When Maurine Watkins, a fledgling female reporter for the Chicago Tribune in 1924, was assigned to cover two separate crime-of-passion shootings, little did her editors know she would turn the "sob sister" assignments — stories believed to appeal to a female readership — into editorial winners that would later spawn a Broadway hit and several stage and screen adaptations.

Belva Gaertner

It was a slow news day on March 12, 1924, when Watkins, assigned the unglamorous task of covering police reports, wrote about a recent shooting and its investigation. Walter Law, a young auto salesman was found slumped over the steering wheel of a car, shot in the head. Police recovered an automatic pistol and a bottle of gin from the car, which was registered to Belva Gaertner, a young and twice-divorced cabaret singer.

The police paid Gaertner a visit and found her hysterically pacing the floor of her apartment in blood-stained clothes. When questioned, she admitted to having spent much of the previous day and evening with Law, a married man and father of one, drinking at various bars and jazz houses, and said she always carried a gun for fear of robbers. But when pressed about the shooting, she insisted she was so drunk she could hardly recall details of her time in the car with Law, except hearing a loud noise and Law falling against her, dead.

It was Gaertner's word against the world until one of Law's co-workers testified before a grand jury that Law had once confided in friends about Gaertner being a possessive lover. She had once threatened him with a knife when he tried to leave her, Law allegedly said, and he believed she would kill him one day. Belva was charged with shooting her married lover and held without bail in Cook County jail's "Murderess Row."

Crime as Entertainment

Described in an interview by crime writer Rich Lindberg as "smarter and cagier than most," Watkins recognized that a standard write-up of the crime would not garner any prominent headlines. Luckily for Watkins, Gaertner proved to be a stylish and sophisticated woman with a colorful past and a blasé outlook on life and men.

"I liked him and he loved me — but no woman can love a man enough to kill him. They aren't worth it, because there's always plenty more," she told Watkins.

Watkins' articles served up details of Gaertner's two marriages, one of which was so tumultuous that both Gaertner and her then-husband frequently hired private detectives to follow each other around. Gaertner got caught, the husband didn't. And he asked for a divorce. Quoting the alleged murderess's musings also gave Watkins' articles an edgy humor that appealed to the Tribune's readers.

Watkins' editorial good fortune seemed boundless when a month later another attractive woman joined Gaertner on Murderess Row.

Beulah Annan

On April 3, Beulah Annan, a young wife, was charged with the shooting death of her lover, Harry Kalstedt. Initially, she told investigators that she shot Kalstedt, whom she called an acquaintance, in self-defense when he tried to rape her in her apartment. But the police were skeptical about her account because alcohol and cups found at the crime scene indicated that she had been entertaining that afternoon. The coroner later determined that Kalstedt was shot in the back.

The young woman eventually admitted to an affair with the victim. After her husband left for work, Kalstedt had joined her for drinks. They drank for hours. She made a joke about dumping him. Perhaps he took her seriously; he told her he was "quitting" her as well and gathered his coat to leave. Annan claimed she went crazy on hearing this and shot Kalstedt. To distract neighbors from the noise, she played a jazz record loudly. Her new confession landed her in jail.

Watkins' quickly established an editorial connection between Gaertner and Annan. She arranged for the two women to be photographed together and featured them in an article, "Killers of Men," as kindred souls with striking similarities — a man, alcohol, jazz and a gun — in their crimes.

Watkins worked the Tribune's readers into a frenzy by doling out bits of insider information about Gaertner and Annan. The two women were not alone on Murderess Row, but their social class and the circumstances of their crimes made them stand out among the other women there. They had killed their lovers — scandalous thus entertaining — and not their husbands — boring.

They also happened to be better-looking and more stylish than their fellow inmates. In her articles, Watkins dubbed Annan the "prettiest murderess" and often referred to Gaertner as the "most stylish of Murderess Row."

Master Manipulators

If found guilty Gaertner and Annan faced life in prison or death by hanging, but neither woman displayed much concern about the possibility of a guilty verdict.

William W. O'Brien, a well-known mob lawyer in the 1920s and 1930s, represented Beulah Annan. A shrewd lawyer, O'Brien understood ways of using the press to his client's advantage. A day after another inmate received life for killing her husband, Annan announced that she was pregnant. Well aware that this information would be reported, O'Brien needed only to wait for the implications to sink in with the public and potential jury.

Perhaps Watkins herself fell for this ploy when, in her article she asked, "What counts with a jury when a woman is on trial for murder? Youth? Beauty? And if to these she adds approaching motherhood — ?"

To be sure, O'Brien did not rely solely on his client's delicate condition. Annan was young and beautiful, and her lawyer used both factors to influence the trial. According to Watkins, Annan kept her head bare "by the advice of counsel," making her more attractive to the all-male jury.

In the presence of the jury her demeanor become noticeably perkier, and she would turn her "Raphaelite profile" toward them. She answered questions in her childlike Southern voice and turned pleading eyes toward the members of the panel. At some point, she broke down in tears.

Eventually the prosecutor's plea to the jury "not to let another pretty woman go out and say I got away with it" fell on deaf ears. Annan was exonerated.

Gaertner's lawyers were not blind to O'Brien's tactics and appropriated some for their client's defense. If Annan's asset was her beauty, Gaertner's would be her "classy" style. Watkins' report of Gaertner's trial often read like an account of a fashion show and its star model. Even court audiences agreed that the divorcee cut a striking figure in her fashionable suits and coquettish hats.

Gaertner's demure performance — she said very little — seemed to persuade the jury that she couldn't hurt a worm much less a man, and she was quickly acquitted of Walter Law's murder.

Broadway, Hollywood and "Chicago"

By the end of 1924, Watkins had grown weary of her reporting job and the lack of newsworthy trials. She left the Chicago Tribune and relocated to New York City.

In the newly founded drama program at Yale University, where she commuted for a playwriting class, Watkins converted her Tribune articles into a comedy called "Chicago." It was the story of an ambitious wife charged with the murder of her lover and her all-consuming quest for fame and approval. The main character, Roxie Hart, was based on Beulah Annan; Velma Kelly, her rival and cabaret singer charged with shooting her husband, was modeled after Belva Gaertner. The play opened on Broadway in 1926 to much acclaim and ran for 172 performances.

Watkins enjoyed a brief fame and landed writing assignments for New York newspapers. But her next play was a disappointment. She left New York for Hollywood, but found little success there. She moved to Florida in 1940, faded into obscurity and died in 1969.

Although success proved elusive for Watkins after her short-lived debut, it came easily, if indirectly, to her play.

"Chicago" was adapted into a silent movie of the same name in 1927. In 1942, a second movie based on the play, "Roxie Hart," starring Ginger Rogers, was released. The musical version of the play debuted on Broadway in 1975 and enjoyed a revival in the 1990s. The latest addition to the "Chicago" franchise is the newly released screen version starring Richard Gere, Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones. The film recently won a Golden Globe award for best picture.