Speaker 1: Hi there, Welcome to another episode of Thinking Sideways. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's right, where the guys that tackle lotles unsolved mysteries
Speaker 1: and sell them for you. This week, well, well we
Speaker 1: introduced my co host first. I'm Joe, starring along with
Speaker 1: Devin and Steve. All right, so let's getting Yeah, we're starring.
Speaker 1: Movie credits. I feel fancy. Yeah, where's my where's my groupies?
Speaker 1: That's what I really want to know. I wish I
Speaker 1: wore my good shoes for this. Now you bought that
Speaker 1: like effortless, like celebrity slob vibe. Oh I really kind
Speaker 1: of do. Yeah, you're lucky. I shaved today. I know
Speaker 1: it's been a week. Been about a week for me too. Actually, okay,
Speaker 1: let's just let's get into this thing. So this week,
Speaker 1: in honor again of the month of October and Halloween,
Speaker 1: we're talking we're talking about serious, creepy, grizzly, gory stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so we're gonna give you another one of
Speaker 1: those two this week. It's we're gonna talk about the
Speaker 1: ax Men of New Orleans, or if you actually live
Speaker 1: in New Orleans, you want to probably call us the
Speaker 1: Acment of Nolin's. But this is about By the way,
Speaker 1: this was a listener suggestion, and I unfortunately can't off
Speaker 1: the top of my head. Remember I apologize, but if
Speaker 1: I remember your name, I will. I will. Maybe next week,
Speaker 1: everybody have to speed on that we're gonna added to
Speaker 1: your listeners segments. Do thank you for the for the suggestion.
Speaker 1: Now this is a fun, grizzly, disgusting kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, what is fun? Not going that whole string
Speaker 1: of words. Yeah, well, I guess it's worth the mention, right,
Speaker 1: just like last week, this week, maybe if you have
Speaker 1: like kids that you like to listen to this podcast with,
Speaker 1: or your squeamish or like you're at work, it's probably
Speaker 1: not Let's say, yeah, but it's not that bad. And
Speaker 1: at least I know you're only hearing our words, you're
Speaker 1: not actually seeing people getting chopped up with an axe.
Speaker 1: And by the way, that that that is what the
Speaker 1: X Men was all about. He was an axe murderer,
Speaker 1: all right. So the X Man was a serial killer
Speaker 1: in New Orleans. And also he actually murdered a few
Speaker 1: people outside as a suburb of New Orleans called Gretin
Speaker 1: that which is right across the river. And then he
Speaker 1: operated between May nineteen eighteen and October nineteen nineteen, so
Speaker 1: just like a year, year and a half, basically year
Speaker 1: and a half before. And Uh apparently a police detective
Speaker 1: at the time these were going on and tried to
Speaker 1: connect them to some murders that took place earlier on
Speaker 1: about nineteen eleven nineteen twelve. It's generally believed that they
Speaker 1: were not connected. Yeah, the the m O wasn't exactly
Speaker 1: to see, Yeah, not exactly. And actually, of all the
Speaker 1: all the killings and attacks that that were attributed to
Speaker 1: the axe man, I'm not sure all of these that
Speaker 1: people count towards the axe men, I'm not sure all
Speaker 1: of these were actually the same guy. I don't think
Speaker 1: that anyway. They were usually attacked with an axe, sometimes
Speaker 1: a straight razor. One account of the last murder, which
Speaker 1: is Mike Peppertoni he was killed in October nineteen nineteen,
Speaker 1: UH says that he was not beating to death with
Speaker 1: an axe, but he was beating to death with a pipe,
Speaker 1: often to let the weapon was laying around. They would
Speaker 1: have obviously a lot of people heated their homes with
Speaker 1: with wood in those days, and so people would have
Speaker 1: a hatchets and axes, and laying around, so he would
Speaker 1: break into the house, grab an axe, and go to town.
Speaker 1: Many of them were also Italian shopkeepers, which led some
Speaker 1: people to suspect the mafia connection, and that is plausible.
Speaker 1: Actually let other people to suspect that maybe the X
Speaker 1: Men just didn't like Italians. As an Italian person, I
Speaker 1: feel like, especially in those days, not everybody likes Pepperoni pizzas.
Speaker 1: They're crazy, but not everybody. Yeah. Uh. He generally entered
Speaker 1: the homes by something out of panel, like you know,
Speaker 1: you know what a frame and panel door looks like
Speaker 1: when you've got multiple panels, And he would take a chisel,
Speaker 1: chisel out of panel. And I'm not sure how he
Speaker 1: managed to do this stealthily. You would think that would
Speaker 1: wake people up inside. Let me let me just clarify,
Speaker 1: because this was something that it wasn't exactly positive that
Speaker 1: I got, but I thought I did. So. When you
Speaker 1: say a panel, so let's say I buy a new
Speaker 1: door at home depot and they call it a six
Speaker 1: panel door, which means there's the big thick wood frame
Speaker 1: and then there's six thin panels in set into the door.
Speaker 1: So let's say the doors like an inch and a
Speaker 1: half and they dropped to a half inch depth. And
Speaker 1: there's those panels that make kind of that pattern that's
Speaker 1: the panel, right. Yeah, I have some pictures here are
Speaker 1: some of the doors that were actually chiseled open, so
Speaker 1: you can get an idea. I'll hold it up from
Speaker 1: the microphone at a moment. Okay, yeah, no, that that's
Speaker 1: exactly what I was talking about. It is one of
Speaker 1: those because old doors. Doors now aren't made of actual wood.
Speaker 1: They're formed out of sawdust presswood basically. But old doors,
Speaker 1: even today you can get a wood door. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: old doors, it was a solid frame on the exterior
Speaker 1: and then it was pieces inset and then inside of
Speaker 1: that were smaller, thinner wooden panels. And those smaller thinner
Speaker 1: wooden panels would have had the framing around him kind
Speaker 1: of like you see an older windows. So you'll see
Speaker 1: the beveled edges that actually hold the yet molding. And
Speaker 1: so what you're saying is that he was chiseling that
Speaker 1: molding away to them be able to pull that piece
Speaker 1: of wood out to reach into the doors. That correct. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, that's what I would suspect is that he
Speaker 1: got the once you had an opening, can reach inside
Speaker 1: and unlocked the door from the inside. Okay, some people
Speaker 1: some people, well actually theorizes that the accident was a
Speaker 1: midget or a dwarf, because I thought, how could it,
Speaker 1: How could a full size, a full sized person fit
Speaker 1: to that that small hole? And you guys saw how
Speaker 1: small those holes were, don't know, like six or twelve
Speaker 1: inches at the best. Yeah, I don't think a person.
Speaker 1: I don't think a dwarf is gonna fit you. He
Speaker 1: reads through, you know, but so that that's kind of
Speaker 1: a silly idea of it. He often he would he
Speaker 1: would pull the panel out, leave it there, leave it there,
Speaker 1: sitting there with the chisel, Which makes me wonder why
Speaker 1: didn't the cops check out the records, See you charge
Speaker 1: a dozen chisels to his MasterCard? Or you know, I
Speaker 1: got all the home depots and ask if somebody had
Speaker 1: like bought a dozen a dozen or so chisels. Maybe
Speaker 1: he was working at home depot. No wait wait, or
Speaker 1: maybe home depot wasn't there they are yet maybe so anyway,
Speaker 1: before I start talking about the murders of the X
Speaker 1: man sent a very famous letter which I am not
Speaker 1: going to read. I might read. I'm ready to snippet
Speaker 1: of it, but he said it's a very famous letter
Speaker 1: to a local paper saying that he was going to
Speaker 1: swing by the city at twelve DNA and that's just
Speaker 1: after midnight on March nineteenth, and said that he was
Speaker 1: going to kill somebody, that he would spare the lives
Speaker 1: of anybody who was playing jett and playing jazz music
Speaker 1: in their homes. Uh. And apparently there was a lot
Speaker 1: of jazz played that night. But that leads me to
Speaker 1: suspect that maybe the letter wasn't written by the x Man,
Speaker 1: but it was written by maybe a frustrated jazz musician
Speaker 1: and who wanted to gen up a little business for himself.
Speaker 1: If it was written by the Axe Man, and I've
Speaker 1: read that letter, the Axe Man is a loon, seriously
Speaker 1: off their rocker. Things that are said in that letter,
Speaker 1: something alluding to I am, you know, basically the spirit
Speaker 1: of death and I'm ephemeral and YadA YadA, YadA. Is like, whoa, yeah,
Speaker 1: because that's unusual for somebody who goes around hacking people.
Speaker 1: I was about to say, you were very high on
Speaker 1: what you're doing and what you're getting out of and
Speaker 1: it's it's that just tells me right there that the
Speaker 1: person that was doing this, if it is one person.
Speaker 1: Uh huh wow, well yeah, i'd have off your rocket.
Speaker 1: Want I'll go to slaughter people with an X anyway? Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: So the if you want to do a Google on that,
Speaker 1: there's a Wikipedia page and also practically everywhere the page
Speaker 1: that talks about this, just about every letter I will
Speaker 1: I will congratulate the X man on good writing. I
Speaker 1: thought it was a very well written letter. It is.
Speaker 1: I like it. Actually, it's well written. Yeah, it's kind
Speaker 1: of kind of you should read it. It does it.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go ahead and throughout there. It starts
Speaker 1: out it steems mortal. Comes Tom says hell Comma March thirteenth,
Speaker 1: Comma nineteen seemed mortal. They've never caught me and they
Speaker 1: never will. I'm not going any further. No, I just
Speaker 1: like want to give people a little snippet of like,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, do we need to read this,
Speaker 1: Do you want to read part of it? Let me
Speaker 1: read one well, or you want to do it hour
Speaker 1: you want to do it in context of the time
Speaker 1: when the letter came in, Because it comes in a
Speaker 1: majority A good number of the slayings have happened, actually does. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good point. Uh. So we'll talk about the
Speaker 1: letter a little later. So let's talk about the departed.
Speaker 1: So the first victims were Joseph and Catherine Mojo. I
Speaker 1: think it's Mojo, sounds about right. Yeah. He was an
Speaker 1: Italian grocer and like like many people back in those days,
Speaker 1: they had an apartment in the back or above their
Speaker 1: store or their bar or whatever they had. Uh so
Speaker 1: may en um, he broke into their home and then
Speaker 1: he cut their throats with a straight razor. Straight razor
Speaker 1: apparently belonged to Joseph Mago's brother, Like it was in
Speaker 1: the house and he just used it or um. It's
Speaker 1: hard to sing exactly how he got his hands on it,
Speaker 1: but essentially he's he got there. He cut their throats
Speaker 1: and then took an ax to him and bashed them too,
Speaker 1: And he cut Catherine's neck so deeply that he nearly
Speaker 1: decapitated her. Yeah, so Joseph actually very stable. Yeah, Joseph
Speaker 1: Mojo actually survived for a few hours. He was bleeding,
Speaker 1: uh severely, almost worse. Yeah, and his brother, I know, seriously,
Speaker 1: I want to quick So his his brother lived in
Speaker 1: the apartment next door, and apparently at some point during
Speaker 1: the night he woke up and heard these strange moans
Speaker 1: coming from the other side of the wall. He started
Speaker 1: knocking on the wall and got no response, so he
Speaker 1: went around and got and came into their home and
Speaker 1: found them. And of course, obviously it couldn't have been fun. No, no,
Speaker 1: and I don't think so. In the apartment they found
Speaker 1: a bloody set of clothes because so apparently the murderer
Speaker 1: had brought a clean set of clothes to change into
Speaker 1: when he was done. And the straight razor was found
Speaker 1: on the lot of a property very nearby. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was right next door or a few
Speaker 1: and if we were lots away, but that was found
Speaker 1: to Dare see you later. And it turns out as
Speaker 1: again the straight razor belonged to the brother who ran
Speaker 1: a barbershop, and apparently he had at the barbershop and
Speaker 1: he had told a co worker that he was taking
Speaker 1: it home or taking it out to get fixed, because
Speaker 1: it had a notch in the blade and notching the edge.
Speaker 1: Uh So anyway, he naturally he became he became a
Speaker 1: big sus Yeah. Uh. He he was released because they
Speaker 1: really couldn't they really couldn't get any have any evidence
Speaker 1: on him, and he didn't have any real obvious motive.
Speaker 1: Ye first murder, just like they used the straight blade
Speaker 1: of the brother. The brother found them. He lived right
Speaker 1: next door. That is a little suspicious. He didn't hear
Speaker 1: like screaming or anything, but he did hear knocking a
Speaker 1: little bit later. Yeah, just and the most disturbing part
Speaker 1: of hearing knocking later is somebody flailing. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is this again. I know I made this joke last week,
Speaker 1: but it's like it makes me think of Sweeney Todd
Speaker 1: again with Yeah, but I can just think of that
Speaker 1: that weird you know, I'm desperate for help and this
Speaker 1: is just one of those weird places my brain. But
Speaker 1: you're there, You're helpless. You know that you're not in
Speaker 1: a good place, and you're trying to get somebody's attention.
Speaker 1: The only thing you can do is bang on the
Speaker 1: wall because you can't make noise because you've had your
Speaker 1: throat slit. What a powerless feeling. Yeah, I guess that.
Speaker 1: You know again, it's like, okay, well, even if it
Speaker 1: was like moaning or just like knocking, like that woke
Speaker 1: his brother up, But like surely someone screamed, like not
Speaker 1: necessarily mean. Think about it is is if the guy
Speaker 1: was quick enough and stealthy enough, you could slit there,
Speaker 1: throw us before they could wake up and start screaming slits.
Speaker 1: You really can't scream. That's definitely true. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: I was gonna ye, I was gonna say, is let's
Speaker 1: think about this, and I don't want to go into
Speaker 1: too much detail, but I'm just trying to think of
Speaker 1: how could you kill one person without the other knowing
Speaker 1: when they're sleeping side by side. Ll the wife first, Well,
Speaker 1: but there's two ways that you can think about it.
Speaker 1: Is he was on her side of the bed and
Speaker 1: he cut her throat and then moved across and went
Speaker 1: to the husband's side. Or what's even more disturbing is
Speaker 1: remember that most people, I presume most couples these days
Speaker 1: sleep in something that equates to at least to queen
Speaker 1: size bed. In that day and age, a queen's size
Speaker 1: bed was a luxury. So you're more in something that's
Speaker 1: along the lines of the single So if you're both
Speaker 1: on your backs or on your sides, person can lean
Speaker 1: over and get one and then the other, and that
Speaker 1: that would explain why one was like pretty well done
Speaker 1: and the other was less swell, Right, the farther one,
Speaker 1: he's got to put a little more effort to get to.
Speaker 1: I mean. So the brother was deemed not a suspect. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well he was still deemed a suspect, but they had
Speaker 1: no they really had nothing on. So the next murder
Speaker 1: was a guy named Louis or Louis Sumer okay, Louis
Speaker 1: Bessumer and his mistress Harriet Low. Harriet actually survived this one,
Speaker 1: so he was he was struck with a hatchet in
Speaker 1: the head. And this has been a June of yeah
Speaker 1: at June, I so a little more than a month
Speaker 1: since the previous one. Again, you know the ax murder.
Speaker 1: He used an ax, but he didn't necessarily chop people
Speaker 1: to pieces with the axt. He just beat him to
Speaker 1: death because an access and access are just a kick
Speaker 1: ass hammer, let's face it, very very big hammer. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, he got a he got he got a
Speaker 1: skull fracture from that, and his mistress, Harriet Low, was
Speaker 1: also hacked and she was unconscious, and uh, they were
Speaker 1: discovered by the driver of a bakery wagon named John Zenca.
Speaker 1: He found them in a puddle of blood and they're
Speaker 1: both bleeding. And the axe, which again belonged to the sumer,
Speaker 1: was found in the found in the bathroom of the apartment. Well.
Speaker 1: And and if I remember right, the only reason the
Speaker 1: delivery guy found him is it was a grocery correct. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he was, Yes, he was a delivery guy. And
Speaker 1: he showed up at whatever his normal time is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, Lewis or Lewis is supposed to be there
Speaker 1: and he's always there, and he's not. This is weird.
Speaker 1: So he went over to the residents or up to
Speaker 1: the residents or around the residents, whichever the case may be.
Speaker 1: And that's how he walked in on this thing. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they didn't arrest him for it though, So but they
Speaker 1: found they found a guy named Louis ubi Kan who
Speaker 1: was forty one year old, black guy. So that's probably
Speaker 1: why they arrested him. Black guy. Especially unfortunately, the practice
Speaker 1: that apparently this guy had had worked in the store,
Speaker 1: and so I'm not really clear if he had worked
Speaker 1: in the store, have been fired or if he'd just
Speaker 1: been hired, But apparently that was that was enough for
Speaker 1: the police. But they had no evidence, so they finally
Speaker 1: had to let him out. He did offer some conflicting
Speaker 1: accounts of his whereabouts on the on the day of
Speaker 1: the attack, but despite that, they really didn't have anything
Speaker 1: on him, so they had to let him go. And
Speaker 1: then the sumer himself was it was actually given a
Speaker 1: fair amount of scrutiny, and the police decided that they
Speaker 1: they've seen a bunch of letters. They found a bunch
Speaker 1: of letters in German, Russian and kidd Ash in his
Speaker 1: house and they decided that he was potentially possibly a
Speaker 1: German spy, so they undertook a full investigation of that,
Speaker 1: and Harriet Low finally told police that she thought he
Speaker 1: was a German spy. Eventually he was released and because
Speaker 1: he survived to theyd well no no, no, no, no, no, yeah,
Speaker 1: Lewis died, the sumer died right, but Low survived Louie
Speaker 1: Louie died, but his his mistress Harriet survived correct well.
Speaker 1: They said. Eventually, what happened with Harriet Low is that
Speaker 1: from that the blow that blows to her head from
Speaker 1: the hatchet damaged the nerves and she wanted up basically
Speaker 1: paralyzed on one side of her face, and so she
Speaker 1: underwent surgery to try to fix that, and she died
Speaker 1: in surgery. But she was she was kind of an
Speaker 1: unreliable witnessed the whole thing because she kept putting out
Speaker 1: really weird statements and and I'm quoting her saying something
Speaker 1: along the lines of, oh no, it was a mulatto man.
Speaker 1: It was a big tall man, and like, things just
Speaker 1: gone all muddled. But I'm sorry, if you've been struck
Speaker 1: in the head with an AX, you might not have
Speaker 1: the best recall. Yeah. So, yeah, so I don't know
Speaker 1: it's say. But again, they kept arresting people and they
Speaker 1: could never they could never pin it on anybody. But anyway,
Speaker 1: after she died again that a lot of attention had
Speaker 1: turned to the Sumer and so the police arrested him
Speaker 1: and charged him with murder since she died for reasons
Speaker 1: relating to the attack. And he actually went to prison it.
Speaker 1: But but eventually when the trial came around, uh, he
Speaker 1: was acquitted after a ten minute jury deliberation. Solid evidence,
Speaker 1: solid evidence. Yeah, Jerry didn't want to waste any more
Speaker 1: time on this. Oh yeah, And and she did say
Speaker 1: Harriet Low did say that she believed that it was
Speaker 1: Louis Assumer who had attacked her, but I don't know,
Speaker 1: she doesn't sound the most like the most reliable person. Okay,
Speaker 1: so next s up. The next attack did not result
Speaker 1: in death. Somebody named missus Schneider and I don't know
Speaker 1: why nobody seems to know what her first name is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: August five, so it's a couple of months have gone by,
Speaker 1: and she was pregnant, twenty eight years old, found a
Speaker 1: dark figure standing over her and was bashed in the
Speaker 1: face repeatedly, and the several cuts, lacerations, etcetera. And uh,
Speaker 1: she was found by her husband when he came home
Speaker 1: about midnight. She said she didn't really remember much about
Speaker 1: the attack. Apparently she remembered, you know, dark figure looming
Speaker 1: over her. The husband said that nothing was stolen and
Speaker 1: the windows and doors did not appeared to have been
Speaker 1: forced open, so they fled. They figured that the police
Speaker 1: figured that the weapon was a lamp that was nearby,
Speaker 1: so the guy just gave in, picked up a bashed
Speaker 1: her in the head without a bunch, but she didn't die.
Speaker 1: And this one, I kind of wonder if this one
Speaker 1: is not even related to the X Man, because you know,
Speaker 1: it's not really not really his am and you know
Speaker 1: what this is. This is my m O in every
Speaker 1: one of these stories like this, is that when you
Speaker 1: get into the middle of the one of these stories,
Speaker 1: is that this guy's m O changes. Now the reason
Speaker 1: I have to stick to the same EMMO every but
Speaker 1: when we're when we're looking at these kind of stories
Speaker 1: where it's a presumed serial killer, things are usually consistent.
Speaker 1: The shot with a forty four, they're attacked with a machete,
Speaker 1: something like that. But in each one of these cases,
Speaker 1: the only thing that seems to be consistent is that
Speaker 1: it's a weapon that's found in their home, which is
Speaker 1: just a weird. It's a weapon found in their home
Speaker 1: used to attack their head, Yeah, which is just strange.
Speaker 1: It doesn't fit what we see normal normal's the wrong word,
Speaker 1: but typical behavior in needs. So it's just it's odd.
Speaker 1: And we have also talked a little bit about the
Speaker 1: phenomena of like piggybacking and there's a serial killer when
Speaker 1: there's like a couple and then somebody's like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: I have been meaning to attack that person, to murder somebody,
Speaker 1: and that would be a great time a time I'll
Speaker 1: just like copy the m O of the serial killer.
Speaker 1: It'll get attributed to the serial killer, and no one
Speaker 1: will be the wiser. That's why I'm really getting kind
Speaker 1: of impatient for a serial killer right here, because I've
Speaker 1: got a couple of people I need to offer. We're
Speaker 1: not doing the show anymore. Wow, that got Can we
Speaker 1: go to the next one? Now? You've made this super awkward?
Speaker 1: Or did we actually have we left details behind about
Speaker 1: Mrs Schneider. Well, let's see, but she had the baby
Speaker 1: and everything was fine there we know that. Did we
Speaker 1: say she was pregnant? Yeah, yeah, we had to say
Speaker 1: she was pregnant. But yeah, okay, so another another details
Speaker 1: that naturally the police went out and found an ex
Speaker 1: convict named James Gleeson. Uh, and they arrested him, and
Speaker 1: of course they released him because there was no evidence,
Speaker 1: and that seems to be a recurring theme in this case.
Speaker 1: And uh, the investigators began to speculate that the attack
Speaker 1: was related to the previous attacks, but I don't think.
Speaker 1: I don't think that this necessarily was. It might have been, Yeah,
Speaker 1: this one seems like a weak link, yeah, a little bit. So.
Speaker 1: Our next victim was a man named Joseph Romano. He
Speaker 1: was living with his two nieces August tenth, So this
Speaker 1: one came pretty quick on the heels of last one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they found a sound of commotion. They probably marry his nieces.
Speaker 1: Awoke to the sound of a commotion, uh, and came
Speaker 1: into the room. They discovered that he had taken a
Speaker 1: serious bloat of the head and had two big open cuts,
Speaker 1: and the assailant was fleeting the scene, but they were
Speaker 1: able to see that he was a dark skinned, heavy
Speaker 1: set man who wore a dark suit and a slouched hat.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like maybe orson Wells. Yeah, uh, he was.
Speaker 1: He was actually injured, but he was able to watch
Speaker 1: the ambulance, so he wasn't dead yet, but he died
Speaker 1: two days later because of the head traumas well. Maybe
Speaker 1: they shouldn't have let him walk to the ambulance. Yeah, oh,
Speaker 1: you got these huge cuts, you're feeling good? Okay, cool? Well,
Speaker 1: why don't you just like get up and walk yourself
Speaker 1: to the ambulance. It's not like it was paramedics of
Speaker 1: today with the folding stretcher. It was a cot on
Speaker 1: sticks and he was was this do we know, Joe,
Speaker 1: was this a ground floor apartment or that I don't know.
Speaker 1: That's a good question. I'm assuming it was, but I
Speaker 1: would presume too. But yeah, they did. They found a
Speaker 1: bloody axe in the backyard, and they discovered that a
Speaker 1: panel in the back door had been chise a little
Speaker 1: just away. So that's, you know, that's pretty consistent with
Speaker 1: the axe man, and that this one, I mean, this
Speaker 1: was the third attack like this, the fourth if you
Speaker 1: count Mr Schneider. So naturally, this touched off a lot
Speaker 1: of mayhem in the city, and people got all kinds
Speaker 1: of upset and then worried, and probably, you know, probably
Speaker 1: started buying guns that they didn't already have them New Orleans,
Speaker 1: so I imagine just about everybody had it come you
Speaker 1: wouldn't think something. But if you're asleep, it's hard to
Speaker 1: defend yourself with a gun, yeah, especially when you wake
Speaker 1: up to getting bashed in the head with an axe. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And this is when that the tie in began to
Speaker 1: the murders in nineteen eleven. In nineteen twelve, retired detective
Speaker 1: named John D'Antonio speculated that they might be related to
Speaker 1: the same thing because of similarities in the attacks. Um
Speaker 1: and then he wanted he would speculate even further. I
Speaker 1: think this is just kind of silliness here. But he
Speaker 1: described he basically tried to profile the killer as an
Speaker 1: individual with dual personalities who killed without motive and basically
Speaker 1: just had two personalities when he slipped into his killer mode,
Speaker 1: you know, his other personality maybe even wasn't aware of it.
Speaker 1: And there's no reason, there's no sport any of that.
Speaker 1: That sounds like sensationalization right there. To me. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to detract from this, and I know
Speaker 1: that sometimes we fall into that, but this just sounds
Speaker 1: like I'm making a statement to the news to generate
Speaker 1: awareness and I'm not buying that. Yeah, So I almost
Speaker 1: wonder if it was like a ploy to like convince
Speaker 1: the murderer to come forward, because if you heard that, yeah,
Speaker 1: like if you had heard but like, oh, yeah, we
Speaker 1: think it's this person, and like we don't really blame
Speaker 1: him because like we think it's just like dual personnelity
Speaker 1: can't control it. He doesn't even know he's doing it.
Speaker 1: And you're like, oh, well, I have been killing people,
Speaker 1: should them? I can't control sir. It could be that,
Speaker 1: you know, that might actually be a worthwhile tactic in
Speaker 1: a situation like this, too, make statements that you know
Speaker 1: aren't true, and on the because you know the killer
Speaker 1: is almost certainly reading the papers, and he might be
Speaker 1: attempted to try to contact you. It's at the record
Speaker 1: straight and uh, you know he's not gonna necessarily turn
Speaker 1: himself in, but even writing a letter might provide a
Speaker 1: clue or too. Anyway, let's move on here. I don't
Speaker 1: want to spend too much more time with the victims.
Speaker 1: The next ones were and I apologize if you're Italian
Speaker 1: and this is your last name, and I mispronounced Charles
Speaker 1: Court to Miglia, Miglia Court to Biglia, and Rosie and
Speaker 1: Mary Court to Meiglia. So a guy, his wife, Rosie,
Speaker 1: and their daughter Mary. He lived in Gretna, which is
Speaker 1: just across the river from New Orleans, so it's really
Speaker 1: really pretty much part of New Orleans. March tenth nine.
Speaker 1: Noticed a big gap there too, between August tenth and
Speaker 1: March tenth. There's quite a few months. Yeah, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I know, he might have been off murdering people elsewhere,
Speaker 1: or he could have been maybe in jail. Maybe the
Speaker 1: little stint in jail hard to say. So. Screams were
Speaker 1: heard coming from their house. A guy named Orlando Giorgiano, yeah,
Speaker 1: one across the street just to to investigate the screams.
Speaker 1: When he got in there, he knows that Charles and
Speaker 1: his wife Rosie and there a daughter Mary had all
Speaker 1: been attacked. Rosie was alive with the hair with the
Speaker 1: head wound, but her daughter was dead and Charles was
Speaker 1: laying on the floor bleeding. They were rushed to the
Speaker 1: hospital and they both had skull fractures, and as in
Speaker 1: previous incidents, nothing was stolen from the house. A panel
Speaker 1: on the back door had been chiseled away and a
Speaker 1: bloody access found in the back porch at the home.
Speaker 1: Charles was released in a couple of days and he survived,
Speaker 1: and then Rosie stayed in men under medical care because
Speaker 1: she was more seriously injured. When she walked up, she
Speaker 1: claimed that the guy that rush to the scene, Orlando Jordando,
Speaker 1: He and his son were supposedly responsible for the attacks.
Speaker 1: Orlando was sixty nine years old and it was thought
Speaker 1: that he was too probably too old and frail to
Speaker 1: have actually done this, but his son was a lot
Speaker 1: younger and was six ft tall and wagh two hundred pounds,
Speaker 1: so you know he possibly could have done it, but
Speaker 1: Charles Courtmiglia said that his wife's claims were wrong and
Speaker 1: so and she had been bashed in the head. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: and again the same thing. You've been wailed in the head.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I mean, yeah, head traumas can really can
Speaker 1: really do a number one. It really screws up your
Speaker 1: term memory. Oh yeah. Yeah. Also, you know, given that
Speaker 1: she saw him right after the attack, right, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that she misunderstood the situation. Yeah, that you
Speaker 1: could think, yeah, so you associate the attack and a person,
Speaker 1: and your brain is just like that person was there,
Speaker 1: so I think it. Yeah. So I don't know what,
Speaker 1: if any other evidence was available, but they were arrested,
Speaker 1: they were tried, and they were found guilty. Frank the
Speaker 1: younger the younger one was sentenced to hang and his
Speaker 1: father was sentenced to life in prison. And about a
Speaker 1: year later, Rosie retracted her statement her husband divorce her
Speaker 1: because he was like, no, that's not true, and then yeah,
Speaker 1: and then she kept saying yeah, that's true, and he
Speaker 1: was like, you're such a liar. I haven't Yeah. I
Speaker 1: I don't know if that was the actual reason for it.
Speaker 1: That might have been part of the reason I don't.
Speaker 1: I know, he did divorce her. But I also think,
Speaker 1: and this is very symptomatic situations like this, is that
Speaker 1: their their child who was an infant, has been killed,
Speaker 1: and that does not do good things for a relationship,
Speaker 1: and it's usually the catalyst for things not continuing to work.
Speaker 1: And so it could have been very well. Then it
Speaker 1: wasn't his issue with her claims of the guilt of
Speaker 1: this man, but just they could wouldn't reconcile what had happened,
Speaker 1: and that's also a reason for why they would have split. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So anyway, whatever there is, I don't know, and I
Speaker 1: don't know what happened to her. He would think that
Speaker 1: if she had made false accusations like that, she could
Speaker 1: be arrested and jailed herself. But also I mean I
Speaker 1: think that, Yeah, there's there's the sympathetic aspect there for
Speaker 1: you know, concost mother who lost child. I mean, I
Speaker 1: can see why they wouldn't go after her, but I
Speaker 1: don't see why they went after these other two gentlemen either. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well they had to arrest somebody, No they didn't. So
Speaker 1: about about three days after this incident, the accpent sat
Speaker 1: down and penned that famous letter, the one from Hell
Speaker 1: March stated March thirteenth, A steam mortal. They have never
Speaker 1: caught me, and they never will. They have never seen
Speaker 1: me before. I am invisible, even as each of the
Speaker 1: surrounds your earth. I am not a human being, but
Speaker 1: a spirit and a demon from the Hoddest. Tell I
Speaker 1: am what you are, Lenians, and your foolis police called
Speaker 1: the axe Man. When I see fit, I shall come
Speaker 1: and claim O they're victims. I alone know whom they
Speaker 1: shall be. I shall lead no clue except my bloody
Speaker 1: acts be smeared with blood and brains of he whom
Speaker 1: I have sent below to keep me company. Guys, let
Speaker 1: me know when you're done to listening to this thing.
Speaker 1: We don't have to read that on the entire thing.
Speaker 1: How much more we got. That's only the second paragraph. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let me skip a little bit here. Um. Undoubtedly your
Speaker 1: Lenians think of me as a most horrible murderer, which
Speaker 1: I am. But I could be much worse if I
Speaker 1: wanted to. If I wish, I could pay a visit
Speaker 1: to your city every night at will, I could slay
Speaker 1: thousands of your best citizens. For I am in a
Speaker 1: close relationship with the angel of death. Alright, we can stop. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's just yeah, not a nutter. Yeah, okay, real quickly though,
Speaker 1: I knew he wouldn't see. Yeah, so I'll skip me
Speaker 1: a little bit. In my infinite mercery. I'm gonna make
Speaker 1: a little proposition to you people here. It is I'm
Speaker 1: very fond of jazz music, and I swear by all
Speaker 1: the devils in the n ether, by all the devils
Speaker 1: in the nether regions, that every person shall be spared
Speaker 1: in whose home a jazz band is in full swing
Speaker 1: at the time I have just mentioned. If everyone has
Speaker 1: a jazz band going well, then so much the better
Speaker 1: for you people. One thing is certain, and that is
Speaker 1: that some of your people who did not jazz on
Speaker 1: Tuesday night, if there be any, we'll get the ax. Okay,
Speaker 1: So that's there's more about. Just go out and read it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great letter, very well done. Yeah, there's got
Speaker 1: one weird, outstanding like paragraph. Basically the rest of it
Speaker 1: is like kind of good. It's kind of like perfect
Speaker 1: ax murdering. It's this kind of sinister in it urban
Speaker 1: and in a little crazy, but like that's what you
Speaker 1: want from your ax murder. You don't want your ox
Speaker 1: murder to be like a totally normal Joe, Joe, what
Speaker 1: do we what do we got next? Yeah? Okay, so
Speaker 1: a little bit of time goes by August. This is
Speaker 1: actually heat the that one occurred exactly a year before this. Interesting.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I never noticed that, but there's
Speaker 1: a little symmetry there. Yeah, there is. So a guy
Speaker 1: named Steve Boca, another grocer, another Italian, of course, they
Speaker 1: had an apartment above or next to his store, and
Speaker 1: he was attacked as he slept by somebody with an ax.
Speaker 1: He awoke, found a dark figure looming over his bed,
Speaker 1: got whacked but didn't get killed. His head had been
Speaker 1: sort of cracked open. He went to his neighbor's home,
Speaker 1: where he collapsed, but he survived. And they found once
Speaker 1: again that a pamela on the back door had been
Speaker 1: chiseled out, and that in this particular case, he didn't
Speaker 1: say anything about whether he had left the axe behind
Speaker 1: or not, so he couldn't remember anything of any of
Speaker 1: the details of the attack. Really. Our next victim Sarah Laman.
Speaker 1: She was attacked on September three, nine. They she lived alone,
Speaker 1: She was nineteen years old, and the neighbors seems odd
Speaker 1: for the time, but it is. Yeah, but and without family. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but apparently her neighbors there, Her neighbors kept an eye
Speaker 1: on her, and they kept they would come back and
Speaker 1: check on her, and that she wasn't answering the door.
Speaker 1: So they wound up breaking in and they found her
Speaker 1: unconscious out our bed, severe head injury and has some
Speaker 1: teeth broken out. The intruder apparently it entered through an
Speaker 1: open window and hit her with a blond object. Bloody
Speaker 1: axe was discovered on the front lawn, and so it
Speaker 1: was attributed to the axe man. She again, like the
Speaker 1: previous guy, recovered but couldn't recall any details about the attack. Okay, next,
Speaker 1: and this is our last victim. Mike Peppertoni was attacked
Speaker 1: October n his wife and I'm not really sure if
Speaker 1: they were sleeping in the same bed or what it was.
Speaker 1: It's not rare, you know, for times like these for
Speaker 1: people to not be sleeping in the same bed or
Speaker 1: the same room, or for proper reasons of moral standing,
Speaker 1: or maybe because somebody snores, or maybe you know, well,
Speaker 1: no that that is a kind of a common thing.
Speaker 1: And actually it's been proven that it's actually good for
Speaker 1: some people to sleep in separate beds. But I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to determine is this a it's the nineties fifties
Speaker 1: husband whife sleep in different beds kind of theory, or
Speaker 1: she was just sleeping somewhere else. That's what I understand.
Speaker 1: It sounds that she was sleeping in a different room. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's the social stigma of sleeping in separate rooms
Speaker 1: didn't really come about until like the sixties. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I watched Leave It to Beaver as a kid, so
Speaker 1: I understand that that's the way it was supposed to
Speaker 1: have always been. You're really destroying a lot of my
Speaker 1: preconceptions of how life is supposed to be. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: I didn't have to buy that extra bed from my
Speaker 1: house anyway, Joe. But you know, as you mentioned, like
Speaker 1: a bigger beds of luxury. So like, if you if
Speaker 1: there's any kind of sleep, you know, when you're sleeping
Speaker 1: in a queen bed with somebody, right, you're like, okay,
Speaker 1: well that's mildly annoying. But if you're like trying to
Speaker 1: sleep on a twin mattress with somebody else, you're like, nope, nope,
Speaker 1: not tonight. No. Yeah, So anyway, you know. It's so
Speaker 1: I'm assuming that from what I've heard about this, that
Speaker 1: they were in separate rooms. She hears him, she hears noise,
Speaker 1: and she gets to his bedroom and a large axe
Speaker 1: wielding man is comes out fleeing the scene and he'd
Speaker 1: been struck in the head that was covered with blood.
Speaker 1: There was spatter all over the room, all over the walls.
Speaker 1: Mrs Peppertoni was not able to really describe the characteristics
Speaker 1: of the killer, and her description was just downright vague. Uh,
Speaker 1: And there's a reason to suspect that maybe she didn't
Speaker 1: tell the police everything. Yeah. And and also, by the way,
Speaker 1: this is the one, this is the one where another
Speaker 1: version of this, he was not beating to death or
Speaker 1: chopped with an axe. He was beating to death with
Speaker 1: a with an eighteen inch long pipe that had a
Speaker 1: big nut on the on one end of it. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: entirely possible. Again, this weird m O issue that I
Speaker 1: talked about earlier that bothers me about this story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe he didn't have an ax laying around. Maybe he
Speaker 1: just had a big old piece of pipe laying around. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I also want to like point out that
Speaker 1: for somebody who's like a quote unquote serial killer didn't
Speaker 1: really kill how many people he was the majority of
Speaker 1: his victims survived. Yeah, he was a kind of incompetent,
Speaker 1: he didn't he actually didn't kill everybody. So if killing
Speaker 1: was the intention, right, incompetent would be the word. If
Speaker 1: killing was not the intention, then fairly successful except for
Speaker 1: a couple of screw ups, I guess, I mean to
Speaker 1: be fair though, like that first one doesn't is actually
Speaker 1: like the least like the m O right, he like
Speaker 1: slipped their throats, killing them and then bashed their head
Speaker 1: in with a and the rest of them they were
Speaker 1: just like attacked their bash over the head a bunch
Speaker 1: of times and either they died from it or they didn't.
Speaker 1: But so that's odd to me. But yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: it might be that a lot of these people didn't
Speaker 1: die because he didn't really intend to kill him and
Speaker 1: said that there's maybe as another serial murder cases, Perhaps
Speaker 1: there was just one person that he wanted to murder
Speaker 1: for sure. So and then you had to go around
Speaker 1: and make it look like a random, unconnected string of
Speaker 1: syria like that just before. I just think that is
Speaker 1: obscene because there's just so much work involved that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna duck it and try and avoid the
Speaker 1: heat and the coppers and see if I can get
Speaker 1: away with it. Yeah, there's that too, I mean because
Speaker 1: a million people have done it and gone away with
Speaker 1: it that way. Oh yeah, so that's just that's just
Speaker 1: a long game, which I don't I don't think is
Speaker 1: really the way this would go. True. There is a
Speaker 1: pretty short list of suspects. Actually there's only really two.
Speaker 1: So yeah, this is again because Steve's going to hate this,
Speaker 1: I think, right last week when we were like, well
Speaker 1: there's two suspects, Well did you you've included in the
Speaker 1: list when I sent you, right, Jake Bird, Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I actually had to send him a suspect because this
Speaker 1: frustrated me so much. I found a suspect. He has
Speaker 1: made one up totally. Yeah, no, I had. I had
Speaker 1: to keep digging business difficult to find suspects in this
Speaker 1: story because I mean, again, we're talking the late nineteen
Speaker 1: The record keeping is not an efficient process. No one
Speaker 1: was like backing up their hard drives or anything. Literal
Speaker 1: card catalog yeah and handwritten notes in a vault. And oops,
Speaker 1: the police station burned down, so that it's very frustrating.
Speaker 1: That's that's what I sent him. A suspect. But we're
Speaker 1: not gonna We're not gonna go there. We're gonna start
Speaker 1: with your first one. Like the first one better well
Speaker 1: the first one, yeah, I think actually is a is
Speaker 1: a better suspect. So this guy's name was Joseph mom Free.
Speaker 1: I've seen his name spelled so many different ways. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and mom Free free man for Mumford and son. Somebody
Speaker 1: call yeah, somebody called the Leon j Manfree um. So
Speaker 1: this guy was shot to death in Los Angeles again
Speaker 1: at Counts Varry. This is again, like so many of
Speaker 1: our stories, it's gotten so garbled over the years. It
Speaker 1: was shot to death in either December nineteen nineteen or
Speaker 1: December ninety or December, but definitely December, Yeah, definitely December,
Speaker 1: definitely in Los Angeles. A guy named Richard Warner did
Speaker 1: a lot of research on the mob in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: and New Orleans, and he's kind of recast his story
Speaker 1: as mafia warfare rather than some sort of demonic serial killer,
Speaker 1: and which might explain all the Italians of all to
Speaker 1: the story. Joseph Monfrey was also known in New Orleans
Speaker 1: as frank quote Doc unquote Mumfree and so that was
Speaker 1: probably his real name. He was involved apparently with the mob.
Speaker 1: He uh, he got involved in murders, extortions, bombings, kidnappings,
Speaker 1: He did all kinds of good stuff. He were okay,
Speaker 1: he looked relocated to l A in late nineteen nineteen.
Speaker 1: So if he was the killer, that was explaining why
Speaker 1: you're stopped because he was later joined Yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: I'm not. And this is a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of this in this interesting information I'm about to unload
Speaker 1: on you all. Is I want to give a little
Speaker 1: credit here this crime writer named Michael Newton who did
Speaker 1: a lot of research and wrote a bunch of stuff
Speaker 1: on this. And also again that other guy, Richard what's
Speaker 1: his face, Richard Warner. Richard Warner pieced together most of this. Ye,
Speaker 1: Richard Warrener pieced together most of this. So apparently Mumprey
Speaker 1: moved to l A opened a drug store. And because
Speaker 1: I didn't mention he was called Doc. That was his
Speaker 1: nickname because he was actually a pharmacist by trade, and
Speaker 1: so that's explains the nickname. So he opens a drug
Speaker 1: store and I don't know if that was a prod
Speaker 1: or maybe he was just wanted to get out of
Speaker 1: get out of his life of crime. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: He was joined in Los Angeles by an associate from
Speaker 1: New Orleans and below Albano Albano opened an Italian grocery.
Speaker 1: So I guess what he got He wind up dying apparently, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he des Italian groceries. Just remind me never to open,
Speaker 1: especially when Doc Mum frees around. Yeah, Albano Albano, after
Speaker 1: a year or two, disappeared. His wife accused mum Free
Speaker 1: of murdering him. Oh yeah, yeah, this this is where
Speaker 1: he gets harry. This is where it gets a little strange.
Speaker 1: So a few months after the disappearance, he reported this
Speaker 1: to the police. The police basically did nothing, or maybe
Speaker 1: they'd investigated but really couldn't come up with anything. Mumfree
Speaker 1: went to the widow's house, she threatened, He threatened her
Speaker 1: and demanded money, and she shot him and standing woman
Speaker 1: of the community. Her name was Esther Albano. She was
Speaker 1: also the widow of Mike Pepperoni. Yeah he's he's the
Speaker 1: first victim. He's the last one, okay, Yeah, apparently the one,
Speaker 1: the one who had like a bunch of kids and couldn't,
Speaker 1: and he just was like, I don't know who murdered
Speaker 1: my husband, right, yeah, well apparently, yeah, apparently she was.
Speaker 1: She was out in l a and she met Angelo
Speaker 1: Angelo Albano, and they got they woked up getting married,
Speaker 1: and then of course he gets apparently disappeared and murdered.
Speaker 1: And so she told the police that mon Prey actually
Speaker 1: killed two of her husbands. Because of this, now she's
Speaker 1: accusing him, even though she said at the time that
Speaker 1: Mike PEPPTONI was killed, that she didn't she didn't know,
Speaker 1: I gave very vague descriptions. Now she seemed sure that
Speaker 1: mont pretty actually was a killer. So it could be well,
Speaker 1: it could be I mean, well, anyway she and her
Speaker 1: husband had been involved with the mafia, then obviously you
Speaker 1: don't you don't tell the cops anything, so that unless
Speaker 1: you want to die. Yeah, But of course if that
Speaker 1: was the case, and I'm not sure why she's talking
Speaker 1: to the police at this point in time either, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess there's also the argument to be made,
Speaker 1: right that, like maybe she was going for Albano anyways, right,
Speaker 1: like she wanted to be with him, and this is
Speaker 1: like the lady version of this right, Like she wanted
Speaker 1: to be with Albano, and so Albano was like, hey, Murphy,
Speaker 1: you're pretty good at this killing thing. Why don't you
Speaker 1: killed my lady's husband on the side like that, Like
Speaker 1: that is a good theory. I like that. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, you've been killing all these people who
Speaker 1: are attacking all these people. Why don't you like do
Speaker 1: me a favor? You know, it would explain why she
Speaker 1: ended up with a guy who was associated with somebody
Speaker 1: who might have killed her husband. Okay, but but I
Speaker 1: just have to say that that would be the weirdest
Speaker 1: pillow talk ever for sure. So I've totally been hacking
Speaker 1: people up with hatchets or axes and lead pipes and
Speaker 1: straight razors and you're the best and I want to
Speaker 1: be with you ever oh so great? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: it goes different than that. The pillow talk is like, man,
Speaker 1: I really love you when I want to be with you,
Speaker 1: but my husband's in the way. You know, somebody maybe
Speaker 1: chop him up. Yeah, because you know you're part of
Speaker 1: the mafia. So like, do you think you know somebody?
Speaker 1: And yeah, I know a guy. Yeah, I'll see if
Speaker 1: I can get him to do it. Yeah, that it
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been Alipino, that it would have sure, well,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, if movies have taught me anything, it's
Speaker 1: that that very often happened. Yeah, guys like Jack Nicholson
Speaker 1: and Jessica what's your name? Or yeah. So uh So, anyway,
Speaker 1: he shot or she shot Momprey to death. She claimed
Speaker 1: self defense, but she was arrested, tried, and convicted for it. Anyhow,
Speaker 1: she was sentced to ten years and didn't do all
Speaker 1: that time. I think she only did two or three years.
Speaker 1: A man named a crime writer I just mentioned him
Speaker 1: actually a few minutes ago, Michael Newton. She searched or
Speaker 1: he searched the police and court records in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: and he couldn't find anybody named mom Pree being killed
Speaker 1: and that at that time. So he was kind of
Speaker 1: trying to debunk this whole thing. But Richard Warner, the
Speaker 1: other guy, did actually do a search and he found
Speaker 1: a death certificate for Leon J. Manfree issued by Los
Speaker 1: Angeles County in one or wherever I can't remember now,
Speaker 1: but well the dates were mixed up. We don't have
Speaker 1: a solid date. So he did find that. So and
Speaker 1: that's this guy let's let's let's not forget his name
Speaker 1: was Frank quote unquote Doc mom Free or Joseph mom
Speaker 1: Free or god knows what. He might have had a
Speaker 1: lot of aliases. Maybe maybe Leon Mumfree was his actual
Speaker 1: real name. I don't know, but maybe that's the fake
Speaker 1: idea that they found on him when they found his corpse.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. Or the one person who came to
Speaker 1: I d M it was like, oh, yeah, that's Leon. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So so anyway, that's that's our suspect. He may or
Speaker 1: may not be the guy nobody else. He seems to
Speaker 1: be everybody else's favorite too, okay. Suspect number two Jake Bird.
Speaker 1: So Jake Bird was a transient and he moved all
Speaker 1: around the country. He took jobs working at a labor
Speaker 1: working on railroads. Has a quote unquote candy dancwer, which
Speaker 1: I which is a strange sounding thing, but apparently gandy
Speaker 1: dancers are the guys that lay the tracks and maintained
Speaker 1: the tracks. So he did a little work on railroads
Speaker 1: doing that kind of stuff. That's a weird phrase. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know why. I don't understand it, but I'll
Speaker 1: just let it go. It's pretty random. Right, know that
Speaker 1: he was born and raised and guess where Louisiana. Yeah,
Speaker 1: born December fourteenth, nineteen o one, which would have made
Speaker 1: him seventeen at the time of the first murder, assuming
Speaker 1: at the nineteen eleven nineteen twelve stuff. And I is
Speaker 1: not connected And I can't believe he's murdering people at
Speaker 1: ten years old. Yeah, Yeah, that's a disturbed individual if
Speaker 1: that's the case. Yeah, I don't I don't buy that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Jake Bird was in and out of jailist whole life. Reportedly,
Speaker 1: he served over his lifetime a total thirty one years.
Speaker 1: And how old was he when he died? He was Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, he spent a lot of time in jail.
Speaker 1: Holy crap. And that's actually a good thing because I mean,
Speaker 1: if he was as prolific a killer as we are
Speaker 1: led to believe, then imagine how many more corpses he
Speaker 1: would have left. Yeah. So he was arrested October thirtieth seven,
Speaker 1: and good old Tacoma, Washington, one of my favorite towns
Speaker 1: to drive through. Yeah, he asked murdered two women. It
Speaker 1: was a lady. It was back murder ladies and gentlemen
Speaker 1: picked up he as murdered him with an ax that
Speaker 1: he found on their property. He was it was a
Speaker 1: woman and her seventeen year old daughter, and uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: he went inside and grabbed an axe from the woodshed outside.
Speaker 1: Apparently went inside and it was apparently port into some
Speaker 1: accounts that I read, trying to rape the mother and
Speaker 1: then she resisted. He started chopping with the acts of
Speaker 1: daughter comes in and tries to interrupts, and so she
Speaker 1: gets hacked, and then he flees and police see him
Speaker 1: fleeing the scene because the neighbors had called the police
Speaker 1: because they heard all these screams. And the police chase
Speaker 1: him and they catch him, and uh, he claimed He
Speaker 1: claimed first that he hadn't he didn't know what they
Speaker 1: were talking about, but he had. He had like blood
Speaker 1: and gray matter all over his clothes. Don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't know what you're talking about, officer is. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was just totally bleeding myself. Yeah. And the judicial
Speaker 1: system was a little less sclerotic back in those days.
Speaker 1: It moved pretty quick. He was arrested in October and
Speaker 1: he was tried in November, and the trial lasted, I
Speaker 1: believe two and a half days, and the jury deliberate.
Speaker 1: I believe thirty five minutes. Yeah, so this is an
Speaker 1: episode of law and Order right now. So after he
Speaker 1: was convicted and he was sent to death row, he
Speaker 1: was in Walla Walla State Penitentiary. He asked for clemency.
Speaker 1: Basically he wanted them to put off his date of death.
Speaker 1: And his bargaining ship was he promised to convest to
Speaker 1: forty four other murders. He said he had knowledge he
Speaker 1: had committed forty four other murder years part or taken
Speaker 1: part into. Yeah, this guy was a fairly successful serial killer.
Speaker 1: I mean for having spent thirty one years of his
Speaker 1: life in jail. So where all is he is? He
Speaker 1: saying that he he did all this killing because obviously
Speaker 1: it wasn't just Washington. Yeah, it was all all over
Speaker 1: the country. Uh, they were actually able to solve I
Speaker 1: think eleven or twelve crimes based on his confessions not
Speaker 1: and some of the other ones. They didn't believe him,
Speaker 1: but they found they were murders in Illinois, Colorado, Kentucky, Neraska, Kansas,
Speaker 1: South Dakota, Ohio, Florida, Texas, Wisconsin, and of course Washington
Speaker 1: were Kakomba is situated. Uh, he didn't confess to anything
Speaker 1: in New Orleans. He was put to death July, so
Speaker 1: that would have made him what forty seven years old,
Speaker 1: forty eight years old. Yeah. So the reason to think
Speaker 1: he might have been the killing Well, he liked, he
Speaker 1: liked the whole acts thing. Apparently he killed. He claimed
Speaker 1: have killed a lot of people using acts. Uh. And
Speaker 1: like the axe Man, he used an axe or an hatchet,
Speaker 1: a hatchet found at the victims homes. And he's sneaky looking.
Speaker 1: I've seen pictures of him. That's incredible reason I think shifty. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: the reasons I don't think he's a killer nothing. In
Speaker 1: the case of the axe Man, he didn't take anything
Speaker 1: from the victims homes. He wasn't there to rob them.
Speaker 1: And in the case of Jake Bird, it seemed to
Speaker 1: me like the guy probably could have used money. He
Speaker 1: was a transient taking odd jobs and stuff. Yeah. If
Speaker 1: you see a bunch of stuff laying around this valuable.
Speaker 1: If you see some cash, you're gonna take it, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's one reason I don't think he was the ax Man.
Speaker 1: Another reason is he did confess and gave details about
Speaker 1: a lot of murders, but he never confessed to anything
Speaker 1: in New Orleans seems like, yeah, even though there are
Speaker 1: people who think that he was indeed the infamous ax
Speaker 1: man of New Orleans, now he didn't really volunteer to
Speaker 1: take credit for those Why wouldn't he, Oh, listen, you know, Okay, again,
Speaker 1: this is trying to step into the mind of somebody
Speaker 1: that I've never met a hundred years ago. But maybe
Speaker 1: he has somebody in that area that he's protecting. In
Speaker 1: other words, you know, he might have had family that
Speaker 1: were involved in some of these things that he did,
Speaker 1: or that helped cover it up, and he doesn't want
Speaker 1: to spill the beans on him. I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is complete and total, just made up. But I'm
Speaker 1: just I'm just trying to think, because if he is
Speaker 1: that prolific and he's from that area, why wouldn't he
Speaker 1: start there, you know what I'm saying, in a place
Speaker 1: to practice your craft. Yeah, people don't come upon just
Speaker 1: killing people at thirty. They you know, when they have
Speaker 1: this kind of serial compulsion, These things, these behaviors, these
Speaker 1: things start out early. So it seems like he would
Speaker 1: have been doing it where he lived. Now. I don't know, Joe,
Speaker 1: I never all when I read the information on Jake Bird,
Speaker 1: but do you know how old was he when he
Speaker 1: left New Orleans? Do you know? Well he was he
Speaker 1: was actually born and raised in rural Louisiana, so I
Speaker 1: don't I'm not well in Louisia, Louisiana. He left when
Speaker 1: he was nineteen, okay, so he would have been in
Speaker 1: the area, which I mean, this is again I'm just
Speaker 1: making is the last official attack and then he leaves
Speaker 1: the area. Course, this is all everything about this guy
Speaker 1: that was was you know, like his birth, his date
Speaker 1: of birth, where he was born, when he left rural
Speaker 1: Louisiana to travel the country. It was all basically what
Speaker 1: he told the cops, so he could have been lying
Speaker 1: about all too um. And then I also and my
Speaker 1: biggest problem is like why would you admit to some
Speaker 1: but not all of the murders that especially if they
Speaker 1: were you know, kind of this prolific sort of like
Speaker 1: beginning period where like there's a lot of I guess
Speaker 1: kind of bargaining material there particularly to be able to
Speaker 1: say like, hey, if you stand my life, I'll admit
Speaker 1: to being the New Orleans as murderer. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, well, And the thing about it is is
Speaker 1: the act that the New Orleans acts murders were the
Speaker 1: most notorious ones, ones that got the most publicity. You
Speaker 1: think that he would be in a sense, it's it's
Speaker 1: kind of twisted, but you think he would be proudest
Speaker 1: of that accomplishment and want to tell I want to
Speaker 1: tell the world about it. I was the ax man.
Speaker 1: I put that city in fear. Yeah, everybody lived in
Speaker 1: terror of me. Of course until they listened to jazz music. Yeah,
Speaker 1: listen to jazz music, you'll be fine. Yeah. So anyway,
Speaker 1: another mystery solved. I I really do buy. I think
Speaker 1: the idea that this wasn't actually just a serial killer,
Speaker 1: but was really just mob warfare, and that a lot
Speaker 1: of these people were involved. It is it is convenient
Speaker 1: because a lot of them were a talent a native Italians.
Speaker 1: This is one of those if not necessarily involved in
Speaker 1: this is an attack because you didn't pay your protection
Speaker 1: money kind of situation which is to have been practiced. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I would explain why they lived right then.
Speaker 1: It was really punishment, not like actual attack on their lives.
Speaker 1: You know, if they were all shopkeepers that lived in
Speaker 1: their shops, it could be that they were like supposed
Speaker 1: to be smuggling something or supposed to be a front,
Speaker 1: or you know, just simply that not paying their dues.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's definitely a lot of good kinds of
Speaker 1: mobs thing. Yeah, it could have been that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: It could have been warfare. Somebody was trying to say
Speaker 1: that rival gang is moving in and he's trying to
Speaker 1: take over, you know, so he starts killing soldiers and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Or you didn't you didn't take my
Speaker 1: offer to be brought in, and I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: attack you and kill you. So the next I go
Speaker 1: to I say, hey, so that that other shopkeeper he
Speaker 1: didn't take my offer, and you saw what happened to him.
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, I still do believe
Speaker 1: that probably a few of the as are as you say, piggybacking,
Speaker 1: you know, just opportunism to ideat time to sell that score. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so another mystery solved. You know what, more than like ever,
Speaker 1: I've kind of actually, you know, what I gotta say
Speaker 1: is that from everything that we read online and anybody
Speaker 1: who has ever done any investigation in this, Joe has
Speaker 1: actually brought up some cellular points that people don't always
Speaker 1: bring up. So I think that we've actually at least
Speaker 1: not shed some light where maybe it's not been done
Speaker 1: where most people focus on the letter and everything's up.
Speaker 1: The letter was cool, but I'm not even sure that
Speaker 1: we did awesome was written by that We did fantastic.
Speaker 1: We totally solved it, now, we did. We did obviously,
Speaker 1: So you probably wanted to know folks are good listeners.
Speaker 1: You probably want to know where to send the money.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, no, actually, uh, you probably want to know
Speaker 1: where to find this. But of course you've already found this.
Speaker 1: But maybe you found us at one place, but you
Speaker 1: don't know about the other places to go find us.
Speaker 1: So let's start from the top. Taking sideways podcast dot
Speaker 1: Com our web page, you will find all kinds of
Speaker 1: good stuff out there links to you can download our
Speaker 1: show and all that stuff. Uh. You can also find
Speaker 1: us on iTunes, and if you find us on iTunes,
Speaker 1: please take the time to stop give us a rating
Speaker 1: and give us a review. We'd really appreciate it. If
Speaker 1: you don't have time to go download us, and you
Speaker 1: can stream us on Stitcher. And by the way, everybody
Speaker 1: knows that we drop our shows on Thursdays Thursday mornings,
Speaker 1: which I were missed to say that we haven't mentioned before,
Speaker 1: but for our friends who are in Australia that we
Speaker 1: know we're downloading, I guess that's Friday afternoons. Sorry, guys,
Speaker 1: totally discovered that the other day by accident realized I
Speaker 1: screwed up what we said that. Also, we're on Facebook,
Speaker 1: so definitely find us on Facebook and friend us and
Speaker 1: comment and post stuff to our site or whatever from
Speaker 1: tourt what do they call it, Theseday's timeline? How does it?
Speaker 1: How does the Facebook thing work? I don't know. How
Speaker 1: does it work? I don't know. You can like us,
Speaker 1: and you can join the group, and you can join
Speaker 1: the group is actually having some there has been people
Speaker 1: are continually joining the group and it's actually making some
Speaker 1: fun interactions and discussions. So I'm really I actually enjoyed
Speaker 1: the group more than the page, to be honest. Last
Speaker 1: of af you'd like to communicate with us, You don't
Speaker 1: have our phone number and you never will, but you
Speaker 1: can have maybe some of you will, I don't know,
Speaker 1: but you can email us at Thinking Sideways Podcast at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. And believe me, you don't always necessarily
Speaker 1: get a reply back or get your email right over
Speaker 1: the show, but we do read each and everyone to
Speaker 1: be emails. Actually, everybody gets reply back everybody every email
Speaker 1: that we get that is not somebody that says dear
Speaker 1: serves and gentlemen. I am the account holder from you
Speaker 1: know those guys. Those guys can put in the spamp
Speaker 1: to everybody. Yeah, I know you don't because you're not
Speaker 1: a part of this. I'm a slacker. I checked the
Speaker 1: email account occasionally, but I'm not as assiduous about it
Speaker 1: as you guys. Yeah, it's it's that holy pops into
Speaker 1: my phone thing, don't we have. I think we We've
Speaker 1: gotten a bunch of emails, and there was one we
Speaker 1: do there was one that you wanted to read it? Yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: And I wanted to say, I think you touched on
Speaker 1: this a little bit, Joe, as we this week alone,
Speaker 1: and of course we pre record the shows, so the
Speaker 1: week that we're recording, we got a bunch of email traffic.
Speaker 1: And everything was great for everybody who sent us an
Speaker 1: email with suggestions and and kudos and accolades and all that.
Speaker 1: Appreciate that. But there's one that I really really enjoyed,
Speaker 1: and that's what I wanted read away. This is from
Speaker 1: Nicole and Nicole says, Hi, guys and girly. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: recently discovered your podcast while searching for ones about carnex
Speaker 1: stones and have had a healthy addiction ever since. Healthy
Speaker 1: is a bad choice of work. It's the best kind
Speaker 1: of ads is a healthier addiction, that's say smack. Can
Speaker 1: we go ahead? All right? Thank you? You guys do
Speaker 1: your homework often intelligently, feasible theories, and infuse it with
Speaker 1: a lot of humor. Today alone, I've busted out laughing
Speaker 1: twice while catching up some of your older episodes. I
Speaker 1: commute about seventy miles to work, and yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: huge commute. I wind about my commute. I commute about
Speaker 1: seventy miles to work, and listening to you guys really
Speaker 1: helps me past the time. I also implicitly surprised to
Speaker 1: know that you're from Portland, Oregon, which is obviously where
Speaker 1: we are, as I was born and raised in the
Speaker 1: Limb Valley, which prebody who doesn't know the Portland area
Speaker 1: where in Oregon, which Portland is at the north tip
Speaker 1: in the will Lambtte Valley is south of US, so
Speaker 1: Eugene or Eugene or Salem, Mish is a big city
Speaker 1: for those Simpsons fans Springfield. They finally even by the way,
Speaker 1: they finally revealed that s indeed Springfield, Oregon is setting.
Speaker 1: Of course it is because Mac grantings from Portland. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter, and they were quite about that for years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know. Nicole then goes on to suggest a
Speaker 1: story first look into, which called freaking hilarious. And I
Speaker 1: have an idea on how to work that in somewhere
Speaker 1: the one as always not going to reveal that to anybody,
Speaker 1: including you two. You so but no, thank you Nicole
Speaker 1: for the email. And uh, that is a terrible commute,
Speaker 1: and I'm happy that we're at least making it a
Speaker 1: little more better better for you. And I hope you
Speaker 1: find either a job that's closer to home or a
Speaker 1: home that's closer to job. Go world, I don't. I
Speaker 1: hope she can stop listening to us. Yeah that's a
Speaker 1: good point. Oh no, please stay at that job, Nicole,
Speaker 1: I love it. Don't ever leave better exactly better? Kay,
Speaker 1: Thanks very much for the email, Nicole, and uh for
Speaker 1: thinking sideways. I would like to say goodbye goodnight, everybody, goodnight,
Speaker 1: and want to say goodbye. I don't mean forever. I
Speaker 1: just mean for this week.