A trio of thieves threatens to murder the wife of an armored car guard in order to force him to surrender a $25,000 payroll secured inside the vehicle.
Inside information helps thieves rob a group of recently-paid itinerant fruit pickers, but murder results when one particularly desperate victim refuses to follow their orders.
After an accidental shooting occurs on a ranch, the Highway Patrol helicopter is used to prevent a revenge killing by the supposed shooter's angry brother-in-law.
Two men conceal themselves in large crates on the back of a truck as part of a plan to get inside a manufacturing plant so they can steal a $27,000 payroll.
A man and two female accomplices who pose as hitchhikers rob several unsuspecting male motorists, but murder results when one victim tries to fight back.
Two brothers hijack a new-car carrier, planning to sell the cars to get cash to purchase a farm. When the driver dies from injuries sustained in the hijacking, they make a panic-stricken attempt to dispose of the evidence.
One member of a three-person holdup team impersonates a Highway Patrol officer in order to deceive robbery victims into thinking that they need not notify the Patrol themselves.
The owner of a centrally-located roadside diner is murdered so that heroin sellers can use his business as a "front" for distributing the drug to pushers.
The Highway Patrol helicopter is ordered into action when the botched robbery of a roadside diner results in the shooting of the proprietor and the abduction of his daughter.