American Hauntings Podcast

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.

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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.

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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.

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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! 

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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.

Check out our new American Hauntings Podcast Network for even more spooky shows.

Have a question or comment? Text us on the Haunt Line @ 217-791-7859

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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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This is an episode of the podcast that could have gone in a lot of directions – it’s an episode about the Devil, cults, true crime, satanic films, witchcraft, music, mind control, murder, and more – and really, maybe all these things and not even half of them. Who knows? It’s gotten so convoluted over the last 50 years that no one can say for sure. There are so many theories, excuses, and strange claims that have been wrapped up in all that I’m going to tell you about that one theory may be right, none of them may be right, or, honestly, I think that maybe little piece of every single one of them may be right.

I have absolutely no idea… but I do know that what happened in August of 1969 really did kill anything good that came from of the 1960s and ruined the lives of a lot of people. I also know that the story that I’m about to tell you is probably a load of crap, but just in case it’s not, don’t say that I didn’t warn you.

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