The Checkered Life and Sudden Death of Colonel James Fisk, Jr. (AFRTS) (19

Good evening. This is Crime Classics. I am Thomas Highland. I'm going to tell you another true crime story. Listen. The man who just fell down the stairs is Colonel James Fisk Jr. Although the Colonel is a man given to the consumption of dozens of blue-point oysters and bottles of heady wine at the sitting,

his friends were given to pointing him out as a man inordinately steady on his feet. So why did he tumble down the stairs? And in New York's grand central hotel no less, where stair tumbling was frowned upon.

The Colonel didn't slip. He wasn't pushed. He was shot. The sudden presence of two bullets in him had upset his equilibrium. The man was running away as the man would just shot the Colonel. His name, Edward S. Stokes.

Until recently the Colonel's very dear friend. There he goes. And tonight, my report to you on the checkered life and sudden death of Colonel James Fisk Jr. Crime classics. A series of true crime stories taken from the records and newspapers of every land from every time.

Your host each week, Mr. Thomas Highland, connoisseur of crime, student of violence, and teller of murders. And now once again, Thomas Highland. Colonel Fisk lay at the bottom of the stairs a few minutes before four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon January the 6th 1872 He was dying his life was coming to an end and he would be sorely missed

By his family Mrs. Fisk and the children and by his intimates among whom were J. Gould Boss Tweed and the heavier stockholders of the day a A man dying, and I know the precise instant when his dying began.