On the eve of Thanksgiving in 1937, 46-year-old Margaret Mortimer, who went by Peggy,

was just steps from her front door when she was attacked and killed by an unknown assailant.

The murder shocked to the industrial town of Mexico, Missouri.

Peggy was well-known and widely liked, with no clear enemies.

But on that cold November night,

someone was waiting. But the question was, who? I'm Kristen C.V. And this is the case of Peggy Mortimer on murder she told.

This episode discusses suicide, so please listen with care.

The clatter of a trolley bell cut through the chill,

echoing down Cook Avenue as dusk settled over St. Louis, Missouri.

Lieutenant Ira Cooper stood at the stove, ladling oxtail stew into a chipped porcelain bowl,

the scent of pepper and bone broth filling the corners of his small flat.

Outside, the sidewalks were slick with rain,

and downtown shop windows blinked with the first hints of the holiday season. It was late November, just days after Thanksgiving, 1937, and the city had turned gray in expectant.

He'd just settled in when a knock broke the silence, three sharp wraps.

At the door stood a young man in a soaked coat, his shoes dripping onto the welcome mat.

He offered up a yellow envelope, telegram for Lieutenant Cooper.

Cooper tipped him a dime and shut the door with a certain heaviness of spirit.

He already knew what the envelope would ask of him. It was from Colonel Martin Castile,

Missouri Highway Patrol. Please come immediately. Women murdered in Mexico. Case is stalled. Need help.

The word that struck him was Mexico. Not the country, but the town. 11 115 miles northwest of St. Louis, the place where

Cooper had once called home, where he'd read barefoot through dirt alleys, carrying books for his

mother, where he'd earned his first coin delivering papers, and been chased off porches for the

...