Two Dead Actresses in a Park
A classic case from the Chicago crime files
In the early hours of Sunday morning, November 14, 1920, a solitary figure concealed in a dark overcoat and a black derby hat, slipped across Eighteenth street and entered Chicago’s Insurance Exchange Building. “Take me up to the fourteenth floor,” the man ordered Tony Yanley, the elevator operator on the morning shift.
The men ascended in silence. The elevator doors stuttered open and the man strode off toward the offices of Conkling, Price, and Webb — insurance agents.
A couple of minutes later, a telephone operator across town answered an insistent buzz on her switchboard. The call came from the Conkling offices. “Give me the police,” said a voice, “Main 13.”
When the police operator patched into the line, she heard a man’s voice. “If you’ll go down to the foot of Jackson street in Grant Park at the lake front, you’ll find a couple of dead women.” The voice hesitated, and then continued, “I was driving by there with my wife and daughter and saw them.”
The phone went dead.
By the time the police traced the call back to the Insurance Exchange Building, the stranger had vanished.
A police team, led by Lieutenant Mike Grady, rushed to Grant Park. A gruesome sight awaited…
