Maureen Hughes details decades of crime reporting on Close Up Radio

Retired bodyguard, private investigator and author Maureen Hughes was featured on Close Up Radio on Sept. 30, where she discussed the organized-crime cases, murders and hidden histories that shaped her books. Her work spans nonfiction, fiction and testimony in federal mob proceedings.

Why it matters: - Hughes’ career shows how long-form investigative work can uncover buried crimes, disputed deaths and overlooked history. - Her reporting has produced books, testimony in organized-crime proceedings and decades of firsthand accounts tied to high-risk cases. - The interview highlights how personal safety, perseverance and documentation shaped her work.

What happened: - Close Up Radio featured Maureen Hughes, a retired bodyguard, private investigator and author, in an interview with Jim Masters on Wednesday, Sept. 30, at 3 p.m. Eastern. - The program presented Hughes’ work on organized crime, suspicious deaths and historical injustices. - Hughes discussed how a chance encounter on a park bench led to years of research and published books.

The details: - Hughes said a stranger joined her on a park bench, told her there was more to a story than she knew and later spoke with her over dinner for two hours. - That lead pushed Hughes into research on organized-crime figures, murders and secrets she believed had been buried. - Her first book, “The Countess and the Mob,” grew out of research into a woman Hughes had previously met in a hospital room and later saw at an art museum. - Hughes concluded that the Countess had been married to mob associate Johnny Roselli and believed the Countess had her husband killed in Rome. - Hughes said the Countess spent the rest of her life recording every room in her house out of fear and guilt. - In “River of Shame,” Hughes wrote about Ted Crawley, a Quincy, Illinois, mob figure. - Hughes said Crawley recruited a young, poor and uneducated James Earl Ray to run errands connected to his gambling operation before Ray was convicted of killing Martin Luther King Jr. - “A Fire Still Burns” focuses on the so-called Slave House in southern Illinois. - Hughes said the stop was falsely presented as part of the Underground Railroad and that enslaved people who fell for the ruse were sent back south. - Hughes toured the building’s third floor and later found a woman whose great-great-aunt had been sold there. - A state superintendent of schools told Hughes he cried on a flight while finishing the book. - “The Skin Game,” Hughes’ only work of fiction, draws from her police work and centers on Chicago private investigator Samantha O’Malley. - Hughes said the character is about 95% based on her own life, including a mission where she posed as a decoy at a mafia sit-down staffed entirely by undercover FBI agents. - Hughes’ most dangerous reporting centered on Cairo, Illinois, where a state representative asked her to revisit his father’s death after it had long been ruled a suicide. - Hughes said she proved the father had been murdered and tracked down a second weapon through a source in Florida. - She said she watched the next morning’s news report about the burning building where that gun was supposedly hidden. - Hughes said she has never stayed in the same motel two nights in a row throughout her career. - After testifying in a high-profile mob case, Hughes said people who wanted her silenced later found her, forcing her to leave Illinois for her safety. - Hughes keeps a photo of former New York police officer Frank Serpico, whom she sees as a model of whistleblowing under threat. - Hughes said her Protestant faith, farm upbringing and two early supervisors taught her discipline and work habits. - She raised two sons and a daughter while keeping her investigative life separate from family life.

Between the lines: - Hughes’ work sits at the intersection of crime reporting, memoir and historical recovery, which gives her books both narrative drive and documentary weight. - The repeated theme in her career is not just exposure of wrongdoing, but the personal cost of refusing to accept the official version of events. - Her comments suggest that curiosity, rather than ideology, has been the main engine of her reporting.

What's next: - Hughes continues to write from her home in Illinois. - Her books remain part of her legacy, including “The Countess and the Mob,” “River of Shame,” “Sins of the South” and “The Skin Game.” - More information is available at the author's website.

The bottom line: - Maureen Hughes built a career by treating unexplained stories as leads, and that instinct has carried her from mob investigations to historical injustice to federal testimony.