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The Lipstick Killer: Chicago's Most Controversial Murder Case

Crime House

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In this episode of Murder: True Crime Stories, Carter Roy investigates the Lipstick Killer, the case that gripped Chicago in 1946 and has never stopped raising questions. Three people were murdered on the city's North Side, and a message scrawled on a wall in a victim's own lipstick sent the entire city into a panic. William Heirens eventually confessed to all three murders. He went to prison for the rest of his life and died there at 83, still insisting he was innocent. The fingerprint that broke the case didn't meet the FBI's own standard for a match, the handwriting evidence pointed away from him, and one of the victim's own daughters didn't believe he did it.

Was William Heirens the Lipstick Killer? Or did Chicago's desperation for answers send a teenager to prison for crimes he didn't commit?

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Chapters:
0:00 Welcome to Murder: True Crime Stories
1:13 The Heirens Family
2:47 Bill’s Headaches
3:24 Bill Starts Breaking In
5:04 First Arrest
6:05 St. Bede Academy
7:41 Josephine Ross
10:02 Bill’s New Interests
11:27 Frances Brown
12:51 The Lipstick Killer
13:40 Alter Ego
14:42 Suzanne Degnan
18:22 Custodian Arrested
18:50 Bill Gets Caught
20:08 Bill Becomes Suspect
20:57 State Attorney William Tuohy
22:33 Forced Confession
25:15 Spinal Tap
26:20 Police Search
27:41 Tuohy’s Deal
30:23 New Evidence
32:02 Press Conference Confession
32:58 Reenactment
34:27 Plea and Sentencing
36:19 Doubts and Fabrications
38:00 Bill’s Life in Prison
38:48 Case Breakdown

9 Comments

@MurderTrueCrimeStories 5 months ago Pinned

Bill Heirens was allegedly held without a lawyer for days, beaten, had truth serum administered without consent, and underwent a spinal tap without anesthesia... all before confessing to three murders. He never stopped saying he was innocent. Do you think Chicago got the right man? 👇

@ediesaffron-peanut 2 weeks ago (edited)

Smh this is wild! I actually had never looked into this case before 😳🤯 It’s sad that these things are seemingly still occurring today… corruption and trial by media when evidence shows otherwise like Delphi, the Idaho 4 & SO many more 🥴

@capsy9 5 months ago

good to see stories , that arent the same regurgitated ones you see strewn across you tube , this is one of those stories , you wish you could get into a time machine and go back and find the truth , has me sitting on a fence whether he was guilty or not

@coffeecaptive 3 months ago

Oh I love this format!. It's very easy on the ears. Good job!

@musturdworks 2 months ago (edited)

I have a relative that was in prison with Bill in the 90's. Said he was a good guy and believed he was innocent😅

@smidoosmi 5 months ago

This case was crazy ! & the backstory about how Serial Killer got its name is pretty interesting. Thank you for this story 😆

@tiggirl19 3 months ago

No matter the version that I hear about this case, it all seems to boil down to how abusive the police were to William. How do we, in today's world, know if he was using some of the books to better understand the things that he didn't dare ask in his home? Parts of this also really remind me of Ed Gein's story, mainly the mother saying that sex is bad or filthy. I'm guessing that the reason he had the book that talked about sexuality was so that he could try to understand what was going on with him. I do remember that any form of sex or sexuality that wasn't heterosexual was seen as bad, and no one really talked about sex like they probably should have back then. I think that the police also had tunnel vision on William, and let the real possible killer get away with their crimes for years. How do we know that maybe someone else was possibly stalking the women and/or families to know the schedules and timing of everything? I think that's why William didn't confess to any of the murders, because he was probably remembering the constant torture that the police were inflicting on him, and he didn't want more of the torture if he did confess. He probably also knew that no matter what he said, the police wouldn't believe his story. I'm not saying that his criminal actions were bad, but maybe they were a coping mechanism for what was going on in his home with his parents. Is it possible that when he would leave on certain nights, and just walk around, he was also just trying to figure out other things that he wasn't sure about? I'm curious as to whether today's advancements in criminal identification could identify the real killer. Who wrote the 19-page confession?

@katedelgado4943 4 months ago

I'm not sure how I feel about this one. the confession was absolutely tortured out of him and shouldn't have been admissible in court. ether on his genitals? are you kidding me? pulic pressure to solve the case made the detectives stop looking as soon as they found someone young and vulnerable enough to force a confessions out of.

however, the crimes stopped when he was arrested, so that makes me think he was the guy. even if it was under the WORST possible way of obtaining it, i think the confession was real.