The Killer That Stalked New York

Arriving at New York City’s Penn Station from a trip to Cuba, Sheila Bennet, Evelyn Keyes, is smuggling diamonds worth $50,000 into the country and immediately finds herself tailed by authorities. She mails the diamonds to her husband, Matt Krane, Charles Korvin, instead of carrying them herself, and then tries to shake the Treasury agent who is dogging her every move.

Feeling sick, Sheila nearly faints on the street, and a police officer escorts her to a local clinic. There, she encounters a little girl and inadvertently exposes the youngster to danger. Sheila is misdiagnosed with a simple cold, exits the clinic, and later the child is discovered to be infected with smallpox. The misfortune spreads uneasily through the city as officials scramble to contain the illness.

Meanwhile, Matt has been unfaithful with Sheila’s sister, Francie Bennet, Lola Albright, and when the diamonds finally arrive by mail, he tries to slip away. Yet the police are already searching for him, and the fence cannot buy the gems until the danger passes. With ten days to wait for cash, he is effectively trapped in New York. Sheila confronts Francie, who then takes her own life after learning of Matt’s betrayal, fueling Sheila’s resolve for revenge.

As smallpox cases rise, city officials order a mass vaccination, but the supply of serum quickly runs short, triggering panic across the metropolis. Investigators trace victims and realize the same person who smuggled the diamonds is also the carrier of the disease, and Sheila becomes the prime target of a growing manhunt, even as she remains increasingly ill and doggedly evasive. The clinic doctor urges her to surrender, but she shoots him in the arm and escapes, barely holding on to her own life as the net tightens.

In a final chase, Sheila corners Matt, who attempts a daring escape but falls from a building ledge to his death. She teeters on a ledge herself, but learns that the little girl she met had died, and this revelation steels her to surrender. Sheila Sheila Bennet turns herself in and, in her last hours, supplies authorities with the names of people she had contacted, all while she succumbs to the illness she carried. The city, already reeling from fear and contagion, begins to reckon with the consequences of the events that connected a smuggling scheme to a public health crisis.

Last Updated: October 09, 2025 at 10:45