On November 14, 1885, a cold autumn day in the
City of Broad Shoulders, an enthusiastic crowd of
several hundred watched as three Sicilians Giovanni
Azari, Agostino Gelardi, and Ignazio Silvestri were
hanged in the courtyard of the Cook County Jail. The
three had only recently come to the city, but not long after
they were arrested, tried, and convicted for murdering
Filippo Caruso, stuffing his body into a trunk, and
shipping it to Pittsburgh.

Historian and legal expert Elizabeth Dale brings the
Trunk Murder case vividly back to life, painting an indelible
portrait of nineteenth-century Chicago, ethnic life there,
and a murder trial gone seriously awry. Along the way she
reveals a Windy City teeming with street peddlers, crooked
cops, earnest reformers, and legal activists--all of whom
play a part in this gripping tale. Chicago's Trunk Murder
shows how the defendants in the case were arrested on du
bious evidence and held, some for weeks, without access to
lawyers or friends. The accused finally confessed after being
interrogated repeatedly by men who did not speak their lan
guage. They were then tried before a judge who had his own
view and ruled accordingly. Chicago's Trunk Murder revisits
these abject breaches of justice and uses them to consider
much larger problems in late nineteenth century criminal
law. Written with a storyteller's flair for narrative and brim
ming with historical detail, this book will be must reading
for true crime buffs and aficionados of Chicago lore alike.