Whitehall 1212 was a weekly crime drama radio show in the United States that ran from November 18, 1951 until September 28, 1952. Its cases were taken from the files of New Scotland Yard's Black Museum.
Whitehall 1212, named after the then famous telephone number of New Scotland Yard —the headquarters of the London Metropolitan Police Force —was written and directed by Wyllis Cooper and broadcast by NBC. It was hosted by Chief Superintendent John Davidson, curator of the Black Museum and it used many of the same cases chosen for the contemporary radio show The Black Museum , and nearly mirrored its broadcast run. The two shows were different in the respect that while Whitehall 1212 told the story of a case entirely from the point of view of the police starting from the crime scene, The Black Museum was more heavily dramatized and played out scenes of the actual murders and included scenes from the criminal's point of view. [1] in the weekly introduction Whitehall 1212 claimed that it 'for the first time in history Scotland Yard opens its secret files to bring you the authentic, true stories of some of its most baffling cases.' They also claimed that they were the 'unvarnished facts just as they occurred' but added that 'only the names of the participants have, for obvious reassons, been changed' [2] They also announced that the cast was entirely British, stories were presented with the full cooperation of the Metropolitan Police, and that research was prepared by Percy Hoskins, chief crime reporter of the (London) Daily Express.
Scotland Yard is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's 32 boroughs. Its name derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had its main public entrance on the Westminster street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became the public entrance, and over time "Scotland Yard" came to be used not only as the common name of the headquarters building, but also as a metonym for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) itself and police officers, especially detectives, who serve in it. The New York Times wrote in 1964 that, just as Wall Street gave its name to New York's financial district, Scotland Yard became the name for police activity in London.
The police procedural, police show, or police crime drama is a subgenre of procedural drama and detective fiction that emphasizes the investigative procedure of police officers, police detectives, or law enforcement agencies as the protagonists, as contrasted with other genres that focus on non-police investigators such as private investigators.
The Black Museum is a radio crime-drama program produced by Harry Alan Towers, which was broadcast in the USA on the Mutual network in 1952. It was then broadcast in Europe in 1953 on Radio Luxembourg, a commercial radio station, and was not broadcast by the BBC until 1991.
The Whitehall Mystery is an unsolved murder that took place in London in 1888. The dismembered remains of a woman were discovered at three sites in the centre of the city, including the construction site of New Scotland Yard, the new police headquarters. The incident belongs to the so-called Thames Torso Murders.
Wyllis Oswald Cooper was an American writer and producer.
The Crime Museum is a collection of criminal memorabilia kept at New Scotland Yard, headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service in London, England. Known as the Black Museum until the early 21st century, the museum came into existence at Scotland Yard sometime in 1874, arising out of the collection of prisoners' property gathered as a result of the Forfeiture Act 1870 and intended as an aid to the police in their study of crime and criminals. Initially unofficial, it had become an official if private museum by 1875, with a police inspector and a police constable assigned to official duty there. Not open to the public, it was used as a teaching collection for police recruits and was only ever accessible by those involved in legal matters, royals and other VIPs.
Detective Inspector G. Lestrade, or Mr. Lestrade, is a fictional character appearing in several of the Sherlock Holmes stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle. Lestrade's first appearance was in the first Sherlock Holmes story, the novel A Study in Scarlet, which was published in 1887. The last story in which he appears is the short story "The Adventure of the Three Garridebs", which was first published in 1924 and was included in the final collection of Sherlock Holmes stories by Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes.
The cleft chin murder was a killing which occurred as part of a string of crimes during 1944, and was mentioned in George Orwell's essay "Decline of the English Murder". It became known as the "cleft chin murder" because the murder victim, George Edward Heath, a taxi driver, had a cleft chin.
Forensic Files, originally known as Medical Detectives, is an American documentary television program that reveals how forensic science is used to solve violent crimes, mysterious accidents, and outbreaks of illness. The show was originally broadcast on TLC. It is narrated by Peter Thomas, produced by Medstar Television, and distributed by FilmRise, in association with truTV Original Productions. It broadcast 406 episodes from its debut on TLC in 1996 until its final episode in 2011. Reruns shown on HLN were initially retitled Mystery Detectives before settling on the main title of the show in 2014.
"Fire" is the twelfth episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files, premiering on the Fox network on December 17, 1993. It was written by series creator Chris Carter, directed by Larry Shaw and featured guest appearances by Mark Sheppard and Amanda Pays. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology. "Fire" earned a Nielsen household rating of 6.8, being watched by 6.4 million households in its initial broadcast; and received mostly positive reviews from critics.
Whitehall 1212 was the telephone number of Scotland Yard. It was introduced in 1932 and was used by the public to contact the London Metropolitan Police Service information room for both emergency and non-emergency business. Telephone exchanges had names at the time. In some parts of the country it was possible to dial the first three letters to reach numbers on neighbouring exchanges, so numbers were often published with the first three letters capitalised: "WHItehall 1212". With the introduction of the 999 number for emergencies in 1937, Whitehall 1212 remained in use for non-emergencies until the 1960s and the introduction of all-figure numbering. The switchboard number for New Scotland Yard has become 020 7230 1212, and the last four digits of the telephone number for several other Metropolitan police buildings are 1212.
Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer was also called the Whitechapel Murderer and Leather Apron.
Percy Kellick Hoskins was the chief crime reporter for the British newspaper the Daily Express in the 1950s. He also provided stories for radio and television crime shows, such as Whitehall 1212, and Secrets of Scotland Yard.
Great Scotland Yard is a street in Westminster, London, connecting Northumberland Avenue and Whitehall. By the 16th century, this 'yard', which was then a series of open courtyards within the Palace of Whitehall, was fronted by buildings used by diplomatic representatives of the Kingdom of Scotland. In the 19th century, it was a street and open space, which was the location of a public entrance to the original headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, causing the name "Scotland Yard" to become synonymous with the police service.
The history of the Metropolitan Police in London is long and complex, with many different events taking place between its inception in 1829 and the present day.
Crimewatch is a British television programme produced by the BBC, that reconstructs major unsolved crimes in order to gain information from the public which may assist in solving the case. The programme was originally broadcast once a month on BBC One, although in the final years before cancellation it was usually broadcast roughly once every two months.
Dragnet was an American radio series, enacting the cases of a dedicated Los Angeles police detective, Sergeant Joe Friday, and his partners. The show took its name from the police term "dragnet", meaning a system of coordinated measures for apprehending criminals or suspects.
Gang Busters is an American dramatic radio program heralded as "the only national program that brings you authentic police case histories." It premiered on January 15, 1936, and was broadcast over 21 years through November 27, 1957.
New Scotland Yard, formerly known as the Curtis Green Building and before that, Whitehall Police Station, is a building in Westminster, London. Since November 2016, it has been the Scotland Yard headquarters of the Metropolitan Police (MPS), the fourth such premises since the force's foundation in 1829. It is located on Victoria Embankment and is situated within the Whitehall Conservation Area. It neighbours the Norman Shaw and Ministry of Defence buildings, together with Richmond House and Portcullis House.
The Charing Cross Trunk Murder took place in a third floor office at 86 Rochester Row in the City of Westminster in London on 4 May 1927.