Historic Cases: The Lipstick Killer

The year is 1945, the same year the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ending WW2. The horrors of the Nazi Holocaust were uncovered. Rita Hayworth and Lauren Bacall were icons. It was a time of intense paradox—the horrors of war in Europe and the innocence of kids playing outside unsupervised and doors left unlocked. In Chicago two women were brutally murdered—both stabbed in the neck, bodies washed, wounds taped shut, and heads covered. Early January 1946, a six year old is missing in a wealthy neighborhood on the Northside. Her severed head with her blue ribbons still in her hair was found floating in a sewer catch basin and her legs and torso discovered in separate sewer locations nearby. A massive manhunt for the killer was launched. The city was paralyzed with fear. Kids no longer felt safe until the killer was caught. But was he really the killer? Did an innocent man serve a life sentence and the real killer got away with it? Were there actually two killers?