Illinois appears in the account as both a location in York and Latham’s interstate killing spree and a state seeking to bring the pair to trial. The book places two killings in an Illinois suburb of St. Louis; later, Illinois was among the jurisdictions that sought prosecution, though Kansas ultimately secured the case.

Site of the Murder Spree

During the ten days in which further notches were added to the gun used in the killings, two men were slain in an Illinois suburb of St. Louis. The account gives no town name or further details about those victims, but places the Illinois killings within a sequence that also included attacks in Tennessee and Kansas. The state thus marks one point in the pair’s movement across several jurisdictions.

Competing for Prosecution

Illinois was one of five states that sought the right to prosecute York and Latham. Each of the five endorsed capital punishment; Illinois’s specified method was electrocution. Kansas won the case because it had the firmest evidence, making Illinois’s role in the narrative one of jurisdictional competition rather than the eventual prosecution.