The Big Story

Hate Between a Brother and Sister

English · True Crime

Only part one of this episode is known to have survived. William Kappen’s body is found in a patch of poison ivy, in what police suspect is a gangster killing. Reporter A. B. Hendry questions that theory and follows a trail leading to Kappen’s sister, Marie Porter, and 21-year-old Angelo Ralph Giancola.

The account centers on a murder-for-hire plot tied to a bitter family dispute. Porter allegedly promised Giancola $800 from her brother’s insurance proceeds to kill him, just hours before his wedding. She was angry over rent money and other financial support she said Kappen owed her. Giancola’s own case of poison ivy raised suspicions that he had disposed of the body. Porter and Giancola were tried at the end of 1937 and executed on January 28, 1938.

Hendry was a St. Louis-area reporter and freelance true-crime writer who later became city editor of the Chicago Herald-American. This surviving portion offers a stark, reportorial crime story, following the clues from a suspicious death toward the people and grievances behind it.

This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.