Wallace House Publishing put out 29 issues of The Haunted Detective and other True Crime Stories before the public backlash forced its cancellation. Willy Gervis, the editor and publisher, maintained till his death in 1952, that he had bought all the stories that eventually became Pulp Classics in 1918. He said he was approached by a tall skinny man who came to his office with a handwritten book of crime stories. He looked, to Willy, like an opium addict. Willy  paid the man, who said to call him Mr. Gleam, Gervis added the Ezra years later, a 100 dollars. Gervis always said he felt sorry for him. He said he never saw him again, and as far as anyone else knows, neither did anyone else. Academics believe that Gleam most likely took the money and promptly overdosed.

Gervis needed to edit the writing to make the ramblings into true stories. Out of the 121 murders written about, only 32 made it into the Haunted Detective.

The original diary was confiscated by the police and never claimed by the Gervis family.


In the late 60's interest in the Haunted Detective rose due to similarities in the story, "Unborn Sacrifice " to the Sharon Tate Murder.

This led James Christopher, Gervis' grandson-in-law to try and recover the original journal. It was then that it was confirmed lost.


Rumors arise every few years of the Gleam Diary showing after a particularity grizzly murder.  One of the unpublished stories, according to Christopher, predicted the Columbine shooting.   Christopher has been making the talk show circuit so many of his claims need to be taken with a grain of salt.

Agent powers did read a copy as a young teen. It was an old beat up copy he borrowed from a friend. It was issue 11. It contained the "Haunted Detective and the Corpse Wife". The cover alone, which featured a scandalous painting of a hillbilly stereotype sensualously caressing a woman on a slab in a wedding veil , was enough for Mrs. Powers to toss the periodical in the trash and forbid young Willy from talking to Dougie Stevens ever again.