Backstory With Larry Potash

Recruited by an eccentric millionaire to search for hidden messages in Shakespeare’s works, Elizebeth Smith Friedman became a pioneering code breaker who took on the Nazis and the mob. Her story has been buried by secrecy and sexism for nearly a century - until now. Watch this full story on the Backstory TV show.

On the morning of Oct. 30, 1928, Elfrieda Knaak was discovered in the furnace room of Lake Bluff's Village Hall, naked and with her hands and feet burned to the bone. Her death was ruled a suicide, but how could a woman stick her own legs, arms and head in a furnace?