The Big Story
The Final Curtain
Aubrey Maddock, Hartford Daily Courant
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In this dramatization of a true crime investigation, reporter Aubrey Maddock of the Hartford Daily Courant investigates a series of poisonings at a Windsor, Connecticut home for the aged in 1915. Residents were murdered for their insurance money, and Maddock’s reporting documented about 20 deaths.
The crimes became known as the Archer-Gilligan poison murders and later inspired the play Arsenic and Old Lace. The killer was convicted of one murder and committed to a home for the mentally ill. Maddock’s investigation brought a strange and disturbing case into public view; he later left journalism for a successful career in real estate and became a prominent Hartford-area citizen.
The Big Story dramatizes the work of newspaper reporters pursuing consequential stories. This episode brings together the suspense of an investigation and the human consequences behind a headline, offering a radio account of a case whose notoriety outlasted the reporting that first exposed it.
This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.