Storyline:

Nancy Drew is one of six teenagers competing in the local newspaper's amateur reporter contest. The editor is treating the contest more of a chore and issues the contestants "fluff" stories. Nancy, wanting to deal with hard hitting news, trades her assignment for one of a missing reporter. That assignment is to cover the inquiry into the Kate Lambert murder, and subsequent trial of the accused, Eula Denning. Nancy's reporting skills are slow off the mark as a delay due to a fender bender causes the paper to not only lose reporting Denning's charge first, but also almost to lose reporting it at all. But Nancy's fender bender may be the first clue in helping her solve Lambert's murder, which she doesn't think was committed by Denning. Even without any solid evidence to support her intuition, Nancy coerces her father, renowned lawyer Carson Drew, to defend Denning while Nancy, with her bumbling next door neighbor, Ted Nickerson, search for evidence to support her intuition. In Nancy and Ted's search, the man with the funny ear just happens always to be around. Nancy also uses her reporter status to flush out who she thinks is the real killer.