“To hell with them Sicilians!”

It was just an off-hand comment – a remark that was usually delivered with a smirk. Dean O’Banion and his North Siders were quick to say it. They didn’t care. The South Side mob, run by John Torrio and Al Capone, were tolerated – they weren’t pals. They were business associates and if it wasn’t for the money they made for O’Banion and his crew, they’d have nothing to do with them at all.

So, “to hell with them Sicilians” became a remark that often passed between them with a laugh. Other people, though, didn’t find it so funny. To a Sicilian, it was a deadly insult – a quip that would eventually mark a man for death.

And that man, of course, was O’Banion himself. And as brash and confident as he was, he never saw it coming.

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In July of 1983, 17-year-old Kimberly McClaskey vanished while hitchhiking along Route 116 near London Mills, Illinois. The next day, her clothing and personal belongings were found floating in the Spoon River — but Kimberly was gone. Decades later, her remains would finally be identified, and her death ruled a homicide. This is the story of a small-town nightmare that never truly ended.  

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Based on the episodes that you’ve heard in this series, then you’re likely aware there are many stories of curses, superstitions, and creepy coincidences that have been interwoven into the fabric of the “Devil’s Music.” Some are silly and a bit of a stretch, some are eerie, and some – like the most famous music curse of the “27 Club” – are downright unnerving.

In this episode, we’ll dig into the infamous “Buddy Holly Curse,” which began on a fateful night in February 1959 – the “Day the Music Died.” Legend has it that this curse dogged an entire generation of rock stars connected to Buddy Holly. Is it truth or fiction?

Curses and superstitions are not taken lightly in the music world. But I’ll leave it up to you to decide if the frightening things that occurred were the supernatural at work, mere coincidence, or the result of that famous rock-n-roll adage of “living fast and leaving a good-looking corpse behind.” 

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Once the smoke cleared from the Cicero elections, Eddie Vogel – the underworld mover and shaker of the town, who gave orders to the mayor and other local officials – kept his promise to Torrio and Capone about gambling. On May 1, they opened the Cicero’s first bookmaking and gambling operation, the Hawthorne Smoke Shop, right next door to their Cicero headquarters, the Hawthorne Inn. Things were running smoothly in Cicero, this small but growing town of just over 16,000 people at the time, or…. Well, for the most part.

There was still one ongoing problem that needed to be dealt with. That problem’s name was Eddie Tancl.

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Filmmakers in the 1950s didn’t completely abandon the dry and dusty lore of the Devil even if it did seem audiences were now much more inclined to see threats in the form of atomic bombs, little green men in flying saucers, and giant monsters unleashed by man’s experiments with radioactivity. A new obsession with science and outer space seemed to temporarily put the Devil on hold, largely pushing the mysteries of black magic off the screen.

But the 1950s weren’t a complete loss when it came to the Devil onscreen. They not only introduced an unhinged underground filmmaker who would have a much bigger impact in the decade to come but 1957 also gave us what was, without question, one of the best satanic films of all time – one of the few truly effective films about black magic  that can still give you a chill even nearly 70 years later.

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The call came in as a fire. What firefighters found inside was far worse. In March of 1994, three people were discovered dead inside a Westlawn Avenue home in Decatur, Illinois. The investigation led police to James David Dyer, a man already feared by one of the victims and already named in a court order. 

This episode follows the threats, the violence, the chase, and the aftermath of a case that left one town shaken. 

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Before rock-n-roll started taking America by storm in the 1950s, you wouldn’t find a minister or holy roller anywhere in the country who didn’t refer to the blues as the “Devil’s Music.” 

During the Middle Ages, the Church told people that any kind of music that wasn’t about God was the work of the Devil. That became a popular refrain for church leaders – then and sometimes now. By the early twentieth century, it was jazz music – linked to the blamed of Storyville – that was being blamed for lewd and lascivious behavior.

Jazz seemed really bad – but then came the blues -- a form of music with an angry, wicked sound that conjures up visions of dive bars, pool halls, graveyards, and an abandoned crossroads in Mississippi where the Devil just might be waiting for the next hopeful guitar player to come along, looking for fame and fortune.

Then, with the blending of blues, country, hillbilly music, and more, rock-n-roll was born. It’s evolved in many ways over the years – but it’s always been trouble.

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After keeping a low profile in the previous decade, the Devil made a comeback in the 1940s, when soon-to-be-war-weary audiences were both diverted and disturbed by satanic entertainment. Thanks to the darkness lurking in the world during those years, we shouldn’t be surprised to find there were a number of genuinely ominous visions of evil captured on celluloid at the time.

Reflecting on those terrible years of global bloodshed, the dawning of the nuclear age, and the years of exhaustion that followed the war, we find that many of the satanic films of the 1940s present a darkly pessimistic view that leaves no doubt that humanity really doesn’t need the Devil to encourage it to do evil.

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On a summer night in 1987, 22-year-old Brenda Sue Bottoms left her home in Auburn, Illinois for a short walk to a nearby tavern. Hours later, she was seen getting into a brown car with dents on the passenger side.

She was never seen again.

Nearly four decades later, investigators say new information has surfaced — including the possibility that more people witnessed Brenda’s final moments than originally believed.

In a town where people remember everything…who is still keeping this secret?

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The story of the murderous priest, Hans Schmidt, is one that has been seldom told, even though he may have been one of the most depraved criminals in American history. Scmidt left a trail of mayhem behind him in Germany when he came to the United States and he left death and destruction in his wake as he was moved from parish to parish around the country, keeping him one step ahead of rumors, accusations, and embarrassment for the Church.

But Catholic officials had no idea of the secrets they were keeping for Father Schmidt. They didn’t know about his pathological obsession with blood, his deranged sexual appetites, or the murders, of course. I’d like to think that if they knew just how dangerous this priest was, they would have done something to stop him. But I don’t suppose we’ll ever know. 

But what I do know is that this is not a story for the nervous, the faint of heart, or those too afraid to be face the violence, sex, brutality, religious depravity, and blood-soaked murder to come. If you're brave enough, I dare you to join me for this one.

HOLY TERROR: THE TRUE STORY OF AMERICA’S KILLER PRIEST will be season 7 of our new podcast that you can only get by becoming a Patreon supporter of American Hauntings. 

To do that, just go to PATREON.COM/AMERICANHAUNTINGS and get signed up now in time for the first episode of the new season, coming in May 2026!

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