Chicago, Illinois, February 6, 1896.

Story of the murderous crime.

None of the victims it is thought knew of the tragedy in which they figured.

There was no warning and no resistance.

Richard Klotky formed his plot deliberately and took his leisure for the butchering. Although all his victims met their death in two small bedrooms, he adopted some plan by which he proceeded

without interruption.

Sleep settled over the clocky household early on Tuesday night. Like simple foreign folk,

the family went to bed soon after supper. The father alone stayed up. He visited a neighbor

until nine o'clock, and then came home and went to bed but not to sleep a purpose possessed him and he set about its execution with all the cunning he had shown in indulging his cowardly life

mrs clotkey and her little daughter emma slept beside him the child child was ill, threatened with pneumonia, and the mother

had bound a cloth about her throat. A similar cloth was wrapped about the wife's head, as if she

were guarding against neuralgia. Clock-key lay awake watching the sleeping ones. His plan was revolved over and over with feverish eagerness and he could hardly wait for the banquet of slaughter

down in the basement he saw in fancy a kit of tools and a workman's blouse which awaited his usage on the morrow but clotkey did not mean to go to work. He had a plan which would make him

independent. Employment had been offered him the night before, and he had laid the tools and

garment in a convenient place. But it is possible he knew then. It was in mockery of industry.

True crime historian presents yesterday's news, a reading from America's historic newspapers in the golden age of yellow journalism. Today I bring you the sad tale of a family massacre. This will be the first time I've reported on a murder-suicide because you rarely get to hear about the drama that led up to the tragedy because there's no one left to tell the story.

There are still a lot of unanswered and over-answered questions in this one, but I like how the reporter included the details of the family history and their daily lives into the narrative.

Although I do think they've put too much emphasis on the role of the man's politics in his decision to commit this horrible act.

The descriptions of the photographs and posters on the wall refer to Chicago's Haymarket Riot of May 1886, a protest by radical labor organizers that went wild.

Seven police and one civilian were killed by a bomb thrown that day, and seven men were given death sentences as a result, with four eventually hanged.

That's a good story in itself, and I'm adding it to the list of future episodes.

I'm true crime historian Richard O. Jones, and I give you Anarchist Kills Them All, a family massacre.

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