Prohibition. It's an era synonymous with speakeas, jazz, flappers, and failure. In fact,

it's one of the biggest lawmaking snafus of all time. Well, within that snafu is another story,

one you probably haven't heard about how people started dying mysteriously

and the unlikely duo who tried to save them. It's the 1910s. Meet New York City's first medical examiner

Charles Norris. He had a big booming voice and a Yale football player's presence.

And his partner, Alexander Gettler.

Chomping on a cigar all the time from what I understand.

Every death in the city was their responsibility.

As they cataloged the city's dead, they pioneered the new field of forensic toxicology.

Like a buddy cop movie of like these two scientists in the trenches together.

And their work gave them a look into the sinister side of the speakeasy.

Turns out something, or someone, was poisoning people.

Through the 20s, the two of them rolled gurneys into the city morgue,

pulled samples of deadly poisons from dead bodies,

and connected the dots, unraveling a terrifying story.

Did people die?

They died daily.

As the evidence mounted, all across the country, all signs pointed to a big player behind

the poisoned liquor that was killing Americans, the U.S. government.

On the third season of Snafu, the story of Formula 6.

The last thing you want is for your people to be called murdering chemists in a congressional hearing.

How prohibitions wore on alcohol went so off the rails, the government wound up poisoning its own people.

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