🎃HALLOWEEN SPECIAL 🎃 Ruthie Mae McCoy | 2: A Life In The Projects

In Part One, we dove into the tragic story of Ruthie Mae McCoy, whose death exposed the harsh realities of life in Chicago's ABLA housing projects and inspired the urban legend of Candyman. We talked about the myth, its real-life origins, and how systemic neglect allowed horrors to happen within these communities. We covered how Ruthie Mae's call to 911 about someone breaking in through her bathroom mirror eerily mirrored the Candyman story. And it wasn't just about ghosts—it was about real, tangible fear and danger that residents had to live with every day.

In Part Two, we explore how the systemic issues within the ABLA projects—rampant drug trade, violence, and neglect—created an environment where Ruthie Mae’s tragic story wasn’t just a one-off incident. We’re also going to look at how Ruthie Mae herself fought to survive in this environment, trying to find a way out while battling her own mental health challenges. It’s not just about one person’s fear; it’s about an entire community struggling against conditions that seem insurmountable. We’re going to read more about what life was like in ABLA, and how, despite her best efforts, Ruthie Mae was let down by every system that was supposed to protect her. This part of the story shows just how deeply rooted the problems were—and how the system failed to address them.

Support Us: http://illreputepodcast.com

Credits:

Compiled by Sovereign Syre

Hosted by Sovereign Syre and Josh Darling

Produced by Joshua Anderson

 

Sources:

"They Came in Through the Bathroom Mirror: A Murder in the Projects" by Steve Bogira, September 3, 1987

Barker, Clive. Books of Blood: Volume 5. HarperCollins Publishers, 1985.

Barker, Clive. The Forbidden. Razorline Press, 1985.

Bernardi, Daniel Leonard. The Persistence of Whiteness: Race and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema. Routledge, 2007.

Clover, Carol J. Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Princeton University Press, 1992.

Davis, Mike. City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles. Verso, 1990.

Dika, Vera. Games of Terror: Halloween, Friday the 13th, and the Films of the Stalker Cycle. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1990.

Glass, Ira, and Cecil Adams. “They Came in Through the Bathroom Mirror.” Chicago Reader, 1987.

Hunt, Darnell M. Screening the Los Angeles 'Riots': Race, Seeing, and Resistance. Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Kotlowitz, Alex. There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America. Doubleday, 1991.

Koven, Mikel J. Film, Folklore, and Urban Legends. Scarecrow Press, 2008.

Perry, Imani. More Beautiful and More Terrible: The Embrace and Transcendence of Racial Inequality in the United States. NYU Press, 2011.

Turner, Patricia A. I Heard It Through the Grapevine: Rumor in African-American Culture. University of California Press, 1993.

Zipes, Jack. The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales. Oxford University Press, 2000.

“Schizophrenia.” American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), 2013.

Siegel, Steven. “Mental Health Services in Low-Income Urban Communities.” Journal of Urban Health, vol. 65, no. 2, 1987, pp. 305-312.

Hahn, Jeffrey. “Drug Trade and Violence in Public Housing.” Criminology & Public Policy, vol. 4, no. 3, 1996, pp. 187-209.

Becker, Howard. Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. Free Press, 1963.