Kenny Case (Arrest and Trial)

Kenny Case is a villainess vamp, murderer, and robber.

Appears in - Arrest and trial (USA. ABC Net. 1963 - 64). A crime/legal drama series which (in its usual format) covered the commission of a serious crime, the arrest of the alleged perpetrator, followed by their trial.

Episode - Run, little man, run (1:14 - first broadcast 22 December 1963)

Played by - Kathie Browne (1930 - 2003)

A church charity drive meeting is disrupted when a heavily disguised armed robber interrupts proceedings. The robber grabs a woman, Mrs Stukey, from behind and threatens to kill her if the parishioners don't cooperate, pointing the gun at her neck. The woman, who has a heart condition, collapses and dies of shock. The bandit takes the money which has been collected and makes off.

Suspicion for the crime falls on a middle aged small time criminal called Jackson, an incorrigible liar with a long police record, who has joined various churches to steal and bilk women out of some of their money or possessions. He was at the charity meeting early on, but had left (taking a woman's fur coat with him). Jackson is put on trial for the death of Mrs Stukey. However, Jackson's lawyer, John Egan (Chuck Connors) in cooperation with police sergeant Nick Anderson (Ben Gazzara), who has never been fully convinced of Jackson's guilt, begin to suspect the actual culprits are the woman's husband, Fred Stukey (King Donovan), a middle aged little man, in cahoots with his next door neighbour, a glamorous blonde stunt-woman, Mrs Kenny Case. This turns out to true. Stukey, sick of years with a semi invalid wife and tempted by her large inheritance, wished himself rid of her. Case was the disguised bandit.

During the Jackson trial, John Egan manages to break down Stukey on the stand enough to compromise him. Having cast grave suspicions on himself, Stukey flees the court and heads back to his house. He dashes round to the Case property next door with a suitcase, and meets the blonde villainess, who is also cutting out -. independently. Knowing he has no ready money, Case sneers at Stukey, saying she's going, but not with him. After the hapless Stukey has shouted after her as she backs her car down the driveway, she guns the car forward and knocks him down from behind. But Case's vehicle doesn't get far, her escape is almost immediately cut off by police cars and she's arrested.

Appearance - Beautiful Caucasian blonde aged about 33

Weapons - Gun and a car

Character - Cool, hard, cunning and greedy. Fred Stukey is the "type" of the mundane little man manipulated into murder by this grasping villainess. Case is only interested in Stukey's inheritance from his wife, not in him. We learn she's been married twice, both husbands dying. Her "jokey" remarks to Stukey, that one husband she'd poisoned and the other she'd suffocated, is probably true. The same would probably have happened eventually to Stukey if the conspirators had got away with the murder/robbery. In the final scenes where the villains are attempting their getaway, Stukey, seeing Case is deserting him as he's got no large stash of ready money, angrily yells that the crime was her plan all along. Case ramming the car into Stukey while his back is turned, seems like a vicious act of pure spite.

Fate - Arrested

Notes -

The IMDB gives the character's last name as Cash, but in the dialog and credits she is referred to as Case.

This was actually the pilot episode of the show, but it was only finally broadcast near the end of the one and only season.

Kathie Browne was also -

- Mob boss Mr Big on "Mr Terrific"

- The Kaos agent Nova's assistant on "Get Smart"

- The alien queen Deela on "Star Trek"

- Gangster moll Lucy Williams on "Ripcord"