True crime can be strangely fascinating. This true crime is odd, macabre, and haunted.

I'm Diane, your guide into the shadows. Welcome to Fantasmo Crime.

The city of Chicago is notorious for crime. Even as a frontier town, Chicago was known

for rape, theft, arson, and murder. Today, the city is plagued with shootings. These details

put into perspective how bad crime was in the town of North Platinum Brasca during prohibition.

Many may not think of a place in Nebraska as being a hub of intense crime, but it was so bad

in North Platte that it came to be known as Little Chicago. North Platte would become

a base of operations for an evil woman. There really is no other way to describe Annie

Cook. Her crimes were mind-boggling. The effects of her deeds have continued on to our

present era through supernatural activity.

This plot had been founded in 1866 and was named for the North Platte River. This town

was established as the western terminus for the Union Pacific Railway. The railway would

extend further west the following year to Laramie, Wyoming. Small towns with a railroad

were attractive to criminals, particularly gangsters. Prohibition in America spawned years

of criminal activity that strengthened the power of the mafia and encouraged citizens

to take up crime. Crime bosses and gangsters occasionally needed to find a place to lay

low and small towns provided a respite, especially small towns with a railroad. North Platte

in Nebraska was at a crossroads after World War I because the farming economy had dropped

out. Residents needed to find more ways to make money. They turned to a legal gambling

prostitution and eventually a legal alcohol. Crime flourishes in a town where city officials

were easily manipulated and bought off. North Platte would be the place where a woman

named Annie Cook would open up a brothel. Annie was born in 1875 to a Russian Jewish couple

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