****SPOILERS**** A born screw-up Vern Sawder, Ray Stricklyn, just about had it when his good friend the nerdy Herbie Ryder,Ralph Vatrion,made headlines in having notorious bank robber Pinky Hyden put out of commission, by being shot dead by the police in a shoot-out, in him identifying or fingering him after his latest bank robbery. Sick and tired as well as jealous of all the good publicity Herbie was getting Vern later shot him dead in a dark alley, while coming home from work, making it look like Pinky's mob associates did him in.
Still not getting the results he yearned for in trying to get in good with the late Herbie's former girl-friend Gloria, Aline Towne, Vern feeling he's now invincible to the law murdered her as well for throwing him, when he was trying to make it with her, out of her apartment. It's Let. Det. Frank Ballinger, Lee Marvin, who sees through Vern's "He's such a nice boy" front and starts to investigate his wear abouts during the time of Herbie & Gloria's murders: Herbie who was murdered outright and Gloria who's death was made to look like a suicide.
***SPOILERS*** It wasn't long before Ballinger caught Vern red handed in trying to set his apartment building on fire and then, by being a good citizen, calling the fire department to come to it's, and the people in it, rescue. Handcuffed to a pole with the boiler, that Vern sabotaged, about to blow Ballinger risked his life to save the not worth saving Vern Sawder which by Ballinger succeeding,in putting the fire out, had him convicted of a double murder and sent to the Illinois state electric chair.
P.S This "Squad" episode was a lot like the Arnold Schuster murder back in Brooklyn in 1952. That's when Schuster after enjoying his brief 15 minutes of fame was gunned down in the street for fingering bank robber Willie Sutton the police. A murder twas sanctioned by the local mob, that Sutton wasn't even a member of, in it's violent dislike of Schuster being a squealer or police informer that had him rubbed out for doing it.
Still not getting the results he yearned for in trying to get in good with the late Herbie's former girl-friend Gloria, Aline Towne, Vern feeling he's now invincible to the law murdered her as well for throwing him, when he was trying to make it with her, out of her apartment. It's Let. Det. Frank Ballinger, Lee Marvin, who sees through Vern's "He's such a nice boy" front and starts to investigate his wear abouts during the time of Herbie & Gloria's murders: Herbie who was murdered outright and Gloria who's death was made to look like a suicide.
***SPOILERS*** It wasn't long before Ballinger caught Vern red handed in trying to set his apartment building on fire and then, by being a good citizen, calling the fire department to come to it's, and the people in it, rescue. Handcuffed to a pole with the boiler, that Vern sabotaged, about to blow Ballinger risked his life to save the not worth saving Vern Sawder which by Ballinger succeeding,in putting the fire out, had him convicted of a double murder and sent to the Illinois state electric chair.
P.S This "Squad" episode was a lot like the Arnold Schuster murder back in Brooklyn in 1952. That's when Schuster after enjoying his brief 15 minutes of fame was gunned down in the street for fingering bank robber Willie Sutton the police. A murder twas sanctioned by the local mob, that Sutton wasn't even a member of, in it's violent dislike of Schuster being a squealer or police informer that had him rubbed out for doing it.
