It was a hot day. The dispatcher told us that a man had reported a shooting. Patrolmen Davies and Washburn came along with me. It was 4:30 in the afternoon. My name is Crawford. I'm a police detective.
When we go to the scene of the crime, we got out of the car and looked for clues in the front yard. There were no clues. We approached the victim's house with caution. We didn't know what to expect. Patrolman Washburn knocked on the door. We waited for a few minutes, and no one came to the door. Then a man appeared at the door. He seemed frightened. I asked him what his name was, and he said that it was Murray. I told Mr. Murray who we were and asked if we could come inside his house. He said it would be alright.
We entered the little, 4-room house and sat down. I asked the man to tell us what happened. He said that there was a prowler outside last night. The prowler was roaming around his back yard. He said that he saw the prowler climb up his (Murray's) sliding board to get a better look of the neighborhood. The prowler saw him observing his actions, so he pulled out his gun and shot at him. He said that the prowler then ran away. I asked if anybody else heard the shot. He said, "No".
Patrolman Davies went outside to look for footprints. He found some near the slide. He also found a bullet and gun powder marks. This proved that someone was on a slide firing a gun. I asked Mr. Murray to stay inside his house, while the three of us reenacted the crime. I was Murray, and Washburn was the prowler. He got onto the slide. My feet were lying in the footprints of Murray. The stage was set. Washburn pointed his gun at me, and I realized something. There was a tree exactly two degrees to the right of the barrel of the gun and thirty feet from the slide. That put the tree between Washburn and myself, with the angle being two degrees. If Murray was telling the truth, then the prowler would have to have been an excellent marksman to bypass the tree without leaving a scratch. Since the prowler was carrying a gun only for protection, and since the prowler was put under a great deal of strain during that night, and since there was a great deal of surprise involved in the shooting, it was plain to see that there was never a prowler, and Murray framed the entire incident.
When we got back in the house, Mr. Murray was ready to identify the prowler as John Barmer. We called headquarters and asked them to research John Barmer. The reason for this was to see if there were any connections between the two men. There was a connection. Murray had been cheated by Barmer in a poker game. This was Murray's way to get back at Barmer.
The next day, we went back to Murray's house. He was surprised to see us. We told him about why we came back. I explained to him about the tree. I told him his rights. He asked what he was going to be charged with. I said, "Fraud". We then went to John Barmer's house and informed him what had happened. I told him that he had better not cheat, because it got other people in trouble, too. Case dismissed.
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