American Hauntings Podcast

In the summer of 1928, Al Capone was back in Chicago and was still building his empire. Things like gambling, prostitution, and, of course, liquor, were still making up the bulk of his profits – but he knew that wasn’t going to last forever. He knew that he needed to diversify, a lesson he learned from John Torrio, who knew that Prohibition would only last for so long. Capone’s most profitable alternative to liquor was racketeering. A racketeer was defined as the boss of a supposedly legitimate business operation. Labor unions were the most common operations. Using violence and intimidation, he organized the union or pushed a group of businessmen into a “protective association.” A worker or merchant who didn’t join or refused to stay in the union and pay tribute was bombed, beaten, or intimidated into changing his mind. 
He was making a fortune that way -- but he had problems, too. Even as the millions continued to roll in, he found the problems hampering his business over and over again. The North Side Gang, now led by George Moran, was just as relentless as it had been under the leadership of O’Banion, Weiss, and Drucci. It was time to take care of that problem once and for all and on February 14, 1929 -- a deadly plan was hatched.

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In 1984, William Bruce Rose, the biological father of Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose, vanished in Southern Illinois. Nearly three years later, a teenager came forward with a disturbing story of murder, a body hidden in an abandoned mining area, and a knife thrown into a reservoir.
A man was eventually convicted of William’s murder, but his remains were never recovered.
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This episode was written and produced by Adam White.

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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 that was played at the Grand Ole Opry.
You see, not all musical curses are linked to performers or the songs they sing. Some of them are connected to the places where music is played – like the Ryman Auditorium, located in downtown Nashville, which was the center of repeated tragedies for many years.
“When’s it all going to end?” one record promoter asked years ago following one Grand Ole Opry death after another. And he wasn’t the only one asking, A lot of performers playing at the Ryman were asking the same thing.
For three decades between the 1940s and the 1970s, scores of them experienced personal tragedies and losses, and in a single decade, a dozen Opry stars were killed by violence. And when they died, they took others with them, including relatives, business associates, and friends. They burned to death, suffered beatings, robberies, murders, became victims of automobile and airplane accidents, and suffered deaths linked to alcohol and drugs.
It was no wonder that rumors spread of the “Opry Curse” that was stalking the performers who appeared under the spotlights above the Ryman’s big wooden stage. 

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Chicago mayor “Big Bill” Thompson’s first year back in office had been a disaster as far as political observers – and anyone with any integrity at all -- were concerned. Unhappiness about his incompetence and the corruption in City Hall was spreading, especially since the city of Chicago was now almost $300 million in debt. Primary elections for state and county offices were set for April, but election violence began in January, 10 weeks before anyone went to the polls. This time came to be known as Chicago’s “Pineapple Primary” since “pineapple” was a slang term for a hand grenade. 
This period became THE most violent political period in the city’s history. It was scarred by beatings, kidnappings, bombings, shootings, and murders – and things became worse as the election got closer. 
When the election arrived, party hacks on both sides began employing strategies perfected through years of Cook County electoral hijinks.  Boxes were stuffed with ballots bearing fictional names that fraudulent voters could use. They registered vagrants whose votes had been purchased for a few dollars, assigning them fake names and addresses. Even the dead voted in Chicago.

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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 brutal murder.
But more than forty years after Louise was buried, her family learned something almost unimaginable: the Boone County coroner who handled her remains had kept her skull.
This is the disturbing story of Louise Betts — a missing girl, a convicted killer, decades of parole battles, and a final betrayal that remained hidden for more than four decades.

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