Something Big

“A Real Hometown” is the trite but apt motto of Palatine, Illinois, a quaint middle-class suburb west of Chicago. On a snowy Friday evening, the staff and owners of the city’s local Brown’s Chicken franchise were closing up when two final customers arrived just past 9 p.m. As the night drew on and the employees hadn’t returned home, the families of the owners and workers began to worry, prompting police to investigate. When they entered the dark building, police were shocked to find seven bodies stacked in the restaurant’s freezer and fridge. The killers, of course, were long gone. In the months that followed, the horrendous story rocked Chicagoland and the case remained unsolved for nine years. The Brown’s Chicken massacre is one of the most infamous cases in Illinois history, yet it is often misremembered. In Something Big, Patrick Wohl gives a new account of the story, taking readers behind the scenes and sharing the perspective of the people who lived it.