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…
Tag: Fatal Drop: True Tales of the Chicago Gallows
The Chicago Frankenstein Experiment, 1882
I spoke with The RedEye this week about haunted Chicago spots, and an article on their webpage today speaks about about the site of the gallows. Here’s a classic story from the site: In the 20th Century, executioners in many parts of the world modernized the process by which convicts were hanged. Weights and measurements were…
Hangman’s Death Certificates
My, the things one finds on genealogy sites! More and more records come online all the time. Death certificates have never been THAT hard to get, but you normally have to pay to get them from the state archives, and I’m pretty cheap. In cases of hangings, I already know the cause of death, after…
Carl Wanderer and Sam Cardinella: BFF?
It’s always interesting when two crime stories intersect – and in a real way, not another case of the newspapers making wild stabs at a game of “connect the dots” with criminals (like the attempts to connect Johann Hoch to HH Holmes, Louis Thombs, and every other criminal of the day). In 1920, Carl Wanderer…
Chicago and the first Fingerprint Evidence
Here’s a story I’ve been telling a brief version of on tours lately: In 1910, a robber named Thomas Jennings was making a run from the scene of a burglary – the Englewood home of Clarence Hiller, who had once been chief clerk of a local railway. During his escape, Jennings fired two shots at…
Death Penalty Banned in Illinois
FATAL DROP: TRUE TALES OF THE CHICAGO GALLOWSUntold stories of hangings in Chicago from 1840 – 1927$2.99 on kindle Don’t have a kindle? Use the FREE Kindle app for PC, mac, iphone, ipad, android, blackberry, etc! Gov. Quinn is expected to sign a bill that will abolish the death penalty in Illinois last week. Let’s…
Last Meals (except from the new FATAL DROP EBOOK)
Coming early this week, we’ll be re-releasing FATAL DROP: TRUE TALES OF THE CHICAGO GALLOWS as an ebook at a special low price! This new edition will feature the complete text, revised and expanded with several new sections! Here is an excerpt of some new material: APPENDIX: LAST MEALS It was generally the custom for…
Hanging Disasters
Not all of the hangings in Chicago went smoothly – in fact, there were quite a few really botched jobs. There were a few occasions in the mid 1880s, in particular, when the sheriff did a crumby job of keeping the affair private, as required by law, and the hanging ended up being witness by…