Al Capone returned to Chicago in 1930, not knowing that the next year was going to be a series of one unfortunate event after another. He had no way of knowing that one of the first pieces of bad news that he received was an omen of things to come – that his brother Ralph -- who had been in charge of operations when he was at Eastern State Penitentiary – had just been indicted for income tax evasion.

As far as Capone was concerned, this was one of the stupidest things he’d ever heard. Who gets convicted of not paying taxes? Murder, racketeering, gambling, bootlegging – those were crimes for which a gangster went to prison. Nobody gets locked up for a bookkeeping error, right?

Capone had no idea at that moment that this was the beginning of the end. Death and taxes, as they say, can’t be avoided by anyone.

In August 1882, three men were found murdered on a farm near Mount Pulaski, Illinois. Charles McMahon and his two hired hands, John Carlock and Robert Matheny, had been bound, gagged, and killed. Fear spread as neighbors searched for answers.

In May of 1929, a new inmate arrived at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. Eastern State was no ordinary prison – it was the oldest in America, created by the Quakers who believed that if a lawbreaker had time to contemplate his crimes, he might become penitent for his misdeeds.

And the new inmate was no ordinary prisoner. He was the most famous gangster in America. His name was Al Capone, and his arrival at Eastern State was widely reported in the press. But what wasn’t so widely reported was that he had brought someone else with him to the penitentiary.

But it was someone that no one else seemed able to see. In the darkest hours of the night, other inmates reported hearing Capone screaming in his cell, begging someone he called "Jimmy" to go away and leave him alone. No one had any idea what he was talking about.

Capone was alone in his cell. Or was he?

On August 10, 2022, Jami Hawkins was found dead inside her Decatur, Illinois, home from a gunshot wound. What followed was an investigation that left her family with more questions than answers.

Although investigators treated her death as a suicide, a coroner's jury ultimately ruled the manner of death undetermined.

Now, more than four years later, Jami's family is speaking out, hoping to bring renewed attention to the circumstances surrounding her death.

In this special episode of American Dread, we take a closer look at the investigation, examine police reports and original 911 recordings, and explore the unanswered questions that have haunted her family ever since.

Chicago – in the most Chicago way possible – memorialized the SMC CARTAGE COMPANY on Clark Street. Crowds had flocked the scene of the crime in the minutes, hours, and days after the massacre took place and they hung around for a couple of weeks after the bodies had been wrapped up in sheets and had been carted away in ambulances. They snuck in the back door and walked off with souvenirs – stray bullet casings, bloody handkerchiefs, empty pop bottles, and dirty, oil-stained rags that Johnny May had tossed aside after wiping off an engine part. They wanted anything that could keep, anything they could tell a story about later on.

They just didn’t realize that physical reminders wouldn’t be all that was left behind – there would be the hauntings, too.

Looking back now, the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre seems like business as usual in Prohibition era Chicago but in 1929, a lot of people were really pissed that such a thing could happen. Sure, there had been a lot of murders in the city during the last decade, but not seven guys all at once, machine-gunned in cold blood in a garage.

The police believed they’d figured out how the massacre had occurred, but there was a lot of debate about who was involved – debate that continues today.

Police officers, crime experts, historians, gangster buffs, writers, know-it-alls, and the 900 guys who all tell you that their grandpa used to be a driver for Al Capone all have their favorite suspects when it comes to the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Some of them make sense, some of them don’t. Some of them are stupid, while others are just to sell a book or are just to get attention. Some suspects seem believable, but if you count them all, they add up to more than the number of actual killers.

So, take it all with a grain of salt but we’re going to take a look at some of the unusual – and sometimes unlikely – suspects in the St. Valentines Day Massacre.

On February 14, 1929, the most infamous gangland massacre in American history occurred in a dingy garage on the North Side of Chicago when five mobsters, plus a mechanic and a wanna-be gangster optometrist, were ripped apart in a hail of bullets. The events of that morning left a lasting effect on Windy City history and still reverberate today as several unsolved mysteries, strange legends, baffling tales and, of course, tales of ghosts.

Join us as we delve into PART ONE of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre for the Halloween season – coming to you live from the American Hauntings Podcast Network!

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.