Mary Vulcan was the wife of millionaire George B. Vulcan. In 1936, Mrs. Vulcan was eager to inherit her husband's money, so she hired the killer known as Oodles to murder George. She agreed to give Oodles an initial payment of $5,000 for the deed, with an additional payment of $1,000 every month following. Oodles killed George and dropped the body in a bridge construction site.
Plotting with Oodles[]
In 1955, George's body was discovered, and Mrs. Vulcan feared that the murder plot would be uncovered. Frail and wheelchair-bound, she contacted Oodles and arranged to meet him at drive-in movie theater. Oodles re-assured her that the body could not be identified or traced back to her, and she paid him the regularly monthly amount.
Oodles' confidence was misplaced, however, as Dick Tracy and Sam Catchem were able to identify George Vulcan's remains by his hearing aid and corrective shoes. They visited Mrs. Vulcan and inspected the late George's room, which Mrs. Vulcan had kept in an untouched condition. As they were leaving, Tracy pocketed Mrs. Vulcan's bank book which detailed her payments to Oodles, and the officers discovered the remains of George's clothes, which Mrs. Vulcan had recently ordered burned.
Betrayed by Oodles[]
Fearing that the police were building a case against her, Mrs. Vulcan called on Oodles. Oodles revealed that he had made a tape recording of their conversation in 1936, which incriminated Mrs. Vulcan. She pulled a gun that she had concealed in the handle of her cane and burned what she believed to be the recording. Thinking that the evidence against her was destroyed, Mrs. Vulcan gleefully threw away her gun, at which point Oodles revealed that she had burned a blank decoy and that the real recording was intact. Oodles had one of his henchmen take Mrs. Vulcan home, defeated.
Tracy then approached Mrs. Vulcan and asked to take a lie detector test. She reluctantly agreed, but managed to disrupt the machine with small fidgeting motions to make the results inconclusive. Mrs. Vulcan then contacted Oodles and offered him $25,000 for the recording.
Oodles met Mrs. Vulcan at the drive-in theater again and played the tape to verify that it was genuine. After paying Oodles, Mrs. Vulcan gleefully cut up the tape. She did not realize that Oodles had locked her in the car and was running a length of tube from the exhaust pipe into the back seat where she was sitting. Mrs. Vulcan was found dead by her chauffeur, having been overcome by the fumes (October 22nd, 1955).