In September 1913, the discovery of a mangled body on railroad tracks outside Chicago appeared at first to be a tragic railway accident. But a closer examination quickly transformed the case into a murder mystery that would capture public attention.
The victim, a well-known dancing instructor named Mildred Allison, had suffered a gunshot wound before her body was ever placed on the tracks.
Witnesses reported hearing screams in the darkness, investigators found no weapon nearby, and evidence suggested someone had deliberately used a passing train to conceal a crime.
As police pieced together Allison’s final hours, a series of unsettling clues emerged. A mysterious telephone call, a heated conversation overheard days earlier, a meeting with a man known only as “Spencer,” and a strange message claiming she had suddenly left on her honeymoon all pointed toward a sinister plot.
Mangled Body of Woman on Track
CHICAGO, Illinois. — Examination of the mutilated body of a fashionably dressed woman found dead on the tracks of the Elgin, Joilet & EasternRailroad near Wayne, a suburb, last night, disclosed today that the woman had first been shot, the bullet entered the jaw and lodging in the brain.
Persons living near the spot said they heard screams from the direction of the railroad tracks after an inter-urban car from Chicago had stopped near that point.
The railroad train crew did not see the body until after it had been run over and mangled.
Search in the vicinity of the spot where the body was found failed to disclose a weapon, from which the police concluded that the woman was lured to the spot and murdered.
Identification of the body apparently was completed when the woman’s purse was found and in a card engraved “Mildred Allison, Dancing Teacher, Relicita Dancing Club, Cottage Grove Avenue and 31st Street, Chicago.”
Frank Oleson, proprietor of the dancing club, said that last Thursday night Miss Allison had gone to the telephone. She seemed to be excited and Oleson overheard her shout:
“I’ll give you till Thursday night, then something will happen.”
The police believe that the body of the woman after being shot was carried to the railroad tracks and placed on the rails to destroy evidence of the crime.
Miss Allison lived at the home of a Mrs. Johnson, in Chicago.
Mrs. Johnson said that yesterday a man who said his name was Spencer called up for Miss Allison, and Mrs. Johnson called her to the telephone. The latter made an engagement to meet Spencer and later kept the appointment.
This forenoon, Mrs. Johnson added, the same man called up again and told her not to expect Mrs. Allison back today, as she had gone east on her honeymoon.
The Ogden Standard. Ogden City, Utah. September 27, 1913.
