A candy-coated crime. I'm Jason Horton.

I'm Rebecca Leib.

And this is Ghost Town.

On August 9, 1898, Delaware's Socialite Elizabeth Denning opened a box of chocolates addressed to her from a friend in San Francisco.

But this box of seemingly innocuous sweets would provide much more than a decadent treat.

It would open the floodgates to adultery, scandal, and what some call one of the United States supposed infamous and disturbing crimes.

At the helm of said crime, a notorious character that history will not soon forget.

Today, we're talking about the chocolate candy murders.

On February 12, 1891, John P. Dunning, a journalist that had over the years gone through various stages of unemployment,

married Elizabeth Pennington, a friendly woman of high society, who lived with her parents and sister in Delaware.

For a sometimes employed journalist, Dunning had kind of hit the jackpot with Elizabeth Pennington.

She was the daughter of ex-congressmen and former Attorney General of Delaware, John Pennington.

And the Pennington's Dover House and Fortune was massive, and stood right up against the Dover Green, then and now precious real estate in the center of the Delaware State Capitol.

Dunning at the time was a handsome local reporter, but made a name for himself in 1889, when he scored big as the first journalist to confirm that a typhoon had hit Samoa, destroying US and German warships and killing more than 200 sailors.

Only one telegraph office was running on the island of Samoa, and John knew the weight of the news.

To prevent other reporters from hearing that this tragedy was happening and reporting back, Dunning sent excessive telegraphs of Bible verses through the telegraph office.

Endlessly busying the one line after he received the news. According to one source, this stunt to clog the telegraph line from Samoa likely cost him $8,000, over $260,000 today.

That's just the kind of man John P. Dunning was.

So after this, he kept working in Delaware and on the west coast, married Elizabeth Pennington and the two started their lives together.

Two things you should know about Elizabeth. She had a well-known sweet tooth, and she tried to make things work.

But marriage to Dunning went downhill quickly. John was a gambler, a cheat, and was often in debt.

But Elizabeth, a traditionalist, wanted to work it out. So when John got an offer to become the head of Associated Press's Western Division Bureau based in San Francisco, both Elizabeth and John thought it would be a good gig and maybe even a fresh start.

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