In 1977, seventeen-year-old Louise Betts disappeared from Loves Park, Illinois. Months later, her remains were found in a rural Boone County field, and Curtis Brownell was eventually convicted of her…
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 films, witchcraft, music, mind control, murder, and more –…
In the fall of 1926, the best friend of Chicago gangsters returned to politics and got his name added to the Republican mayoral primary ballot. William “Big Bill” Thompson was back from political…
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 boss of the North Side gang that Dean had founded, mostly…
In 1997, 13-year-old John Ushman was found dead inside Room Five of the Southern View Motel in Springfield, Illinois. Authorities ruled that he died while playing Russian roulette with a stolen…
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 unsolved. In this special anniversary episode, American…
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 of the United States, Charles Dawes, demanded that the U.S.…
When it comes to music curses – and the Devil’s Music itself – there is no musician more closely linked to the supernatural than Robert Johnson, the legendary bluesman who allegedly sold his soul to…
On April 27, 1968, five children from the Cox family were murdered near their rural home outside Mattoon, Illinois. The killer was someone they knew and trusted: 18-year-old Thomas Charles Fuller II,…
In 1976, a quiet farm home outside Lincoln, Illinois became the scene of one of Logan County’s most horrifying crimes.Lloyd, Phyllis, and Terri Schneider were murdered inside their own home, while two…
