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![]() Soon more than a dozen women preened and strutted on "Murderesses' Row" as they awaited trial, desperate for the same attention that was being lavished on Maurine Watkins's favorites. Love-struck men sent flowers to the jail and newly emancipated women sent impassioned letters to the newspapers. ![]() Looking for subjects to turn into a play, she would make "Stylish Belva" Gaertner and "Beautiful Beulah" Annan - both of whom had brazenly shot down their lovers - the talk of the town. So believed Maurine Watkins, a wanna-be playwright and a "girl reporter" for the Chicago Tribune, the city's "hanging paper." Newspaperwomen were supposed to write about clubs, cooking and clothes, but the intrepid Miss Watkins, a minister's daughter from a small town, zeroed in on murderers instead. But two murders that spring were special - worthy of celebration. Life was cheaper than a quart of illicit gin in the gangland capital of the world. There was nothing surprising about men turning up dead in the Second City. ![]() The true story of the murderesses who became media sensations and inspired the musical Chicago ![]()
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