Highway Patrol

Ralph Neal is a hardened criminal. He's smart, ruthless, and brutal. His outward personality belies his vicious character. He escapes from a state penitentiary. During the escape, he kills a guard. The convict who escapes with him is wounded during the escape. When this man's wounded leg slows the pair down, Neal immediately appraises this as an obstacle to his getaway...

Charlie Gray and Ross, two criminals, ingeniously "kidnap" an expensive machine owned by the Ferris Electronic Co. The machine, one of the 20th century wonders, is a Giant Computer that does a tremendous amount of administrative work in a matter of hours.

Dan Mathews places a stretch of highway under severe Selective Enforcement in order to reduce the high accident rate. Systematic traffic checks and increased patrolling are instigated. Mathews interviews drivers who receive too many citations on the highway to determine causes and cures. One of these drivers, Harry Brent, is a salesman who refuses to accept Mathew's philosophy of safety.

Though innocent of involvement, Joe Bradshaw happens to be in the company of the Fowler Brothers when they hold up a diner and murder its proprietor. He flees in fright. Fear of the police, compounded with an even greater terror of the vengeance he may expect from the Fowlers, drives Joe to attempt to get out of town.

The Club Bahamas, an illegal gambling house, has defied all efforts to close it by the local sheriff, so he makes an appeal to Dan for help. Dan brings down his own raiding party and although the surprise is complete, the club is so smooth an operation that the raiders get no evidence. It's a matter of two doors that stall the raid long enough to let the gambling equipment be hidden.

An unidentified man picks up a hitchhiker, a migrant worker, kills him with a tire iron, plants false identification on his body, and then wrecks the car to make the hitchhiker's death appear to be accidental. Doctor's report to Highway patrol indicates murder. Mathews, in checking, finds five similar "accidents". Dan suspects an insurance pay-off racket.

Dan Mathews stops off in the tiny, isolated community of Larchmont. Immediately little things begin to happen: he can't get breakfast in a restaurant because the stove is out of order; the second restaurant closes as he comes over to it; the General Store is closed; nobody's around. Dan's curiosity changes to suspicion when he comes across an out-of-state car which checks out to be stolen.

A thief steals a piece of oil research equipment which contains radio-active elements. If the machine is disassembled, exposure to the elements will result. Such exposure may prove fatal. When the pursuing police close in on the thief, he jettisons the machine, hoping to return to it at a more opportune time. But a junk scavenger has found it and sold it to a junk dealer.

Frank Wood, a Farmer's Cooperative, is reported missing while transporting a large sum of the firm's money. Dan Mathews discovers Wood to have a criminal record. Road blocks are set up on the natural assumption that Wood is still a thief. Actually Wood succeeded in rehabilitating himself. He is overdue because of a tire-blowout and crash.

Young Grant Elliot, stopped for speeding, panics and accidentally runs down the patrolman when the latter grows suspicious of a lot of automobile accessories in the car. The lad drives the officer to the hospital, saving his life and winning the sympathy of Dan Mathews. Mathews is shocked when Grant is linked with a number of recent thefts of auto goods and is arrested.

Jack McCall, retired gangster, now a successful rancher, is to be called to testify before a grand jury investigating crime in the state. Mathews is assigned the job of keeping McCall safe. McCall refuses to be placed in a hotel for safety, so Mathews goes to the ranch. A cop fighting to keep him alive, just because it's his job, convinces Jack this side of the law has much to commend it.

Masterson, an intelligent, business-like protection man, is running what seems to be a legitimate maintenance service. His organization causes the breakdown of trucks on the highway, then he moves in to offer his servicing which will prevent further "accidents."

Dan Mathews receives an anonymous phone call to the effect that Johnny Barr, crime syndicate head, is planning to carry out the murder of an important man. Using the resources of his agency...plus some logical deduction, Dan suspects the caller to be Lester Powers, a high priced accountant who is making some legitimate investments with Barr's illegal money.

Ted Spaeth's career as a successful architect has caused him to neglect his wife Laura and their six-year old daughter Julie. The inevitable happens: two days before Xmas, Laura takes Julie and leaves...planning to stay with her sister till the problems are worked out. They stay at a motel and the next morning Julie is gone.

The Highway Patrol learns heroin is being transported into the local area by a unique method: concealed under the hubcaps of cars belonging to innocent people. When the cars reach their destination, the H is collected and distributed by local pushers. Efforts to trace the happy dust back to its source of supply lead Dan Mathews and Narcotics Agent Ed Coleman to a resort, the Lakeview Lodge.

A bank messenger, Frank Douglas, at his wife Louise's instigation, absconds with a large sum of money. He brings it home, where he arrives earlier than expected, and overhears the wife planning to double-cross him and run off with the money and another man, Paul Lawson, a truck driver.

In their remote, isolated mountain cabin, Walt and Freda Hollis find an injured man -- fever-ridden, hungry, armed with a gun. While Freda tries to make the stranger more comfortable, Walt reports the situation to the nearby ranger station. The ranger radios the Highway patrol, learns the man is Mickey Demarest -- a frightened young hoodlum who is running away from a murder he did not commit.

The Highway Patrol is called in to arrest Roger Taylor, who was identified as the man who beat Mrs. Ethel Carey, to find out the holding place of her fortune. A lie detector test indicates Taylor is innocent. Confronted with overwhelming evidence against Taylor, Dan must book him.

Patrolman Mark Reynolds comes face to face on a highway with his brother, Bill Reynolds, an escaped criminal. Bill overpowers Mark for a moment, and while fleeing, Mark has a chance to shoot down his brother, but cannot do it. He hands in his resignation to Dan.

When three bandits rob a bank in a small coastal town and shoot a bystander, Dan orders roadblocks that seem certain to cut off every avenue of escape. But their car is found empty. The Bandits, dressed as fisherman walk toward the beach when a launch appears to take them to a point down the coast.

Mrs. Helen Barton, a woman of emotional and somewhat weak personality, has a serious argument with her husband because of the way in which her mother, Irene, tries to run her and her husband Joe's lives. While driving to her mother's, Helen negligently hits a pedestrian and runs. Joe provides an alibi for Helen to keep her from a nervous breakdown.

Dan Mathews receives a phone call from an employee of a wrecking yard. He is informed that a customer purchased a '55 Cadillac sedan from the yard as salvage, paying $800 for it, and then failed to call for the wreck. Dan's investigation uncovers the operations of an elaborate stolen car racket.

Jay Dederick, an unemployed electrical engineer, has brooded over losing his job at Roget Chemical Corporation until it has become an obsession. Convinced he was victimized by the company, he uses stolen explosives to convert his car into a giant bomb and heads for the city, determined to blow up the company. Dan learns of this suicidal mission only at the last moment.

A Forest Ranger, patrolling a desolate section of heavy forestland, sees a small plane starting to land about a mile away. He notifies the Highway Patrol that it seems to be trying to make a forced landing. Dan Mathews and another officer are the first on the scene, but the occupants are gone and there's no sign of the Ranger. Then they discover the Ranger's body nearby. He's been killed.