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 heady wine at a sitting,

his friends were given to pointing him out as a man inordinately 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 shut, The sudden presence of two bullets in him had upset his equilibria.

The man who was 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 goes. 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, Conessor of Crime, Student of Violence, and teller of murders.

Now once again, 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 family Mrs. Fisk and the children and by his intimates among whom were

Jay Gould, Bost Weed and the heavier stockholders of the day.

A man dying and I know the precise instant when his dying began. It

started some months ago in a rather ornate house in Washington Square. Two women

were talking and the younger one said,

Annie how can I meet Colonel Fisk? That was the instant and the older one said

Oh dearie dearie but the younger one was said. Deary, deary, deary.

But the younger one was not young enough to take Deary for an answer.

...