In 1920, on a quiet street in Chicago’s Lincoln Square, Carl Wanderer and his wife Ruth, eight months pregnant, were robbed at gunpoint in the vestibule of their two-flat. Shots rang out in the tiny foyer and when the smoke cleared, Ruth and the alleged holdup man lay dying while Carl emerged unscathed. Headlines the next day hailed Wanderer a hero for avenging his wife’s death. Three weeks later he was in jail for murder. The alleged holdup man would come to be known as the Ragged Stranger ...