The Return of Jimmy Clark
In May of 1929, a new inmate arrived at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. Eastern State was no ordinary prison – it was the oldest...
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Society & Culture
American Hauntings Podcast
History, hauntings, legends, lore, true crime, and the paranormal activities of small-town America. Hosted by Cody Beck and Troy Taylor, Season 6, "Woods & Fields, Dark & Wicked" is now live...
Episodes
20 of 346 episodesAmerican Dread: Jami Hawkins: The Questions Inside the House
On August 10, 2022, Jami Hawkins was found dead inside her Decatur, Illinois, home from a gunshot wound. What followed was an investigation...
Cursed Bricks, Barking Dogs & Baseball Bats
Chicago – in the most Chicago way possible – memorialized the SMC CARTAGE COMPANY on Clark Street. Crowds had flocked the scene of the crime...
The Unusual Suspects
Looking back now, the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre seems like business as usual in Prohibition era Chicago but in 1929, a lot of people were...
A Valentine for Bugs Moran
On February 14, 1929, the most infamous gangland massacre in American history occurred in a dingy garage on the North Side of Chicago when f...
Chicago Rackets
In the summer of 1928, Al Capone was back in Chicago and was still building his empire. Things like gambling, prostitution, and, of course,...
No Grave for William Rose: The Murder of Axl Rose’s Father
In 1984, William Bruce Rose, the biological father of Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose, vanished in Southern Illinois. Nearly three years lat...
American Nightmares 28: "The Grand Ole Opry Curse"
The Devil’s Music comes in a lot of forms – from rock-n-roll to the blues, to the music that spawned them both – country music, the kind tha...
Blood, Sunshine & The "Pineapple Primary"
Chicago mayor “Big Bill” Thompson’s first year back in office had been a disaster as far as political observers – and anyone with any integr...
American Dread: The Murdered Girl the Coroner Kept: The Louise Betts Story
In 1977, seventeen-year-old Louise Betts disappeared from Loves Park, Illinois. Months later, her remains were found in a rural Boone County...
American Nightmares 26: "The Devil & the Movie that (Maybe) Killed Sharon Tate
This is an episode of the podcast that could have gone in a lot of directions – it’s an episode about the Devil, cults, true crime, satanic...
Bring Me the Head of Al Capone
In the fall of 1926, the best friend of Chicago gangsters returned to politics and got his name added to the Republican mayoral primary ball...
Blood in the Streets
If there was any one thing that motivated Hymie Weiss it was revenge. Since the murder of his friend Dean O’Banion, he’d been the de facto b...
American Dread: The Silence in Room Five: The Death of John Ushman
In 1997, 13-year-old John Ushman was found dead inside Room Five of the Southern View Motel in Springfield, Illinois. Authorities ruled that...
American Dread: The Finch Drive Murder: Who Killed Sherry Lewis?
On August 5, 1994, Decatur Realtor Sherry Lewis left to show a home. She never came home. More than three decades later, her murder remains...
Death of the Hanging Prosecutor
On the same day that the corpses of the last of the men who tried to revive the “Terrible Genna’s” operation was found, the Vice President o...
American Nightmares 25: "The Devil's Music - Part 5"
When it comes to music curses – and the Devil’s Music itself – there is no musician more closely linked to the supernatural than Robert John...
American Dread: Five Little Birds
On April 27, 1968, five children from the Cox family were murdered near their rural home outside Mattoon, Illinois. The killer was someone t...
The End of the "Terrible Gennas"
In May 1925, Angelo and Lucille found a home they liked in suburban Oak Park and began planning to move. On the morning of May 25, Angelo se...
American Dread: Four Hours Before Dawn: The Ray Timmons Story
In July of 1977, G. Ray Timmons left his Bloomington, Illinois home for a walk and never returned. Hours later, he was found murdered in a d...