Old-Time Radio Theme Month, Day 18: "Papa Benjamin"

A man three years younger than I once had this to say:

"I woke up in the night to hear voices coming from my radio; it was New Orleans and a bandleader was taking the police through a dank back alley, guiding them to the place where he murdered a man. I had fallen asleep with the radio on and happened to draw myself from my slumber near the start of the program, missing little more than the opening theme and introduction. Consequently, I didn't know what exactly I was listening to and in that state my mind was in - still half-asleep - this weird tale of voodoo weaved a spell around me. In my state of partial consciousness, it was as though the story was happening to me, like it was a dream I was having instead of a 50 year old drama being replayed over the wire. Every time I hear it, I recall that first time and the mental pictures I saw then return to me."

"Papa Benjamin" was adapted to Escape on January 21, 1948; it was based on a story by Cornell Woolrich and would later be adapted to Boris Karloff's TV series Thriller in 1961 and as a segment of the film Dr. Terror's House of Horrors in 1965.

You can download a copy of this radio show from archive.org here.