When twenty-seven-year-old James Bullock was shot and killed in St. Louis in the winter of 1958, investigators immediately focused their attention on Bullock’s wife, Edna, who was the beneficiary of her husband’s large life insurance policy. Witnesses recalled seeing the victim being chased by a man with a gun on the night of the murder, and detectives suspected Edna had arranged for her husband to be killed so she could collect the insurance money. They didn’t know it at the time, but St. Louis investigators were investigating what was to be the first victim in a decades-long career of a most unlikely hitman and serial killer.

Although they had their suspicions that Edna Bullock had enlisted the help of her ex-husband, Glen Engleman, in the murder of her new husband, it would take many more years before those suspicions were confirmed. And by that time, Engleman, a successful suburban dentist had taken the lives of several more people, all to satisfy his own interest in calculated and carefully planned assassinations.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

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Bakos, Susan. 1988. Appointment for Murder. New York, NY: Putnam.

Bryan, Bill. 1987. "Case closed." St. Louis Post-Dispatch, october 18: 77.

Ellis, James. 1976. "Killing of Kirkwood man may have been accident." St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 7: 5.

Ganey, Terry. 1999. "Convicted killer Glennon Engleman dies at 71 in prison." St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 4: 11.

Kansas City Star. 1958. "Shot, run over near museum." Kansas City Star, December 18: 1.

Mathes, Bob. 1979. "Clues sought in Madison County killing." St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 6: 3.

McReynolds, Becky. 1980. "Many questions in new bomb killing." St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 15: 1.

Reynolds, Becky, and Geof Dubson. 1980. "Dentist charged in 1976 killing." St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 25: 1.

St. Clair Chronicle. 1976. "Shot to death in woods near Pacific." St. Clair Chronicle, September 8: 1.

St. Louis Post-Dipatch. 1958. "Mrs. Bullock's first husband won't talk at killing inquest." St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 19: 1.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 1980. "Car bomb linked to earlier one at victim's home." St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 16: 3.

—. 1958. "Dentist and his friends questioned further in James Bullock killing." St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 21: 1.

—. 1977. "Motive unclear in farm couple's killing." St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 6: 18A.

—. 1958. "Police question wife of man shot to death in Forest Park." St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 18: 1.

Wehling, Robert, and Robert Kelly. 1977. "Double killing stuns neighbors." St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 5: 3.

Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)

Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)

Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash Kelley

Listener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra Lally

Listener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025)

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In April 1834, a massive fire broke out at the mansion of Delphine LaLaurie on Royal Street in New Orleans French Quarter. LaLaurie was known to have kept several slaves as servants in the home, but when bystanders attempted to enter the house to rescue those trapped inside, they found the doors barred. After forcing the doors open and making their way inside the house, the rescuers were horrified to find the “horribly mutilated” bodies of at least seven of LaLaurie’s slaves. Delphine LaLaurie was known to treat her servants very badly, including physically abusing them, but no one in New Orleans had imagined she was a sadistic murderer.

After the discovery of the horrors in the LaLaurie mansion, Delphine LaLaurie fled New Orleans, fearing mob violence, and lived the rest of her life as an exile in Paris—but that is not the end of the story. Just a few decades after LaLaurie abandoned her home and fled the country, her story and those of the men, women, and children who suffered in her home worked their way into New Orleans folklore. Today, nearly two hundred years later, the LaLaurie mansion has become known as the most haunted house in New Orleans, and the legend of Delphine LaLaurie has lived on through television, film, and books about Mad Madame LaLaurie.

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Crawford, Iain. 2020. "Harriet Matineau, White Women, and Slavery in the bAntebellum South." Nineteenth-Century Prose 89-116.

Long, Carolyn Morrow. 2015. Madame Lalaurie, Mistress of the Haunted House. Gainsville, FL: University Press of Florida.

Martineau, Harriet. 1838. Retrospect of Western Travel, volume 2. London, UK: Saunders and Otley.

Masia, Ines Vila. 1947. "New Orleans puts its ghosts to work." The Times (Shreveport, LA), July 20: 21.

New Orleans Bee. 1834. "Baton Rouge news." Baton-Rouge Gazette, April 19: 2.

Pitts, Stella. 1974. "New paint, old stories stir interest in 'haunted house'." Times-Picayune, August 11: 68.

Schneider, Frank. 1969. "Sale typidies French Quarter values." Times-Picayune, February 9: 47.

Wolfe, Poet. 2024. "LaLaurie Mansion in New Orleans has a sinister history dating back to the 1830s." Times Picayune, July 11.

Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)

Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)

Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash Kelley

Listener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra Lally

Listener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025)

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.