Chicago 50 - No.4 - Harry Kalstedt (Fred Casely)
- Lauryn Johnson
- Nov 2
- 3 min read
Updated: Nov 7
Buelah Annan [Roxie] met Harry Kalstedt [Fred Casely] at Tennant's Modern Laundry where they both worked.
"On April 3, 1924, Harry 'invited himself' over to Beulah and Albert’s south-side apartment (Albert was at work). He brought two quarts of wine with him, which he and Beulah proceeded to consume. In this less-than-sober condition, an argument arose. Beulah later told investigators, 'We drank all of it [the wine] and began to quarrel. I taunted Harry with the fact that he had been in jail once, and he said something nasty back to me. Seems like we just wanted to make each other mad—and to hurt each other.'
"A gun happened to be lying on the bed (no one explained why it was there). One of Beulah’s stories—she told more than one—was that she and Harry both went for the gun. She got it first. 'I ran, and as he reached out to pick the gun up off the bed, reached around him and grabbed it,' she said. 'Then I shot. They say I shot him in the back, but it must have been sort of under the arm.'
"Kalstedt fell back against the wall as the phonograph playing the jazz song 'Hula Lou' reached the end of the record. Saying she couldn’t stand the silence, Beulah started playing it again. Although the shooting occurred around 2:00 p.m., she did not call the police. Instead, she told reporters, 'I just kept going back and forth between the living room and the bedroom, where Harry’s body lay, and playing the phonograph.'"
Buelah told made several confessions, each one different. One of her confessions:
'I'd been fooling around with Harry for two months,' she said. 'This morning, as soon as my husband left for work, Harry called me up. I told him I wouldn't be home, but he came over anyway. We sat in the flat for quite a time, drinking. Then I said in a joking way that I was going to quit him. He said he was through with me and began to put on his coat. When I saw that he meant what he said, my mind went in a whirl and I shot him. Then I started playing the record. I was nervous, you see.'
--He Had It Coming: Four Murerous Women and the Reporter Who Immortalized Their Stories by Kori Rumore and Marianne Mather
"The Hempstead, Texas, native, who was twenty-six years old when he was shot and killed, moved to Chicago when he was young. Kalstedt, five older siblings and his widowed Swedish immigrant mother were living in the city's Fifth Ward, according to the 1910 census.
"He and girlfriend Lydia Lindgren settled in her hometown of Cambridge, Minnesota, forty miles north of Minneapolis. They had a child, Harriet, in 1916. The couple was married on April 14, 1917. Another daughter, Eleanor, would follow in 1918.
"According to his draft registration card for World War I, Kalstedt moved back to Chicago and was living there as of August 1918. The Kalstedts later divorced.
"Kalstedt met Beulah Annan while both worked at the same laundromat, Tennant's Model Laundry, before their fatal April 3, 1924, rendezvous.
--He Had It Coming: Four Murerous Women and the Reporter Who Immortalized Their Stories by Kori Rumore and Marianne Mather
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