Unknown Broadcast | Life Ends at Midnight: A $1,500 Debt, Life Insurance and a Murder Deadline

Walter Bates needs $1,500 before midnight and sees a fatal solution in the elderly boarder whose life-insurance policy could benefit his mother.

Walter returns to the struggling home of Mrs. Bates demanding money she does not have. He faces a deadline that could cost him his life, while his mother can barely meet rent and household expenses. Her boarder, Mr. Chalmers, is an old man with rheumatism and a $2,500 straight-life policy he is considering abandoning because it has no cash value.

Walter persuades Chalmers to keep the policy and change its beneficiary. A walk through the old neighborhood gives him time to consider how quickly an accidental death might put the insurance money within reach. Police stories about families disconnecting gas heaters to kill insured relatives supply a method, and every passing hour tightens the pressure to finish the plan before midnight.

Written by Robert Tallman and starring Tony Barrett as Walter Bates, “Life Ends at Midnight” combines noir crime, family desperation, insurance fraud, and a clock-driven murder scheme. The richer notes identify the actual financial stakes while preserving the final consequence Walter fails to calculate.

Featured archival program: Suspense.

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