Ruthie Mae's Reflection: 6

Summary

Summary of "Candyman: The True Story Behind The Bathroom Mirror Murder"
Episode: Ruthie Mae's Reflection (Episode 6)

Hosted by Dometi Pongo | Produced by CBS News and 48 Hours

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Introduction to Ruthie Mae McCoy's Tragic Death

On April 22, 1987, Ruthie Mae McCoy, a 52-year-old resident of a Chicago housing project, made a desperate 911 call reporting an intruder attempting to enter her apartment through the bathroom medicine cabinet. Initially dismissed by authorities, Ruthie Mae was found dead two days later, suffering four gunshot wounds. This tragic event not only inspired the iconic horror film "Candyman" but also highlighted systemic issues such as racial injustice, housing inequality, and the stigma surrounding mental illness.

The National Public Housing Museum and Preservation of History

Timestamp [02:07] – Lisa Yun Lee: "We tell the good, the bad, and the ugly."

Lisa Yun Lee, Executive Director of the National Public Housing Museum, discusses the preservation of artifacts from Chicago's public housing history. Among these is the infamous medicine cabinet associated with Ruthie Mae's case, symbolizing both the provision of essential services and the underlying tragedies. Lee emphasizes the relevance of Ruthie Mae's story in contemporary discussions about housing precarity:

Timestamp [03:20] – Dometi Pongo: "The tragedy of Ruthie May's death holds lessons for how the country approaches public housing today."

Media Representation and Legacy in the "Candyman" Franchise

The murder of Ruthie Mae McCoy served as a pivotal inspiration for the "Candyman" horror film series. The original 1992 film perpetuated racialized stereotypes, while the 2021 remake, directed by Nia DaCosta and led by people of color, sought to challenge these narratives.

Timestamp [06:10] – Dometi Pongo: Discusses how the remake recontextualizes Candyman to address deeper societal issues.

Timestamp [06:27] – Robin Means Coleman: "It'll take a minute, and then people will be studying over and talking about her film for years to come."

The latest installment shifts focus to black communities, portraying Candyman as an "unwilling martyr" symbolizing black pain and trauma.

Timestamp [10:26] – Robin Means Coleman: "Candyman, at the intersection of white violence and black pain is about unwilling martyrs."

The 1990 Murder Trial of John Hondress and Edward Turner

In the spring of 1990, John Hondress and Edward Turner faced trial for Ruthie Mae's murder. Despite significant suspicion and initial evidence, both men were acquitted.

Timestamp [05:11] – Edward Turner: "You never know what a jury's gonna do."

Trial Proceedings:

• Edward Turner's Trial:

  • Defense Argument: Contextualized Turner's actions within his challenging life circumstances, suggesting he might have refrained from calling the police to avoid being labeled a suspect.
  • Verdict: Not guilty of first-degree murder, armed robbery, and burglary. Turner stated, "I didn't know who killed McCoy. And I didn't regret any of my actions on the night she was killed." [Timestamp [16:48]]

• John Hondress's Trial:

  • Despite the prosecution's reliance on key witnesses, inconsistencies led to his acquittal. Judge Michael Getty criticized the Chicago Police Department's handling of the case, stating, "This case was lost by the patrol division of the Chicago police department..." [Timestamp [19:31]]

Perspectives on Systemic Failures and Justice

Timestamp [04:43] – Dometi Pongo: Steve Bagheera credits the "Candyman" franchise and his investigative work for reviving attention to Ruthie Mae's case.

Ruthie Mae's Brother, Willie McCoy:

• Timestamp [24:12] – Steve Bagheera: "Ruthie Mae McCoy is a real life person. Her family are alive and out there."
• Willie struggled with the justice system's failure to convict Ruthie Mae's murderer(s). He voiced frustration with the systemic issues that allowed the case to remain unresolved.

Timestamp [26:30] – Steve Bagheera: "The concentration of deep poverty in my mind was the more important factor." He elaborates on how concentrated poverty in public housing contributed to increased violence and deteriorating conditions for residents.

Repercussions for Public Housing and Community Well-being

The aftermath of Ruthie Mae's murder saw significant changes in Chicago's public housing landscape. High-rise projects like Cabrini Green were demolished around 2000, replacing them with developments aimed at attracting wealthier residents. This transition reflects ongoing struggles with housing inequality and the displacement of low-income communities.

Timestamp [25:48] – Edward Turner: "I do think that things are much better because Abbott Holmes no longer exists."

Ruthie Mae's Enduring Legacy

Ruthie Mae McCoy's story remains a poignant reminder of the intersection between individual tragedy and broader societal failures. Her legacy is preserved through the National Public Housing Museum and the "Candyman" series, which continues to evolve in its portrayal of her story.

Timestamp [27:02] – Deborah Lasley: "The projects and the people who used to run them... could be lurking behind our own reflection."

Ruthie Mae symbolizes not only her personal suffering but also the collective pain experienced by those living in marginalized communities. Her reflection serves as a metaphor for the unresolved injustices that persist today.

Conclusion: A Story of Unresolved Horror

"Candyman: The True Story Behind The Bathroom Mirror Murder" intertwines Ruthie Mae McCoy's real-life tragedy with its cinematic portrayal, offering a deep exploration of systemic issues that continue to resonate. Through interviews, archival footage, and expert analysis, the podcast sheds light on a case that remains emblematic of broader societal challenges.

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Notable Quotes:

• Dometi Pongo [00:16]: "48 Hours plus and Wondery plus subscribers can listen to new episodes... Join 48 Hours plus on Apple Podcast or Wondery plus in the Wondery app."
  (Note: Introductory advertisement skipped as per instructions.)

• Lisa Yun Lee [03:35]: "Housing precarity being what it is today, it's like one of the biggest issues facing all of us. This history is incredibly relevant."

• Steve Bagheera [24:40]: "That would have been a white woman that called police like my sister did, you know, they would have gone in her apartment... this whole system we're living in is corrupt."

• Edward Turner [22:50]: "A cold case is a case that occurred where the offender was not caught and the case is still pending, but cold. In this circumstance, we believed we had the right guy."

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This episode delves into the complex layers of Ruthie Mae McCoy's murder, examining the failures of the justice system, the impact of concentrated poverty, and the enduring legacy of her story in both historical and cultural contexts. Through personal testimonies and expert insights, it provides a comprehensive understanding of a case that continues to haunt Chicago's public housing narrative.

Transcript

[Dometi Pongo]

48 Hours plus and Wondery plus subscribers can listen to new episodes of Candyman the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder one week early and ad free right now. Join 48 Hours plus on Apple Podcast or Wondery plus in the Wondery app.

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[Dometi Pongo]

Enterprise in the spring of 1990, a judge and jury considered whether John Hondress and Edward Turner were guilty of killing Ruthie Mae McCoy. Their attorneys argued they were innocent, but throughout the investigation, their names came up most frequently as suspects, and when the time came for the prosecution's key witness to take the stand, he changed his story at the last minute. Now their fates were up in the air. We're talking a lot about Ruthie May now, but back then her murder got very little attention. Not a lot of folks came to the trial, and it's thanks mostly to the doggedness of Steve Bagheera that we're talking about Ruthie May's case now. And we aren't the only ones turning our attention to Ruthie May. A new museum set to open later this year will highlight her story.

[Lisa Yun Lee]

We tell the good, the bad, and the ugly.

[Dometi Pongo]

Lisa Yun Lee is the executive director of the National Public Housing Museum. They renovated a three story public housing building in Chicago. The museum will showcase how apartments looked.

[Lisa Yun Lee]

Decades ago, the objects and artifacts that we have found that we've saved and salvaged, and that people have given to us.

[Dometi Pongo]

One object they salvaged from back then was a medicine cabinet. Lee knows that there's no story related to those medicine cabinets that's more well known than Ruthie May's.

[Lisa Yun Lee]

For many people, one of the like most famous stories in public housing, they'll.

[Dometi Pongo]

Hang a cabinet on the wall. And then on each side of the cabinet, they'll put two different portrayals of life in public housing.

[Lisa Yun Lee]

So on one side, this medicine cabinet tells the story of really incredible health programs and medical care that was always available in public housing complexes.

[Dometi Pongo]

And then on the other, there's the.

[Lisa Yun Lee]

Story of Ruthie McCoy, which is also true about this medicine cabinet.

[Dometi Pongo]

To Lee, the tragedy of Ruthie May's death holds lessons for how the country approaches public housing today.

[Lisa Yun Lee]

Housing precarity being what it is today, it's like one of the biggest issues facing all of us. This history is incredibly relevant.

[Dometi Pongo]

And even as history reminds us of its failures, Ruthie May's story still shows us some of the valuable things that public housing can do for people. She had a consistent place to stay after her home flooded and was provided access to a psychiatric center where she received care. Despite so many challenges, Ruthie May used public housing to set a path toward a better life.

[Lisa Yun Lee]

We're asking people to take a moment and take care to look a little more deeply.

[Dometi Pongo]

The medicine cabinet exhibit is called Care to Look.

[Lisa Yun Lee]

It's a capacious history. History is big. And never again will a single story be told as if it's the only.

[Dometi Pongo]

One for how big history is. Ruthie May's story manages to stay relevant for generations.

[Steve Bagheera]

I think I wrote a lot of stories that really shed light on what poverty was like in Chicago in the 80s and 90s.

[Dometi Pongo]

Here's reporter Steve Bagheera.

[Steve Bagheera]

But people don't pay attention to most of those stories. But this one is kind of revived so that people do pay attention to it more than three decades later.

[Dometi Pongo]

He credits Candyman for generating attention around Ruthie May's legacy. But plenty of real life events get mentioned in movies. There's something deeper at play when we remember Ruthie May.

[Steve Bagheera]

Ruthie May's experience was concentrated poverty. It's a combination of deep poverty and racial segregation.

[Dometi Pongo]

What is her legacy? What has come of these public housing projects today? And were her killers ever brought to justice?

[Edward Turner]

You never know what a jury's gonna do.

[Dometi Pongo]

I'm dometi pongo from 48 hours. This is Candyman. The true story behind the Bathroom mirror murder. Episode six, Ruthie Mae's reflection. Ruthie Mae McCoy's legacy will forever be intertwined with the 1992 Candyman film.

[Lisa Yun Lee]

I mean, mainstream stories and myths have a lot of power.

[Dometi Pongo]

Lisa Yun Lee from the National Public Housing Museum believes the film and its sequels have kept Ruthie May's story alive. But each one has also done something different.

[Lisa Yun Lee]

I think the original Candyman contributed to inscribing some terrible racialized stereotypes about these places. And on the flip side, I kind of feel like the remake of Candyman actually did something very different.

[Dometi Pongo]

In 2021, fans of the franchise got to see Candyman in a new light. It was the first time a Candyman film was written and directed by people of color. Director Nia DaCosta used the remake to challenge stereotypes around public housing and historically black neighborhoods.

[Robin Means Coleman]

It'll take a minute, and then people will be studying over and talking about her film for years to come.

[Dometi Pongo]

Remember Robin Means Coleman? She's a media professor at the University of Virginia. She told me that this more recent film is part of a movement to use horror to examine deeper issues within American society, especially about race.

[Robin Means Coleman]

So inevitably that real life horror is going to inform entertainment. Horror and the social issues appear in lots of horror films, but they're particularly acute in black horror films.

[Dometi Pongo]

The fourth Candyman is set in 2019, decades after the original. Helen, the graduate student who investigated Candyman for her research paper and died in a bonfire, is referenced, but is not the film's focus. Instead of a white protagonist, the central character is black. He's an artist named Anthony McCoy.

[Robin Means Coleman]

The kind of connective tissue is like trauma. It's violence. The Candyman is sort of violent. Cabrini is violent, the government is violent. There's structural violence that sends people to where they are.

[Dometi Pongo]

In these films, a reference to the details of Ruthie May's murder is in the fourth film too. The main character, Anthony, starts researching Candyman and gets a tape recorder from the library as he becomes more obsessed with Candyman. There's a scene where Anthony is vigorously painting and listening to a recording of two women from the original film as they retell the murder of a woman named ruthie. So Ruthie called 911 and she said, there's somebody coming through the walls. And they didn't believe her. They thought the lady was crazy, right? So she called 911 again, and they still didn't believe.

[Lisa Yun Lee]

But when they finally got there, she was dead.

[Dometi Pongo]

By 2019, Cabrini Green and the Abbott homes where Ruthie Mae lived were long gone. In the movie and in real life, the high rise projects had been demolished. Many low income residents of the neighborhood were forced to leave. Their homes were replaced by new development and housing designed to attract wealthier residents. I should warn you, if you haven't seen the movie yet, there are gonna be some spoilers as we get into the differences between the four and the first Candyman.

[Robin Means Coleman]

I think that the chief difference is now, certainly there's the absence of Helen and a focus on black communities, black families, black relationships, extended families. That's the other thing. In the 92 movie, you're like, where are these people's kin?

[Dometi Pongo]

It's revealed that Anthony the painter, was the baby that Helen, the blonde grad student from the first Candyman, saved from the fire in the original film. At the end of the 2021 film, Anthony becomes Candyman. And this movie makes some big changes to the lore surrounding the Candyman character's history. The police gunned down the character Anthony McCoy at the end of the most recent movie. Keep in mind, this film was released only a little more than a year after George Floyd's death, and his murder was weighing heavy on America at the time. But in the movie, Anthony gets his revenge. Once he's Candyman, he kills the officers who murdered him.

[Robin Means Coleman]

Even though Anthony is turning into something, he's an unwilling martyr to the kind of black pain and trauma that we see.

[Dometi Pongo]

Coleman, read me something the director Nia DaCosta once said.

[Robin Means Coleman]

So Nia says, I love this quote. Can I read this quote?

[Dometi Pongo]

Absolutely.

[Robin Means Coleman]

She says, Candyman, at the intersection of white violence and black pain is about unwilling martyrs.

[Dometi Pongo]

The character Anthony McCoy, is an unwilling martyr in the 2021 film the Police Kill Him. The original Candyman character, Daniel Robitaille, was an unwilling martyr. He was tortured and lynched by an angry mob. And in a way, Ruthie May was an unwilling martyr, too. She's remembered for how she died, remembered for how she was let down.

[Robin Means Coleman]

When we talk about speaking names and saying names and reminding about justice denied, we do want to say Ruthie Mae McCoy's name and keep saying her name, because it isn't just about her murder. That's a core to how we know her. But Ruthie Mae McCoy symbolizes all of the sort of failures.

[Dometi Pongo]

One of the reasons Ruthie May's story still resonates today is we're still reckoning with these failures. A lot of us can relate to not feeling safe in our own homes, worrying that when a call for help is made, no one will come. In the 2021 movie, a black woman summons Candyman for protection, which is much different from the original. And that subtle change makes saying the name Candyman an act of empowerment rather than victimization. Coleman thinks that that idea echoes the real life movement to keep the names of victims of injustice alive.

[Robin Means Coleman]

So in saying Candyman's name in 1992 doesn't get us justice in this Candyman. You say his name because we're asking.

[Dometi Pongo]

For justice for Coleman. Ruthie Mae is on a long list of names that she intends to say out loud.

[Robin Means Coleman]

Ruthie Mae McCoy is a real life person. Her family are alive and out there.

[Dometi Pongo]

Back in 1990, Ruthie May's family was still waiting for justice. They were about to learn whether the two men accused of killing Ruthie May would be found guilty. Her older brother Willie McCoy had watched the whole trial unfold. Finally, after three years, he was about to find out what would happen to the two young men accused of her murder.

[Steve Bagheera]

He wanted to make sure that the right people got convicted.

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[Dometi Pongo]

Steve Bagheera was there as the prosecution and the defense made their closing arguments.

[Steve Bagheera]

I always feel it's pretty poignant to see these cases where there's an awful lot on the line and there's so little interest, but that is quite common in Chicago.

[Dometi Pongo]

The family of the defendants and Ruthie May's brother, Willie McCoy were there to watch. John Hondress had chosen a bench trial where Judge Michael Getty decided his fate, while Edward Turner had chosen a jury.

[Steve Bagheera]

Both trials were taking place simultaneously.

[Dometi Pongo]

Turner's attorney focused his closing arguments on the circumstances of Turner's life and the Choices available to him, like the choice not to call the police. He argued that if Turner had called 911, police might have thought he was a suspect or his neighbors could consider him a snitch, putting his life in danger. Steve said. The jury left the room and came back with a verdict in less than four hours. Turner was sweating as he looked down at the table.

[Edward Turner]

Edward Turner told me that he was scared. When the jury came back, he said, I would have went off if they told me I was guilty. I wouldn't have known how to take that garbage life in prison for something I didn't do.

[Dometi Pongo]

The clerk read the verdict on the charge of first degree murder. Not guilty. Steve remembered someone in the court cheered, to which the judge threatened jail time. The clerk continued reading off three more verdicts. Not guilty. Not guilty. Not guilty. The jury decided Turner had not committed armed robbery or invaded Ruthie May's home beyond a reasonable doubt. And even though Turner had admitted on the stand that he had taken Ruthie May's tv, the jury also found him not guilty of burglary. He was free to go. Back in April 1990, Steve watched Turner sit back in his chair and smile. His ordeal was over. Steve said Turner told him back then.

[Edward Turner]

He didn't know who killed McCoy. And he didn't regret any of his actions on the night she was killed. Not even his failure to call police after he saw McCoy's body. If he had it to do over, he said to me, I would have seen it and didn't seen it, just like I did. I wasn't going to jeopardize my family's life.

[Dometi Pongo]

Willie had spoken to family members of the accused. Edward Turner's mother, Aletha, repeated something to Willie that she'd said to Steve.

[Edward Turner]

The fact that Edward Turner wouldn't call police when he saw Ruthie May lying in the apartment. His mother, I think, said he should have. He should have called police. But if he did, he would have been suspect number one. So she could understand how in the milieu of the projects, that would be an understandable response. And Willie was okay with that explanation. He said that he felt the defendants aren't the only ones that should be on trial. He said that the people who designed these projects should be on trial.

[Dometi Pongo]

Willie showed his understanding once again when he walked past Turner's family on his way out of the courthouse.

[Steve Bagheera]

In the hallway outside the courtroom, Turner's mother is screaming, my child's coming home. And crying. And Willie McCoy walked past the relatives. And he looked relieved, not disappointed. And he told Me, maybe he was innocent, but even if he wasn't, you can't convict an individual on such little evidence.

[Dometi Pongo]

Willie left and didn't return to hear the verdict in John Hondress case.

[Steve Bagheera]

He wanted justice for Ruthie May, but he also wanted the right people convicted.

[Edward Turner]

If anyone was going to be convicted.

[Dometi Pongo]

Steve wrote that in the closing arguments of Hondress case, the prosecutor admitted Tim Brown had been a flawed witness, but argued the detectives had conducted an honorable investigation. He said, quote, they didn't choose their witnesses and neither did we. But the detectives wouldn't be the focus of judge Michael Getty's frustration. He was upset with the responding officers the night Ruthie May died.

[Edward Turner]

Well, this was a veteran judge. He knew how police were supposed to work. So to him, it was unconscionable that the officers didn't go into the apartment that night, that they got that call not just from Ruthie May, but from two neighbors reporting gunshots, that they could somehow leave without going in and seeing what was up in that apartment.

[Dometi Pongo]

Judge Getty said, quote, this case was lost not by the state's attorneys. This case was not even lost by the detectives who got the only evidence that they got in a damaged and sanitized crime scene. This case was lost by the patrol division of the Chicago police department, who stood by with a deaf ear to the multiple reports of gunshots being fired in 1109. They just couldn't be bothered with the hassle of entering a locked door, so they let them get away with it, end quote. He went on to say about John, this defendant may or may not be guilty, but the state has clearly failed to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This court must accordingly find the defendant not guilty. He's discharged. And with that, no one would be held accountable for Ruthie May's murder. Handraz never spoke to Steve for his story back in the day and never responded to our attempts to reach out to him either. But Steve did speak with Hondress half brother who had attended the trial.

[Steve Bagheera]

His half brother Darnell Dean told me in the hallway, I feel good about him getting out, but there's no reason to celebrate. He wanted the truth to come out as to who maybe did. But everyone over there meeting in the projects knows who killed that lady. Just ain't nobody at liberty to say. But it wasn't John.

[Dometi Pongo]

Willie McCoy hadn't come back to hear the Honduras ruling.

[Steve Bagheera]

Prosecutors had already told him that Hondress was going to walk as well.

[Dometi Pongo]

Steve decided to call Willie and tell him the prosecutor's Prediction was correct. His sister's killer, or killers, whoever they were, got away.

[Steve Bagheera]

The first thing McCoy did was lean on his religious faith.

[Anthony Menina]

I thought it was a travesty.

[Dometi Pongo]

Former Chicago detective Anthony Menina thought it was a travesty that the two men he arrested for Ruthie May's murder were acquitted.

[Anthony Menina]

Judge Getty, you know, he gave a fair statement of what he believed, and his statement was that it wasn't on the detectives, and, you know, it was. He claimed it was on the patrol division. But in actuality, I also add that to the CHA police.

[Dometi Pongo]

In a phone call, he reiterated that he believes the CHA police, not the patrol officers, are the ones at fault for not letting patrol officers into Ruthie May's apartment sooner.

[Anthony Menina]

How could you show up in an apartment with a wrong key and then say, I'll be back tomorrow?

[Dometi Pongo]

From his perspective, the patrol officer's hands were tied. Even though police regularly break into private property, he simply doesn't think the patrol officers had enough cause in this situation. They were on CHA property, and the CHA did not want to break down the door.

[Anthony Menina]

It's a CHA property. The CHA would have to give the okay.

[Dometi Pongo]

He said this might have been handled differently if the police had permission to break in from a relative, but that wasn't the situation. Plus, to Menina, at least, they ultimately arrested the right men. He doesn't consider this a cold case.

[Anthony Menina]

A cold case is a case that occurred where the offender was not caught and the case is still pending, but cold. In this circumstance, we believed we had the right guy. So therefore, it's. It's already in the courts. So with that fact, it's not a cold case as far as I'm concerned.

[Dometi Pongo]

Again, this is former Detective Menina's opinion. Honduras and Turner were found not guilty of killing Ruthie May. Still, for Menina, as far as we.

[Anthony Menina]

Were concerned, we cleared this case.

[Dometi Pongo]

Clearing a case means that the officers met the criteria to consider the case solved. Once cops say a case has been cleared, that means from their perspective, they don't have to reopen it. As for Willie McCoy, Ruthie May's brother, he dealt with the fact that the criminal justice system failed to catch his sister's killer.

[Edward Turner]

His reaction wasn't, that's so unfair. There was, as often happens in these cases, some meeting of the minds between family and friends of the defendants, and in this case, the relative Willie.

[Dometi Pongo]

Steve said that Willie relied on his religious faith.

[Steve Bagheera]

He said, God will take care of them eventually. I believe that the killers are free, but they're not free in spirit. They know what they did, and it's always going to be in their mind. They can boast, they can say, oh, man, we beat it. But that's just going to open a trap door for them. They'll think they can get away with something again, but sooner or later, the ax will fall.

[Dometi Pongo]

As their conversation went on, Willie did let some of his anger seep out. Here's Steve again, reading straight from his notes.

[Steve Bagheera]

That would have been a white woman that called police like my sister did, you know, they would have gone in her apartment. You know it. This whole system we're living in is corrupt. He said he tries not to dwell on the injustices in it. If you do, you will explode. You will explode, he said.

[Dometi Pongo]

Steve didn't stay in touch with Willie, and we tried different contact information for him, but never heard back from anyone. If he's alive, he. He'd be in his 90s. According to Edward Turner's mother, Aletha, her son went on to have a good life. He died in his 50s from cancer. But John Hondress was arrested again about a year after his acquittal In Ruthie May's case in 1993, he was convicted of second degree murder for a different killing. Steve Bagheera was the one who posed the question, what killed Ruthie May? A bullet in the chest or life in the projects? The answer was both.

[Edward Turner]

I do think that things are much better because Abbott Holmes no longer exists. Nor does. The high rise is at Cabrini and Robert Taylor and Stayway. Everything was knocked down around the year 2000.

[Dometi Pongo]

Now at Ruthie May's old address was a resource center for unemployed adults. It's next to an empty field. Steve has written a book and retired from the Chicago Reader. For his book Courtroom 302, Steve spent one year in a Cook county courtroom. He said that way back when he wrote his stories about Ruthie May, his intention was never to write an entire indictment of all public housing.

[Steve Bagheera]

The concentration of deep poverty in my mind was the more important factor. People can get along just fine in high rises and with back to back medicine cabinets. But because concentrated poverty leads inevitably to more violence, filling those high rises with the deeply poor is a recipe for disaster. A disaster that the buildings themselves then exacerbate. And then the violence worsens physical and mental health. And the residents are caught in a downward spiral.

[Dometi Pongo]

Deborah Lasley, Ruthie Mae's neighbor, blames those circumstances for her friend's death. And when asked the question, what killed Ruthie Mae McCoy? She blamed the projects and the people who used to run them. So to me, people that work for the project and because the project didn't get their they didn't care because they wasn't living there. The way whoever killed Ruthie Mae entered her apartment can make any of us question whether something could be lurking behind our own reflection. Ruthie May's reflection is her legacy, in that we say her name all these years later, we retell again and again how she died. And it's not that different from how the 2021 Candyman explains the ghost's relevance in the 21st century. But a story like that, a pain like that, lasts forever. That's Candyman. In the same way, the latest film helped to change the narrative, maybe this telling of a story does too. The scariest part is that the film is fictional, but not the horror from 48 hours. This is Candyman, the True Story behind the Bathroom Mirror Murder. I'm your host and co executive producer Dometi Pongo. Judy Tygard is the executive producer of 48 Hours, Jamie Benson is the Senior Producer for Paramount Audio and Maura Walls is the Senior Story editor. Development by 48 hours Field producer Morgan Canty Recording assistance from Marlon Polycarp and Alan Payne. Special thanks to Paramount Podcast Vice President Meghan Markus. The True Story behind the Bathroom Mirror Murder is produced by Sony Music Entertainment. It was reported, written and produced by Alex Schuman. Our executive producers are Catherine St. Louis and Jonathan Hirsch. Our Associate producer is Summer Tamad. Theme and original music composed by Cedric Wilson. He sound designed and mixed the episodes. We also use music from apm. Findle Fulton is our fact checker and our Production manager is Tameka Balance Kolasny. If you enjoyed this series, please take a moment to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like Candyman the True Story behind the Bathroom Mirror Murder, you can listen to the next episode one week early and ad free by joining 48 Hours plus on Apple Podcasts or Wondery plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short [e-mail] survey.