parents murdered

Vowing to avenge the murder of his parents, Bruce Wayne devotes his life to wiping out crime in Gotham City as the masked vigilante "Batman".

The parents (Horace B. Carpenter)(Vane Calvert) of Smokey Smith (Bob Steele) are murdered while traveling with a wagon train that is attacked by outlaws. Smokey swears revenge but his only possible chance lies in finding the member of the border-gang who took a ring from his father's finger. The sheriff (Earl Dwire) of a nearby border town makes Smokey a deputy after the latter saves his life when outlaws attack a stagecoach the sheriff is escorting. This enables Smokey to find the hideout of the gang that killed his parents, and he, posing as a wanted man, is able to join the gang. He soon incurs the wrath of gang-member Kent(Warner Richmond), who is jealous over the attention that Bess Bart (Mary Kornman, step-daughter of the gang-leader, "Blaze" Bart (George 'Gabby' Hayes), is showing Smokey.

A look back at the murders of Barbara and Gordon Erickstad, who were brutally killed in their North Dakota home by their son, 18-year-old Brian Erickstad, and his friend, 27-year-old Robert Lawrence in September 1998.