Good evening. This is Crime Classics.

I am Thomas Highland.

I'm going to tell you another true crime story.

Listen.

The man who just fell down the stairs is Colonel James Fisk Jr.

Although the Colonel is a man given to the consumption of dozens of blue-point oysters and bottles of heavy wine at a sitting,

his friends were given to pointing him out as a man in ordinately steady on his feet.

So why did he tumble down the stairs and in New York's Grand Central Hotel, no less, where stair tumbling was frowned upon?

The Colonel didn't slip. He wasn't pushed. He was shot.

The sudden presence of two bullets in him had upset his equilibrium.

The man who's running away is the man who just shot the Colonel.

His name, Edward S. Stokes, until recently the Colonel's very dear friend.

There he go.

And tonight, my report to you on the checkered life and sudden death of Colonel James Fisk Jr.

Crime Classics.

A series of true crime stories taken from the records and newspapers of every land from every time.

Your host each week, Mr. Thomas Highland, connoisseur of crime, student of violence, and teller of murders.

And I once again, Thomas Highland.

The Colonel Fisk lay at the bottom of the stairs.

A few minutes before four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, January the 6th, 1872.

He was dying. His life was coming to an end.

And he would be sorely missed by his family, Mrs. Fisk and the children, and by his intimates.

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