When a local, Sam Rickers, brings a body to the Marshal's office he has high hopes of collecting the $1,000 for killing an outlaw Bob Holbert. But wait, the man that he killed was actually an innocent rider named Jake Haney. Now Ricker is going to have to come up with a story that he killed the rider in self-defense so that he will not hang. With the only witness being Ricker's abused wife, Letty, she will go along with what ever her husband says or risk getting slapped around. And with Letty backing up her husband's story there is no way the Marshal can prosecute this crime.
But later a friend of Jake Haney, Catlin, comes riding into Dodge. He wants to know why they have his partner's picture on wanted posters. Seemed that someone in the state office placed the wrong picture on the wanted poster and that is why Haney died. Catlin is set on finding the killer of his friend and take some rural justice on him. But before that can happen, the Marshal has another killing to investigate.
The killing of the 'wrong man' really is not the most interesting part of this episode. The real story come with the interchange between the abusing husband and the submissive wife. Even though shocking in nature the relationship between the two was just as interesting, maybe not as entertaining, as the dead innocent man. A nice story that was well acted by all involved.
Note- Not to be confused with a 1966 episode with the same title.