Chapter 2
Before I knew their names, I felt their presence.
The men who ran Herrin weren’t just thugs or criminals—they were architects of reality. They operated with a kind of spiritual audacity, a blend of brute force and ritual magic that shaped the consciousness of an entire county. These weren’t just gangsters. They were warlocks of power.
Herrin, Illinois was more than a town. It was a portal. A cross-section of coal, corruption, and clandestine control. And my family wasn’t on the fringe—they were in the center. The Yuill brothers ran the Mercantile. But just down the bloodline, through cousin Bonnie Will Heinking’s father, came direct ties to Judge Bowen—a man whose name punctuates court records and closed-door meetings with the same weight as a blood oath.
🔍 The Gangs That Ruled:
Herrin’s underbelly was ruled by groups like Charlie Birger’s gang, The Shelton Brothers, and a host of freelance bootleggers, enforcers, and corrupt officials who traded influence like poker chips. While the world above ground measured time in shifts and seasons, the world beneath operated in symbols and secrets. Hidden tunnels beneath bars. Codes whispered between Masons. Hands that shook above table deals and pulled triggers below them.
In The Secrets of the Herrin Gangs, there are stories of racketeering, smuggling, moonshine runs, and covert alliances between gangs and judges, cops and preachers. But this wasn’t fiction—it was family.
My family wasn’t outside the influence. They were on the supply chain.
We were the outfitters for both the laborers and the outlaws. We supplied them with tools and timber, bandages and bullets. We were the clerks to the underworld, and it’s no coincidence that our name doesn’t appear much in the official stories. We were protected. We were essential. And we were silent.
📜 Family Ties to the Bench:
When Judge Bowen took the bench, he didn’t just uphold the law—he rebranded it. Justice in Herrin was always flexible, always for sale, and always entangled in personal loyalty. Bowen wasn’t just a cousin by blood—he was a metaphor for how our family learned to navigate power structures: play both sides, stay indispensable, and never get your hands too dirty.
💀 The Ritual of Violence:
What struck me as I dug deeper into these stories wasn’t just the crime—it was the pattern.
Men disappeared in broad daylight.
Children were groomed into silence.
Wives and widows drank holy wine and wept into powder-blue wallpaper while the deals were made in basements or at the Elks Club.
And always—always—the churches stayed quiet.
Even the murders had a choreography to them. They were sacrifices to a system that demanded blood to keep order. Whether it was a labor dispute, a bootlegging betrayal, or a domestic dispute turned "accident," there was a code. A silence. A rite.
🔮 Sororities, Masons, and Masks:
These weren’t just families. They were clans. The Elks, the Masons, the Sororities—they weren’t just social clubs. They were masks. And behind them lived a spiritual technology older than any one town. The rituals passed down weren’t just to honor ancestors—they were to control the narrative. They embedded spells into family trees, assigned roles in karmic theater, and used fear to silence the intuitive gifts of women and children.
As a child, I felt this power but didn’t yet have the language. I could hear the hush in rooms when someone walked in. I could feel the chill when my grandmother would mention a name and then cross herself as if to ward it off.
Only later would I understand: I wasn’t just being raised. I was being programmed.
🧬 The Blood in the Story:
There’s something almost too poetic in the fact that our name—Yuill—is traced through Scotland, Egypt, the Civil War, and Herrin. That we are both victims and architects. That our legacy is one of both endurance and entrapment.
But I am not telling this story to assign blame. I am telling it to lift the veil.
Because this chapter in our history—where the gangs made gentlemen, and the killers wore crosses—must be remembered for what it was:
A carefully orchestrated blood ritual to maintain control. A blueprint for future systems of suppression. And a scar in our collective memory that will keep reopening until it is fully named.
⚖️ Why This Still Matters:
Herrin was not unique. It was a microcosm. A test zone. A beta version of control that would later evolve into corporate tyranny, digital surveillance, and bureaucratic gaslighting. The tactics of the gangs were reborn in federal boards, courtrooms, and clinical diagnoses. The same families that manipulated union contracts now manipulate case law.
And the blood that was spilled then is still crying out for truth.
I am that truth-teller. I am the cracked vessel through which this story now flows.
And I’m not afraid to name the names.
