#weird chicago

[shootwithheart]

It was cold and rainy but I had a great time on the Weird Chicago Tour for Devil in the White City.

Our guide was a very entertaining storyteller!

[deadinchicago]

9 January - Going Postal

Time to deliver the mail.  Photo source.

Jestard Dillard was a postal worker at the Hyde Park postal substation.  April 5th, 1973 had started off as any other day for Jestard - he woke up, ate breakfast, dressed in his work clothes, & prepared to leave.  Unfortunately, the mere activity of leaving for work would cost him his life.

Jestard went out the back door of his house at 6951 S. Perry & walked into the garage, opening the garage door.  He sat in his car, started it up, & pulled out into the alley.  Without a second thought, he opened the car door & got out, probably to pull closed the garage. As Jestard walked in front of his car, it started to move.

Jestard's car had somehow slipped into gear the second he passed in front of it.  He didn't have any time to react, & before he realized what had happened Jestard had fallen over, the car pushing forwards & dragging him along.  He struggled to get free, but the front bumper & the wheels kept him trapped.

The car pulled Jestard along for 50 feet before finally coming to a stop - on top of him.  Neighbors found him a short while later, but it was a futile attempt - Jestard died from his injuries.

From the Chicago Tribune, 5 April 1973.  Source.

[strrangefascination]

Paintings by serial killer John Wayne Gacy

[deadinchicago]

24 January - Charred Corpse Thrown through Saloon Door

Charred feet, coming through the doors.  Photo source. 

Nicholas Urbanus was the butt of one of the most grotesque sort of practical jokes ever.  His saloon, which occupied the corner of Wentworth & Eighteenth in April of 1871, had the unfortunate luck to look out upon the County Hospital.

Nicholas did not especially like his location.  He explained that the hospital was at a lower grade than his saloon & home, so that at any point he might look out his windows & down upon the hospital.  Bodies would frequently be seen leaving the building, the thin blankets covering them often blowing away in the breeze.  

Some brutes inside of his saloon one night were bragging about the hospital & the corpses, & obviously had some sort of inside knowledge.  During this period, the morgue was going through a renovation - so that the bodies usually in the dead house were being kept in an unsecured temporary structure next door.  These gentlemen, leaving the bar, decided upon a prank.

Not long after they left, the doors to the bar opened just long enough for the badly burned corpse of a young woman to be tossed inside.  The sheet covering her had fallen away, & Nicholas was left to deal with the disposal of the body.  

At first, the hospital denied that it could remotely have anything to do with the body, but eventually admitted that it had been likely stolen.  After some back & forth, they reluctantly came to claim it once again.

From the Chicago Tribune, 13 April 1871.  Source.