CandyMan
With Halloween approaching, it’s usually a great time to watch a scary film. There are many options to choose from, including classic series like “Halloween,” “Friday the 13th,” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street.” Another film that falls into this category is “Candyman.” An American gothic supernatural horror film, “Candyman” was written and directed by Bernard Rose who adapted it from Clive Barker’s short story “The Forbidden.” It centers on a Chicago graduate student researching urban legends and folklore. Her work leads her to the tale of “Candyman,” a specter of an African American artist and son of a slave, who was brutally killed in the late 19th century due to his relationship with a wealthy white man’s daughter.
Ruthie Mae McCoy
The urban legend says that the “Candyman” will appear when you say his name five times in a bathroom mirror. But did you know that part of this story was pulled from a real-life case? In 1987, Ruthie Mae McCoy called 911 from her Abbott Homes Chicago apartment about someone coming into her apartment through her bathroom mirror. The police came to her residence but did not enter the premises, despite other 911 calls reporting gunshots from her apartment. They finally entered her apartment days later to find Miss McCoy dead in her bathroom.
The crime received minimal local media attention, with the notable exception of Steve Bogira’s September 3rd, 1987, article in the Chicago Reader, titled “They Came Through the Bathroom Mirror: A Murder in the Projects.” The “Candyman” film fleetingly references this incident, attributing the murder to the supernatural entity. Although the film also references a microfiche article that “mirrors” Mr. Bogira’s follow-up article: “Cause of Death: What killed Ruthie Mae McCoy–a bullet in the chest, or life in the projects?“
Fast forward 37 years, CBS News and 48 Hours have revisited this case in their new podcast, “Candy Man: The True Story Behind the Bathroom Mirror Murder,” hosted by Dometi [dō-meh-TEE] Pongo. The podcast delves into the actual crime, the ensuing questions and debates, and its adaptation in Bernard Rose’s film. Just as the podcast debuted, we had the opportunity to speak with the accomplished Mr. Pongo about his career and this captivating new podcast. Please join us in welcoming Dometi Pongo to GVN Interview.
Beginnings
GVN: Thanks for sharing a bit of your time with us, Dometi. So as is the norm for most of my interviews, I want to start a little bit about your background. So, when did you take an interest in journalism and media and whose work might have inspired you to pursue that invocation?
Dometi: Well, I’m a Chicago guy, I’m the son of Ghanaian immigrants, you know, my parents came here in the seventies. By here, I mean, in America and actually as a kid, I wanted to be a rapper. There’s a lot of kids who want to be in a band or do music. I was one of those and that’s what I was known for throughout most of my high school and childhood. There were kids banging on the table rapping together and all of that and life happened, and I ended up being a business analyst and majoring in economics and hated it. And I said, let me find my way back to the arts, found my way back in Chicago, starting over from scratch and I interned at radio station called WVON on Chicago’s South Side. And from there, that internship turned into a full-time job, and I haven’t left the industry since.
Personal Mantra
GVN: So, as I was doing some research, I noticed your mantra for life “Bring everything you are to everything you do.” What was the origin of that credo? And what does it mean to you? And how do you feel it shaped your life and career?
Dometi: Man. I’m glad you asked me. I always forget it’s in my bio and I say, dang, who thought of that? That’s pretty good.
It actually came from working in corporate America. And you know, I was at Target headquarters, which had a great corporate culture, but Minneapolis, Minnesota isn’t a very diverse city. And the corporate structure coming from somebody who’s actually an artist at his heart, it demands that you leave a lot of yourself at home. So, you put on the suit, the things that you find interesting don’t necessarily make for water cooler talk, right? Like everybody’s not listening to the same mixtapes I’m listening to.
And so, when I finally started to make deeper connections, I found that it was when I was using my personal life experiences to inform me about how the Target consumer might behave or just making personal connections that I realized that I was shrinking myself by not bringing my full self to everything I’m doing. And when I ended up transitioning to media, one of the earliest conversations I had with my former employer at that first station was “OK, “What name do you want to go by?” I’m like, well, my name is Dometi, so I’m going to go by Dometi. She was like, well, “it might be difficult for the listeners to pronounce. You might want to change it.”
And I went home and talked to my dad about it, and he was like, you know, do what you gotta do to keep the job, but his eyes said something different. I took that and I said, you know, I’d rather fail as myself than succeed as anybody else. So, I’m going to bring myself to the show. Fast forward. A couple of years later, the station ended up doing a promotion where they had different hosts, take listeners on a trip and they had my listeners go to Africa because by my name, you know, I was African. So, you know, my name and where I’m from ends up opening opportunities for me just like being from Chicago brought about candy man. So that’s kind of where, where it came from.
Candyman: The True Story Behind the Bathroom Mirror Murder
GVN: So, let’s get into the new podcast, “Candyman: The True Story Behind the Bathroom Mirror Murder.” How did you get involved in the project? And how did CBS News and 48 hours sell you on the story and the concept?
Dometi: Well, it didn’t take much selling. This podcast was actually three years in the making. Morgan Canti, a producer at 48-hour CBS reached out about a different story. They were working on a true crime story, and they needed a journalist for following the case. But it wasn’t a case I’ve been following. However, in that conversation, I talked to her and another producer, and I just started talking about what I’m interested in.
I said, “Hey, these are the things that I do. This is what I’m interested in. This is who I am. If you guys want to holler back at me, let me know.” And you know, I think nothing of it. A little time passes, they come back and let me know that they’re working on this really cool idea around Candyman.
I read Steve Bogira’s article in the Chicago Reader and mind you, I don’t like horror movies, so I hadn’t seen Candyman yet. I just knew about it just being an urban legend and a cult classic. So, I just knew about the film, but I hadn’t watched the movie yet.
And I started talking to different folks at Paramount and the podcast, CBS World and Megan Marcus and all of these brilliant VP’s. And I said, hey, listen, I’m here whenever you guys want to do it. And some years went past along with some corporate things going on above my pay grade and it wasn’t until this year that we finally were able to get it going and it didn’t take much convincing. I was there in 2021, and it finally came together and here we are.
Familiarity with the Case
GVN: I too was left with many questions after reading the Bogira article. So, were you familiar with the story at all before you read Steve’s article?
Dometi: No, I had heard murmurings just being from Chicago (as far as Candyman went), I knew it was set in Chicago and that there were elements of Cabrini Green, the project building, which is also the same projects where TV Show Good Times was set And so you knew that there was some (local) elements brought in, but I didn’t know, it had any connections to anything true. And actually, we interviewed Steve on the podcast and have a very long conversation about what he discovered. He kind of walks us through the case. We talked to a detective on the original case, so I guess I should talk about it.
What we end up learning is that Ruthie Mae McCoy, a 52-year-old black woman was murdered in a project building in Chicago called Abbott Holmes. Abbott Holmes wasn’t where the movie is set, but what essentially happens, there’s this design flaw that allows for two apartments to be connected through a chasm at the medicine cabinet within your bathroom mirror. So essentially her apartment was a normal apartment. There was an apartment on the other side of it and some men or multiple men or maybe one, we still don’t know, climbed through her bathroom mirror and assaulted and ostensibly robbed her later on.
Bernard Rose, who was working on his new film, which turned out to be “Candyman” comes to Chicago. He based the film on a short story that he’d read, and he took these real-life elements from this murder and made it a part of the film and the comparisons are striking. And what was concerning to me was the fact that he never acknowledged this in the film with a “rest in peace” or anything like that. Nor did you hear anything about this true story. So, it felt like an erasure of this real-life person, whose tragedy inspired this film.
There was a lawsuit that came out (due to the building’s shortcomings), it was a lot of fallout afterwards that would have allowed for great conversation. We felt that was missing. So that’s why we built the podcast.
Connection to the Project
GVN: So just out of curiosity because I don’t do your job. But when you are going to work on a podcast like this, is it important for you to feel a connection to the material when you do it or is it in the end, just a job?
Dometi: You know, I kid you not, I was just putting together and posting some promotional material for the podcast, and I was adding a caption, and I deleted it because it was too emotional. I was like, I’m talking too much, let me just post the damn thing and keep going. But I literally was thinking about just how blessed I am to do work that I’m passionate about.
I don’t want to just go to work. That’s like what I did in corporate America. It’s just, it’s not for me. So, I have to care about the story. I’m telling. Now, does that mean every single red-carpet interview I do is an artist that I love and listen to all the time? No, because I also do red carpets from MTV. But I have to have some connection to what I’m doing more or less in order to be connected to the story.
Full Interview
This is just a part of our talk with Dometi. You can see the full interview here:
In addition, you can listen to CBS News/48 Hours – “Candyman: The True Story Behind the Bathroom Mirror Murder” hosted by Dometi Pongo with some of these links or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
Candyman: The True Story Behind The Bathroom Mirror Murder Podcast Series – Apple Podcasts
Amazon.com: Candyman: The True Story Behind the Bathroom Mirror Murder: CBS News: Books
Senior Writer at GeekVibesNation – I am a 60 something child of the 70’s who admits to being a Star Trek/Star Wars/Comic Book junkie who once dove headfirst over a cliff (Ok, it was a small hill) to try to rescue his Fantastic Four comic from a watery grave. I am married to a lovely woman who is as crazy as I am and the proud parent of a 21-year-old young man with autism. My wife and son are my real heroes.
