The Mysterious Old Radio Listening Society · Ghoulish Delights

Episode 386: Bury Your Dead, Arizona, Parts 3 and 4

September 19, 2025·48 min·3 clips

The hosts continue a seven-part serial of the lost radio mystery 'Bury Your Dead, Arizona' from 1949.

1. The Mysterious Old Radio Listening Society's Episode 386 continues the seven-part presentation of 'Bury Your Dead, Arizona' with Parts 3 and 4 of the 15-part Mutual serial. 2. Hosts Eric, Tim, and Joshua discuss the episodes after playing them in full; all three have already heard the complete serial and try to avoid spoilers while analyzing individual moments. 3. The episode asks whether Carlton E. Morse's fast, improvisational writing style produces clues that pay off or merely the illusion of foreshadowing. 4. Part 3 opens on the cliffhanger of the vanished dead body: the Maestro claps twice, inviting Jack to check his hands for blood — Jack finds none — and Doc's full flashlight sweep of the boxcar finds nothing. 5. The Maestro refuses to explain, invoking 'the powers of the mystic,' while Jack insists a murder occurred and accuses him directly; the Maestro smiles and calls Jack a fool. 6. Reggie falls asleep unexpectedly while standing guard over the Maestro, then wakes claiming he saw a luminous Nasha walk to the car door and float off the train into the dark. 7. When Doc checks, Nasha is missing from the rear of the car; the Maestro confirms he 'caused her to do it' and denies it constitutes murder. 8. Nasha drifts back into the open car door glowing and luminous, and Jack discovers blood and iron rust on her hands; she collapses and the Maestro says 'I will heal her.' 9. Part 4 begins after a time skip of roughly a day: the boxcar has been shunted to a siding in open desert at dawn, with 'sand and greasewood as far as a feller can see' and no visible roads or buildings. 10. Doc reads a railroad sign and the trio pieces together that 'Bury Your Dead Arizona' is the name of the town — not a warning — prompting Reggie to wonder whether the entire population might already be dead. 11. A local man called Jumping Dick appears, explains he earned the name by flinching at rattlesnakes, and tells them there were 20 residents in the town until last night, when one was killed by wolves. 12. The Maestro, unable to climb down from the boxcar without help, is lowered to the ground; when the characters mock him, he declares a curse on the town and predicts the wolves will kill again. 13. Host Eric notes that the Maestro's reaction to hearing about the wolf death — saying it reminded him of 'a portion of southeastern Russia where I was once stranded' — is the episode's most pregnant moment of genuine menace. 14. The hosts describe the dual nature of Parts 3 and 4 as providing two very different cliffhangers: the surreal horror of Nasha returning covered in blood, and the absurdist comedy of a very fat man struggling to exit a boxcar. 15. Tim and Joshua develop competing theories about the Maestro: Tim suspects the packing box he sits on and the repeated emphasis on his extreme weight and short straight-down legs are deliberate Morse clues; Eric is skeptical given Morse's known tendency to leave loose ends. 16. The hosts credit Morse with designing a villain who operates on two levels — one for the audience skeptic who identifies with Jack and needs a real murder, and one for the supernatural believer represented by Doc and Reggie. 17. Eric notes that the scene where Doc and Jack shine the flashlight on the sleeping Nasha is played for comedy but functions as a radio technique: the characters verbally confirming that Nasha looks exactly as she described herself in the dark boxcar. 18. The format is the podcast's standard panel: full play-through of the serial episodes followed by relaxed host commentary; tone is affectionate and self-aware, with frequent jokes about Morse's writing speed. 19. The episode ends with a brief promotion of the hosts' theater company Ghoulish Delights, their Patreon-exclusive Cliffhangers of Doom series, and upcoming Parts 5 and 6. 20. Best for returning listeners already invested in the serial; newcomers who join here will lose most of the Maestro's cumulative strangeness.

As heard by us

Old-time radio suspense turns a boxcar and a vanished town into a tense, eerie chapter.

This installment keeps Bury Your Dead Arizona moving through a boxcar, a supposed dead body, and a strange maestro at the center of the action. The setting remains stark and uncanny, with disbelief, repeated challenges, and a dry joke folded into the menace.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

A lonely desert stop where a boxcar, a murdered man, and a maestro keep the mystery alive.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Mysterious Old Radio Listening Society