A destitute man insists on an ivory-handled revolver, imagining it displayed in a museum after he uses it. This deep dive reconstructs the unraveling mind of Charles Guiteau, the man who assassinated President James A. Garfield.

From a brutally strict father and repeated failures at the Oneida community, law, and debt collection, we follow how a survived shipwreck convinced Guiteau he had a divine mission, and how a rejected office-seeker's grievance became a presidential killing.

• His humiliating expulsion from the Oneida community
• The plagiarized speech he believed won Garfield the election
• How the spoils system gave him access to the halls of power
• Why unsterilized doctors, not the bullet, likely killed Garfield
• His insanity defense, conviction, and execution