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S20 Ep105: Something Big: The Brown's Chicken Massacre, A Decade Long Manhunt & The Trials That Followed w/Patrick Wohl

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Darkness Radio

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4.8 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 September 2025

⏱️ 158 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

True Crime Tuesday presents: Something Big: The Brown's Chicken Massacre, A Decade Long Manhunt & The Trials That Followed with Researcher/Author, Patrick Wohl !

Customers know Brown's Chicken for its crispy buttermilk fried chicken and flaky biscuits. The Illinois-based franchise has a reputation for delicious but simple comfort food. But through no fault of its own, the words "Brown's Chicken" are also synonymous with one fateful night in January of 1993.

“A Real Hometown” is the trite but apt motto of Palatine, Illinois, a quaint middle-class suburb west of Chicago. On a snowy Friday evening, the staff and owners of the city’s local Brown’s Chicken franchise were closing up when two final customers arrived just past 9 p.m. As the night drew on and the employees hadn’t returned home, the families of the owners and workers began to worry, prompting police to investigate. When they entered the dark building, police were shocked to find seven bodies stacked in the restaurant’s freezer and fridge. The killers, of course, were long gone. In the months that followed, the horrendous story rocked Chicagoland and the case remained unsolved for nine years.

The Brown’s Chicken massacre is one of the most infamous cases in Illinois history, yet it is often misremembered. In Something Big, Patrick Wohl gives a new account of the story, taking readers behind the scenes and sharing the perspective of the people who lived it.

On today's TCT, Patrick Wohl joins the show to talk about the victims of the=is massacre and the circumstances that gathered all seven of them to the Brown's Chicken there that fateful day. We also talk about the two killers in this case, and how they managed to go unfound for as many years as they did, considering how many people were told!

Get your copy of "Something Big: The True Story of the Brown's Chicken Massacre, A Decade-Long Manhunt, and the Trials That Followed" here:  https://bit.ly/4g1ZWLX

Check out Patrick Wohl here:  https://www.patrickwohl.com/

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to the best in True Crime Podcasting.

0:26.0

This is True Crime Tuesday.

0:27.0

I'm your host Tim Dense.

0:28.4

Really excited for this next guest today.

0:32.7

This guest was brought to me by Alan Warren.

0:35.1

And I was really excited about this particular book as it is

0:41.6

regional here to the Midwest and a case that actually involves one of my favorite restaurateurs,

0:48.5

believe it or not. I'm they expanded into the Midwest here with Portillo's recently within the last 10 years.

0:58.1

And I was not, I'll admit, I'm not familiar with Brown's Chicken, although the case of Brown's Chicken and pasta and the Brown's Chicken Massacre goes back to the 90s.

1:09.6

So to be able to dig into this case in Patrick Wool's latest book,

1:13.9

Something Big, The True Story of the Browns Chicken Massacre,

1:16.5

A Decade Long Manhunt,

1:18.7

and the trials that followed is a book that takes a deep dive into this entire case and really gives us an idea,

1:33.4

not just of the players involved,

1:36.6

but of the absolute frustrations that it took,

1:41.5

it took over Palantine,

1:42.9

it took over the entire area of Illinois to try and bring

1:46.9

the killers of seven innocent people that were working at that Brown's Chicken that night

1:53.0

and really the frustrations of that small town of Palantine of just trying to figure out why violence came to their town.

2:02.8

And we'll talk to Patrick a little bit today about why it was so unusual that this sort of activity happened in that area of Illinois.

2:11.9

Let me tell you a little bit about Patrick and we'll bring them in here.

2:15.1

Patrick Wohl is an author and lawyer originally from Illinois.

...

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