This is the story of Frances Carrick, a transgender woman accused of murder in Chicago in 1923.
Tag: Best Of
Did Dr. Thomas Neill Cream Kill Alice Montgomery?
Could a Chicago mystery from 1881 have been the work of one of our early serial killers? (See an update from 2017 at the bottom of the post!) Dr. Thomas Neill Cream. On April 9, 1881, 22 year old Alice Montgomery checked into a room at the Sheldon House, a west loop-area hotel on West…
The Ghostly Woman of the LADY ELGIN Graves
In 1860, the sidepaddle steamer Lady Elgin was wrecked about nine miles off Winnetka – another ship had collided with it, and the ship was busted up by breakers. Just under 400 people were on board, bound to Milwaukee from Chicago, allegedly after having seen Senator Douglas speaking in his campaign for the presidency (though the…
Conway: The One-Legged Killer Clown of 1912
“It’s Only a Paper Moon…” Charles Cramer, alias Conway, the clown with a wooden leg, in a postcard photo with hiswife, circa 1911, a year before he murdered Sophia Singer. In 1908, a woman named Frances Thompson was found strangled to death and robbed in a home on the 1200 block of South Michigan. A…
The Ghostly Nun Who Turned to Stone
Some days you win, some days you lose, and some days you follow a story about the Couch Tomb and up with a story about nuns who turned to stone, then allegedly came back from the dead to express anti-semitism. That’s life in Mysterious Chicago. An image of Mother Galway found in Holy Family Parish:…
Kate Durkee: Victim of the HH Holmes Curse, or Total Badass?
One of the more interesting periphery characters in the H.H. Holmes saga is Kate Durkee, a childhood friend of Holmes’ second wife, Myrta Belknap-Holmes, who was used as a dupe in his swindling schemes. Holmes is usually advertised as “America’s First Serial Killer,” but he was a swindler first and foremost. The stories of him…
The Resurrection of Nicholas Viana
Il Diavolo The guards at the old prison on Dearborn and Illinois weren’t afraid of much, but one prisoner really freaked them out: Sam “Il Diavolo” Cardinella, the head of a high insular, secretive gang that operated out of his pool room on 22nd Place. Their whole story was in a previous post: The Strange…
A Masked Supervillain Terrorizes Chicago, 1892
In late November of 1892, wild rumors spread about a mysterious “highwayman,” a masked robber who rode a dark horse with a blazing red leather saddle, and who had been terrifying Lake View, on the north side of Chicago. The Tribune described him as “either a maniac or a desperado.” Lake View and Lincoln Park became police…