride as Sergeant McCarvel. 3. The episode's core hook is a locked-room-style puzzle: a newspaper editor is murdered inside his own pressroom while three people with declared motives were in or near the building. 4. Leonidas and his housekeeper Mrs. Mullet visit the Dalton Herald to secure coverage of the Ladies Aid Society spring tea dance — a comic errand that puts Leonidas inside the building before the murder. 5. George Bennett confronts editor Forrest face-to-face, grabs his throat, and warns 'I'll see that you're taken care of, no matter how far I have to go' after Forrest printed a photo of Bennett's 18-year-old daughter at a police gambling raid. 6. Reporter Jackie Bigelow confronts Forrest separately, accusing him of sabotaging his chance to become a foreign correspondent for Cosmopolitan Syndicate, saying 'You killed my chance, Forrest — I'll never get out of this town now.' 7. Linotyper Pat Welsh tells Forrest he knows 'you've got blood on your hands' from a decade-old San Francisco newspaper war in which Forrest allegedly had delivery drivers beaten and a peddler killed. 8. Forrest is killed sometime around 3:20 PM: a large cauldron of boiling lead is tipped over him in the press room, and his body is slid down the paper delivery chute, emerging with the afternoon edition. 9. Bennett returns to Witherall's home to report the murder and ask for Witherall's help, acknowledging he was in the building at the time and fears he is the prime suspect. 10. Sergeant McCarvel (called 'Shakespeare' sarcastically) runs the official investigation and focuses initially on Bennett and Welsh, both of whom have documented grudges and shaky alibis. 11. Pat Welsh's alibi — receiving a call saying his mother was ill, then getting stuck in the self-service elevator — is treated with ridicule by the sergeant but is later corroborated by the building superintendent. 12. Switchboard operator Ruth confirms that a call for Pat came in around 3 PM, and that Jackie Bigelow arrived at the building after the murder and appeared unbothered by Forrest's death: 'Hallelujah — Forrest knocked off? Boy, this is my lucky day.' 13. Leonidas notices that when he met Jackie at the switchboard, Jackie remarked they should take the stairs because the elevator was broken — knowledge that was impossible if Jackie had been at the shipyard fire the entire time. 14. Leonidas reconstructs Jackie's method: he called Forrest from the fire site with a fake sabotage update, phoned Pat Welsh with a false story to clear the linotype room, manually jammed the presses to lure Forrest downstairs, then tipped the lead cauldron. 15. Leonidas bluffs that a medical examination can distinguish a lead burn from a fire burn by detecting lead traces in the wound on Jackie's wrist, a claim Witherall admits privately to the sergeant he invented entirely. 16. Sergeant McCarvel is both skeptical and impressed: 'Applesauce or not, Shakespeare, we caught that killer — and that's what counts.' 17. The episode mixes drawing-room comedy — Mrs. Mullet's enthusiasm for fire engines, Ruth the switchboard operator's malapropisms — with a genuinely timed alibi puzzle. 18. Howard Merrill's script and Roger Bower's direction maintain a brisk, comedic tone throughout, with Leonidas frequently quoting Shakespeare to puncture tense moments. 19. Best for listeners who enjoy classic Golden Age radio mysteries with a comedic schoolmaster detective and wartime American atmosphere. 20. Listeners expecting straight procedural drama or modern pacing may find the comic relief characters and stage-play conventions dated.

As heard by us

A newsroom mystery that turns civic fuss into sabotage and menace.

This episode turns a routine errand into newsroom trouble, old grudges, and sabotage that lands with force once the presses start to fail.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Press play if you like murder crashing into a newspaper deadline.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Mystery - Sleepy Radio