Poisoned!
Lincoln Center - Lincoln Center, 935 Maple Avenue, Downers Grove
Join us for a lurid tale with a connection to Downers Grove’s past…
A gripping tale of murder, sorcery, and criminal justice in turn-of-the-century Chicago, “Poisoned” is the fascinating true story (1907) of a mysterious Bohemian fortune teller charged with murdering a half-dozen people by slowly poisoning them with arsenic. In this presentation, the author Steve Shukis will discuss events that followed Herman Billik’s conviction: last-second reprieves; legal battles carried all the way to the Supreme Court; frenzied mass demonstrations; corpses secretly exhumed in the middle of the night; and the revelation that key witnesses lied under oath. These events started with a family-run dairy in a Bohemian neighborhood in Chicago and eventually continued to a dairy farm in Downers Grove, Lombard, and the DuPage coroner’s office in Wheaton. The case affected political campaigns, involved a Chicago Mayor, and featured an eventual showdown in the race for Governor of Illinois between two of the story’s central figures. Indeed, if it were not true, no one would ever believe it.
Author Steve Shukis will present this story of murder and intrigue featured in his new book Poisoned.
