America Unearthed, Season 4, Episode 9, Who Was the Haymarket Bomber?

The Haymarket Affair was a story I have to confess to never having heard about prior to the start of filming the episode.  It didn't take long to get up to speed after reading numerous articles about the the history of the late 19th Century labor movement, the protests, and the events leading up to that fateful night in Chicago on May 4, 1886, when a bomb was thrown into a crowd of law enforcement officers and protesters by someone who has remained nameless; until now.  Going into the investigation, the production company researchers at Committee Films, Will Yates and Kyle Schultz, settled on a suspect prior to filming that seemed perfectly plausible.  There was new evidence in the form of newly discovered letters written by a family descendant that seemed to support that our  mysterious Haymarket bomber suspect was George Meng.

However, things changed dramatically as we began filming with various experts, historians, and members of law enforcement.  There was one person in particular, Richard Linderg, who had the most impressive argument and facts about the bombing that pointed to the most likely person was who threw the bomb that night.  His evidence and reasoning was so persuasive that I believed we had to rethink our original suspect.  By the time the interview with Mr. Lindberg was over my mind had changed.  He had convinced me the person who threw the bomb that night was a German immigrant named Rudolf Schnaubelt.  The final nail that I believe proved the new suspect was indeed the person who threw the bomb at Haymarket Square was the suspect sketch drawn by officer Detector Luis Santoyo.  The face he drew based on the witness testimony from the trial over 130 years earlier was a spot-on match to Schnaubelt.  

What I was most proud of in this episode if that we used proper scientific method, and based on the evidence and facts, it led to a different conclusion than originally anticipated.  That is the way it is scientific investigation is supposed to work.          

The Committee Films crew poses with Bleue Benton, at the Martyr's Monument in the Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois.

This bronze statue erected in honor of the law enforcement officers that died during the Haymarket riot was originally placed at the Haymarket site.  Vandalism by supporters of the labor party prompted the statue to be moved to a different location in Chicago.  Looks like the artist who made the statue was a member of a certain order.  Do you know why I say that? 

Field producer, Will Yates, photo-bombed (pardon the pun) this selfie taken with Pinkerton agents, Erika Koutrakis and Tim Williams.

Haymarket historian, Richard Lindberg, poses for a photo after his sharing his historical evidence that compelled me to change the original suspect I focused on to Rudolf Schnaubelt.  This is how proper scientific method works; new evidence often takes an investigation in a new direction. 

Cook Country Sheriff's Office sketch artist, Detector Luis Santoyo, draws the face of the Haymarket bomber based on witness testimony descriptions at the time of the trial.

The picture of Rudolf Schnabelt and the artist's sketch of the Haymarket bomber made from first-hand witnesses testimony from trial transcripts from the late 1880s.

Local law enforcement and federal demolitions experts posed with me and the Committee Films Crew during filming of the test explosions at Camp Ripley in Central Minnesota.

Panoramic photo of the setup of mannequins for the test explosion of the Haymarket bomb at a demolition site on the grounds at Camp Ripley in Central Minnesota. 

This female mannequin sustained a fatal shrapnel wound through the heart during our test explosion of a replica I made of the Haymarket bomb.   

The world's foremost expert on explosives, Dr. Kirk Yeager, and I pose for a pic during the filming of the lab scene where he explained the details of our test explosion of  a replica of the Haymarket bomb.