In his new podcast, true-crime host Dometi Pongo explores the harrowing true story behind the horror legend of Candyman (Photo Provided).

by Nicole Joseph, For The Chicago Defender

Once upon a time, standing in front of a mirror and chanting “Candyman” one, “Candyman” two, “Candyman” three… was enough to send chills through the bravest participants. The tension would build with each count, hearts racing as they reached “Candyman five”—and just before that final call, many would bolt from the bathroom, overcome with fear.

Unlike other urban legends like Bloody Mary, whose name is called three times (or sometimes more, depending on local lore), the calling of Candyman has its roots in a true story. True-crime host and Chicago native Dometi Pongo dives deep into the reality behind “Candyman”—the tale of a real woman named Ruthie Mae McCoy. Ruthie Mae, who lived in Chicago’s Abbott Homes public housing, repeatedly called the police to report that someone was entering her apartment through the bathroom mirror. Due to her mental health history, her reports were dismissed as paranoid delusions, but tragically, she was later found murdered in her home.

This 1987 incident inspired the 1992 “Candyman” film directed by Bernard Rose and its 2021 sequel, directed by Jordan Peele, transforming Ruthie Mae’s chilling reality into an urban legend that lives on. In his podcast, Pongo unearths the true story behind the legend, taking listeners on an unforgettable journey into the real-life roots of Candyman.

While “Candyman” is widely known as a horror film, it’s essential to consider a deeper message: when Black women speak, voice concerns, or share their experiences, they deserve to be believed. 

Had someone listened to Ruthie Mae McCoy and taken her seriously, who knows how her story might have unfolded? There’s a very real possibility that her life could have been saved.

Nicole Joseph: What’s Candyman’s back story, and what really happened? Why does it still have relevance today? 

Dometi Pongo: Now those who are unfamiliar with the film, the whole lore behind this supernatural killer, the Candyman, is that if you say his name five times into a mirror, he’ll pop up and he kills whoever summons him. The backstory for this character was that he was a well-to-do Black man in the 1800s named Daniel Robitaille. He ends up getting lynched by a mob for dating a White woman.

Joseph: Let’s talk about the myth of “Candyman” and its parallel to the real story

Pongo: What actually happened in real life, there was a 52-year-old Black woman named Ruthie Mae McCoy. She calls the police and says, somebody’s trying to come through my bathroom mirror. The dispatcher doesn’t seem to fully understand what she’s saying. Few minutes later, other people in the building call the police, reporting they hear gunshots.

So, the police come to her door, but they don’t open the door. They don’t break it down because the door is locked, and the building is CHA property, so the Chicago police department can’t just break down the door. It actually takes them two days before they actually get into this woman’s apartment. Despite the fact that she called the police, that neighbors called and reported gunshots, it took for her neighbor, her friend who also actually appears as a guest in the podcast, Deborah Lastly.

It took for her to call the police, then go to the building’s manager to get her and bring her to the door and say, “Can y’all somebody please check on my friend?” And, you know, they found her. She was shot to death — four times. What we end up learning is that, because of the way these project buildings were constructed, two apartments were conjoined by back-to-back medicine cabinets.

Joseph: What journey are you taking your listeners on as they listen to this podcast? 

Pongo: So, you know, I start off just letting them know that I was the kid who was scared to watch this movie. I’m a Chicago guy. You know, the film has these cultural touch points for me. And then you find out about this woman, Ruthie May, who could be all our grandmothers, our aunties.

And when you start to dig into her story, the different challenges that she had personally in life from, you know, dealing with, mental illness so that that ended up playing into, you know, how people perceived her story. You know, there were stories about her battling something that might be described as I don’t know if this is the official diagnosis, but symptoms that might be typically associated with schizophrenia. Right? So, we have these people whose stories that we don’t listen to and don’t regard the way we should as Black women. Ask somebody who’s dealing with mental health. And then you’ve got to be honest, I don’t wanna call it anger—feels too strong a word. But I can’t think of another one around the erasure of her story.

Yeah. I’ll walk viewers through the true crime element itself, the empathy that you end up feeling for the men who are accused because their lives have their own challenges. And then just this anger of having this woman’s story kind of relegated to the side and be just a plot point in this film. One of the people we talked to in the film or the podcast is Doctor Robin Means Coleman, who breaks down these tropes that have permeated pop culture for years through the first motion picture, like “Birth of a Nation,” where there’s this Black boogeyman who is chasing after this white woman, and he’s trying to sexually assault her.

And he’s the scary man, and then you come to Candyman, and it’s the exact same thing. It’s this menacing Black man who is obsessed with this white woman. And even though he was lynched by a white mob, he chooses to terrorize his own community. 

Joseph: Candyman was called three times in an endeavor to summon him. What’s the significance of a name, and why can it carry so much power? 

Pongo: We were coming on the heels of the George Floyd killing in 2020, and once again, “Say Their Names” became such a deep refrain. Right? So how can we keep someone’s name alive and honor it in the way that’s appropriate and cares for their legacy. And so we hope that this podcast keeps the name of Ruthie Mae McCoy… It’s important to say their names and make sure that our histories aren’t erased. 

What we talked about with Steve Bagheera, whose original report he wrote this story for the Chicago Reader back in the late eighties that a lot of the podcast is based on. And he breaks down that there’s this headline in one of his stories that says, “What killed Ruthie Mae? A bullet or a life in the projects.”

Joseph: What will listeners gain from listening to the podcast? 

Pongo: When you listen to this podcast, what you’re gonna gain is not only an understanding of the murder itself, what actually happened, who was charged, and why, but a deeper understanding of how the system of public housing led to some of what we see today in America’s communities, like in “O Block,” these neighborhoods, these communities don’t become what they are in a vacuum. There are decisions that are made intentionally that lead to the outcomes that we see today, and I think listening to this podcast will help to crystallize that for a lot of our viewers. 

This interview was edited and condensed for clarity. 

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