They Both Reached for the Gun

Examining the case that inspired a pop culture phenomenon In 1924 Beulah Annan was arrested and incarcerated for killing her lover, Harry Kalsted. Six weeks later, a jury acquitted her of murder. Inspired by the sordid event, trial, and acquittal, Maurine Watkins, a reporter at the time, wrote the play Chicago, a Broadway hit that was adapted several times. Through a fresh retelling of the story of Annan and of Watkinss play, Charles H. Cosgrove provides the first critical examination of the criminal case, and an initial exploration of the eras social assumptions that made the message of the play so plausible in its own time. His careful historical research challenges the received portrait of Annan as a killer who got away with murder, and of Watkins as a savvy cub reporter and precocious playwright. In They Both Reached for the Gun, Charles H. Cosgrove expertly combines inquest and police records, and interviews with Annans relatives, to analyze the participants, the trial, and the subsequent play. Although no one will ever know what really happened in the Kenwood apartment on Chicagos south side one hundred years ago, Cosgroves interrogation shows how sensationalized Watkinss writing was. Her reporting on the Annan case perpetuated falsehoods about Annans so-called confession, and her play gave an inaccurate portrayal of Chicagos criminal justice system. Despite Watkinss insistence that her drama revealed the truth about its subjects without any exaggeration, her play depicted police, prosecutors, and judges as the only good guys in the story, ignoring those who lied, misled, and used brutal methods to obtain forced confessions.