Spine-Chilling Murders in Chicago

By: Nick Vulich

Narrated by: Sonny Dufault

Ever wonder what evil lurks in your hometown? Spine-Chilling Murders in the Chicago takes you behind the scenes of some old-time killings in Chicago.

Nineteen-year-old Amelia Olesen was outraged, strangled, and dragged across the prairie in Northwest Chicago. Rumors spread through the city that she was drugged and hauled away by a group of young men, or that a married neighbor stalked and murdered her. The primary suspect Tom Shehan had an airtight alibi, but police held him for over a month hoping for a break in the case.

The Lady’s Murder Club consisted of six women incarcerated in the Cook County Jail. They all had one thing in common: They murdered their husband, lover, or some other close relative and were set free because no jury would convict a woman for committing a capital crime. The club members included Rene Morrow, Louise Vermilya, Sadie Blaha, Jane Quinn, Lena Musso, and Florence Bernstein.

Detectives believed Augusta Dietz waited until her husband George Dietz fell asleep, then crept into his bedroom and bashed his head in with a hammer. Afterward, she planted a false trail of evidence, placing a note from the killer under the hammer where the police could not help but find it.

Chicago serial killer Henry Spencer took credit for killing 29 people (mostly women) during his 20-year run. He bragged to detectives he bagged 12 of them in as many months after being released from the Joliet Prison in 1912.

The so-called “Man-Girl Murderer” was one of the most baffling cases to confront the Chicago Police Department in the 1920s. Mrs. Richard Tesmer told detectives Freddy Frances was the “girl bandit” she saw murder her husband, but when officers caught up with her, they discovered Freddy was a man in woman’s clothes. Add to that, he had a husband and a wife, and things got confusing.

Someone bludgeoned 20-year-old Theresa Hollander to death in the St. Nicholas Cemetery in Aurora, Illinois, in 1914. The police quickly focused their attention on a former suitor, Anthony Petras, but a jury failed to convict him after two trials.

William Bartholin killed his mother and fiancé Minnie Mitchell, in what came to be known as the Calumet Avenue Death House. Several months and suspects later, Bartholin’s body turned up in a field in Riceville, Iowa. Detectives found a suicide note that cleared the other suspects, yet refused to release them pending the decision of the grand jury.

Six-year-old Paul Paszkowski disappeared from his home in 1903. A week later, his body was discovered buried in a gunny sack in a shallow grave. Suspicion immediately fell on 11-year-old Julius Wiltrax. After being interrogated for a week, he blamed his parents John and Elizabeth Wiltrax.

Actress Margaret Leslie was found dead in room 420 at the Palace Hotel in Chicago on October 18, 1906. Suspicion quickly fell on a one-legged theatrical producer Howard Nicholas. He broke after a week of extreme “sweating” and gave police a 24-page confession implicating his partner Leonard Leopold. Nicholas later recanted his confession, saying Assistant Chief Herman Schuettler hypnotized him into making it.

©2020 Nick Vulich (P)2020 Nick Vulich