This story is adapted from a true police case and dramatized especially for the Mystery Theater by G. Frederick Lewis. 

Hackett Town is in one of the most beautiful of the mid-western states. It is spring and everybody should be out enjoying the warmth after a hard winter.But everyone is in the courthouse and those who cant get in stand outside waiting, for inside someone is on trial for their life. As the story begins Sheriff Ed Blake is speaking from the witness box. 

Some kids have gone missing and it is feared that the blackmailer has killed them.