Originally Aired: April 3, 1952

Dragnet #147, "The Big Streetcar," opens with Detective Sergeant Joe Friday and his partner Ed Jacobs working the night watch out of Homicide Detail when they catch a call about a shooting on Kirkman near Alpine. Racing to the scene code three, they find Wally Radford, a dark-haired man in his early forties, lying on the sidewalk shot several times in the chest and shoulder. Neighbor Ernest Whitley tells Friday and Jacobs he heard multiple shots while watching television with his wife, then saw Radford stagger past his door, weaving and clutching his chest before collapsing on the sidewalk. Before losing consciousness, the critically wounded victim manages to tell Whitley who shot him: his own wife.

As Friday and Jacobs begin their investigation, they learn the Radfords had been fighting all day and into the night, with neighbors hearing them yelling and throwing things. Now Mrs. Radford has apparently fled the scene, though she reportedly made a phone call to a neighbor shortly after the shooting. With the victim clinging to life and the suspect at large, Friday and Jacobs must piece together what happened during this deadly domestic dispute and locate Mrs. Radford before the trail grows cold.