The Girls of Murder City
Read The Girls of Murder City Online
Authors: Douglas Perry
Tags: #Biography, #History, #Non-Fiction
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - A Grand Object Lesson
Chapter 2 - The Variable Feminine Mechanism
Chapter 4 - Hang Me? That’s a Joke
Chapter 5 - No Sweetheart in the World Is Worth Killing
Chapter 6 - The Kind of Gal Who Never Could Be True
Chapter 8 - Her Mind Works Vagrantly
Part II - THE GIRLS OF MURDER CITY
Chapter 10 - The Love-Foiled Girl
Chapter 11 - It’s Terrible, but It’s Better
Chapter 12 - What Fooled Everybody
Chapter 13 - A Modest Little Housewife
Chapter 14 - Anne, You Have Killed Me
Chapter 15 - Beautiful—but Not Dumb!
Chapter 16 - The Tides of Hell
Chapter 17 - Hatproof, Sexproof, and Damp
Chapter 18 - A Grand and Gorgeous Show
Chapter 19 - Entirely Too Vile
Chapter 20 - The Most Monotonous City on Earth
VIKING
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in 2010 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Copyright © Douglas Perry, 2010 All rights reserved
PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS
Insert pages 2 (top left), 3 (top left), 6 (top left), 8 (top): Author’s collection. • Page 2 (top right): Courtesy of Transylvania University • Pages 2 (bottom), 8 (bottom):
Chicago Tribune
file photo. All rights reserved. Used with permission. • Page 4 (top left): Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations • Page 4 (top right): Courtesy of Ron Dixon • Page 4 (bottom): Courtesy of Wendy Teresi • Page 5 (bottom): Copyright 2009 The Fresno Bee. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. • Page 6 (top right): Helen Cirese Papers, 1915-1974, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, Special Collections • Page 7 (top): Courtesy of Western Springs Historical Society, Western Springs, Illinois. • Page 7 (bottom): Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum
(Credits for other photographs appear adjacent to the respective images).
Map: U.S. Geological Survey
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Perry, Douglas, 1968-
The girls of Murder City : fame, lust, and the beautiful killers who inspired Chicago / Douglas Perry.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN : 978-1-101-19031-9
1. Women murderers—Illinois—Chicago—History—Case studies. 2. Murder—Illinois—Chicago—History—Case studies. I. Title.
HV6517.P475 2010
364.152’309227731—dc22 2010003980
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
FOR DEBORAH
Characters
MAURINE WATKINS,
aspiring playwright—“blonde, comely and chic: a pleasant way to be.”
BELVA GAERTNER,
double divorcée—“Cook County’s most stylish murderess.”
WALTER LAW,
Belva’s boyfriend—“a man who couldn’t say no.”
WILLIAM GAERTNER,
Belva’s millionaire ex-husband—“the most patient soul since Job.”
BEULAH ANNAN,
“the prettiest woman ever charged with murder in Chicago.”
HARRY KALSTEDT,
Beulah’s boyfriend—“the other man.”
AL ANNAN,
“Beulah’s meal-ticket husband.”
W. W. O’BRIEN and WILLIAM SCOTT STEWART,
Beulah’s attorneys—“best in the city, next to Erbstein.”
GENEVIEVE FORBES,
reporter on the
DaiLy Tribune.
IONE QUINBY,
“The
Evening Post’
s little bob-haired reporter.”
SONIA LEE,
sob sister on the
American.
HELEN CIRESE,
girl attorney—“headmistress of ‘Jail School.’ ”
WANDA STOPA,
the bohemian—“Little Poland’s love-foiled girl gunner.”
ADDITIONAL PLAYERS:
Judge, Jury, Bailiffs, Jail Matrons, Police, Reporters, Editors, Attorneys, Court Fans.
CHICAGO: SPRING AND SUMMER, 1924
CHICAGO, 1924
Prologue
Thursday, April 24, 1924
The most beautiful women in the city were murderers.
The radio said so. The newspapers, when they arrived, would surely say worse. Beulah Annan peered through the bars of cell 657 in the women’s quarters of the Cook County Jail. She liked being called beautiful for the entire city to hear. She’d greedily consumed every word said and written about her, cut out and saved the best pictures. She took pride in the coverage. But that was when she was the undisputed “prettiest murderess” in all of Cook County. Now everything had changed. She knew that today, for almost the first time since her arrest almost three weeks ago, there wouldn’t be a picture of her in any of the newspapers. There was a new girl gunner on the scene, a gorgeous Polish girl named Wanda Stopa.
