In April 1987, 52-year-old Ruthie Mae McCoy called 911 from her Chicago apartment, panicked and out of breath. She told the dispatcher that someone was trying to break in...through her bathroom mirror.

Police didn’t believe her. Two days later, she was found dead.

This episode unpacks the real-life horror that inspired the Candyman legend, a murder born not of superstition, but of neglect, poverty, and systemic failure.

Ruthie’s killers crawled through the hollow wall behind her medicine cabinet, shot her four times, and disappeared back into the building’s decaying infrastructure. The same walls that were supposed to protect her instead became a tunnel for her killers.

We’ll explore Ruthie’s life before the headlines: her struggles with mental illness, her attempts to rebuild her life, and the cruel irony that she was finally on the verge of escaping public housing when her own apartment became a death trap.

We’ll also go inside the Grace Abbott Homes, one of Chicago’s most dangerous housing projects, where gangs ruled, drugs flowed faster than repairs, and dozens of units sat vacant, turning the building into a concrete maze of fear.

Sources:

https://chicagoreader.com/news/they-came-in-through-the-bathroom-mirror/ 

https://justnlife.com/candymans-legacy-a-haunting-tale-of-chicagos-south-side/

https://allthatsinteresting.com/history-uncovered/candyman 

https://chicagoreader.com/news/cause-of-death/

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