One was shot through his living room window. One collapsed at the piano playing his own composition. One was fired for straitjacketing a murderer. Between 1888 and 1974, ten men ran Rhode Island's State Hospital in Cranston — and not one of them survived the job intact.

This episode traces the brutal, repeating pattern of what happened to the men who sat in the superintendent's chair, and why the institution finally destroyed the position itself.

Based on original research from the Ladd School Historical Society and Archives.

Music: "Endless Nightmare" by Oliver Garcia, licensed via Motion Array.