Scandalous Book Review: The Girls of Murder City
Chicago in the nineteen twenties conjures up names like Al Capone, Eliott Ness, Leopold and Loeb, Dion O'Banion but what about the women? Chicago was nicknamed "Murder City," but some of its most prominent citizens were those sitting on "murderesses row" in the Cook County jail. And its two most famous residents were Belva Gaertner and Beulah Annan. Anyone who has seen the 2002 movie musical Chicago will known these women as Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart. Both were imprisoned in the Cook County jail for killing their men (though in both cases it turned out that it wasn't their only men). Belva Gaertner was a three-time divorcee, who had once been a show-girl named Belle Brown. Recently divorced from millionaireWilliam Gaertner, she killed her boyfriend Walter Law and left his body sprawled in the front seat in of her car, a bottle of gin and a gun with three shots fired lying beside him while she made her way home.She was later found at he...