Welcome to American Hauntings, the podcast dedicated to the history, hauntings, legends, lore, and the dark side of America.

And welcome to our brand new season, Murder City.

American Haunings is written and performed by Troy Taylor, that's me,

and is produced and co-hosted by Cody Beck. And this season, we're taking you to Chicago

in the roaring 20s, an era of gangsters, jazz, flappers, bootleg booze, corrupt cops, and the ghosts

those violent days left behind.

We'll be telling the true story of the man who personified the era more than any other.

Al Capone, a man who rose to the top spot of the criminal underworld when he was just 25 years old,

ruling over a city filled with speakeasies, brothels, and gambling joints, and an

army made up of assassins, gunmen, and dirty cops, and city officials. But even with all

his power, Capone was a man who lived in fear, haunted by a vengeful spirit that was determined

to follow him to the grave. This is episode three of

season 10, Torio. John Torio was 31 years old when he first came to Chicago to free his uncle by marriage, Big Jim Colissimo, from threats by blackhand gangsters.

But Torio's service went beyond that. He was soon reorganizing and expanding Big Jim's vice rackets, and while they continued to thrive for a short time, trouble was on the way.

Reform movements against open vice began gathering strength,

and the levy district where most of Jim's operations were located was the first to feel the pain.

On the night of October 18, 1909, an evangelist named Gypsy Smith led 2,000 of his followers into the Red Light District.

By the time they reached 22nd Street, more than 20,000 curious Chicagoans were marching with them.

As vice workers looked on and stunned disbelief from behind closed doors,

three Salvation Army bands struck up,

and the congregation joined Smith in singing hymns as they marched through the levee,

knelt before the most notorious brothels and prayed.

...