July 1, 2021 • 34 mins
We have a deep fascination with murder from the safety of our homes. But when the crime goes unsolved, we feel less safe that a killer walks among us.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
You're listening to American Shadows, a production of I Heart
Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. We're fascinated
by true crime. Psychologists say it's normal. We're drawn to
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good versus evil. True crime gives us a glimpse into
the minds of people who commit taboos against society. We
want to know who did it and why. We look
for the red flags, hoping we might ward off future danger.
But mostly we're hardwired for the story. It's the equivalent
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of gathering around a campfire, and if you hear one
well told story, you'll want another. Of all crime stories,
we are most obsessed with murder, from serial killers to
unsolved homicides. We want those tails. We want to be
scared from the safety of our own homes or cars
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or earbuds. We tell ourselves it can't happen to us,
or that we saw it coming all along. But the
cases where life seemed safe and normal, those terrify us
the most. Take New Orleans at the end of World
War One, for example, in late nineteen eighteen, Americans felt
at peace again, optimism for the future. Sword in celebration,
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a new type of upbeat music swept the nation jazz.
At the heart of the jazz age was New Orleans,
where a combination of swing and blues with a big
band sound kept people dancing at nightclubs throughout the French Quarter.
The city was growing and people found New Orleans a
welcome place to earn a living. In less than a decade,
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there had been the edition of an amusement park, libraries,
as zoo, and several large businesses. The now world famous
Our Nose restaurant opened. Life was Good. On May twenty
third of nineteen eighteen, Jake and Andrew Maggio went to
their brother's home on the corner of Upperline and Magnolia,
like they did every morning. They had let themselves in
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and called to their brother, Joseph and his wife Katherine.
When the couple didn't answer, they searched the home and
stumbled across a gruesome discovery. Joseph and Katherine lay in
their bed. Some one had slashed their throats with a
straight razor, then struck their heads with an axe. Catherine's
throat had been cut so deep that her head had
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practically been severed. Joseph clung to life, but died before
his brothers could summon help. Police searched the home, finding
a pile of bloody clothes. The killer had cleaned up
and changed into Joseph's clothing while the couple bled out
jewelry and money sat in plain sight. There had been
no sign of struggle or vandalism. The killer had had
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a single focus. By August, four more people had been
killed and others left for dead. All had been attacked
by a man with an axe, and all the victims
were Italian immigrants. Dubbed the axe Man, the killer terrorized
the city. Men in the Italian community began trading shifts,
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taking up watch from their porches to protect their families.
In nineteen nineteen, he crossed the river and struck again,
this time in the town of Gretna. He badly injured
a husband and wife before taking the axe to their
two year old daughter. Police and Gretna initially believed neighbors
were to blame. They ran a competing grocery business. Detectives
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visited the couple in the hospital, often asking if the
two men who lived next door were the ones who
attacked them. After the wife, Rosie, left the hospital, police
arrested her as a material witness. They refused to let
her go until she signed an affidavit naming her neighbors
as the killers. After a brief trial, the men were convicted,
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one faced a life sentence and the other was set
to hang. Rosie walked to the local newspaper office and
signed another appadavit stating she had been coerced into her confession.
The police threatened her with perjury, but she didn't back down.
Her neighbors were released in December. On March fourteenth, nineteen nineteen,
the Times Picayune received an open letter from the Axe
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Man to the people of New Orleans. He promised to
leave the city the following Tuesday at twelve fifteen am
if the citizens would play jazz at that time. On
March nineteenth, at a quarter past midnight, the sound of
jazz filled homes and dance clubs, and just like that,
the Axe Man of New Orleans vanished. The police believed
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the crimes were racially motivated. Prejudice towards those with Italian
heritage was common. Police choked up the killings as a
vendetta over perceived American jobs lost to Italian immigrants. Other
detectives suggested that the attacks had been mafia related, though
no evidence supported that theory. It was the first time
the Italian community had been accused of inciting violence in
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New Orleans. All that stood between life and death for
Italian American citizens and the Axe Men killings was time
and apparently jazz. In the late eighteen eighties, though that
line was held by an Irish cop with a talent
for solving crimes and for making enemies. I'm Lauren Vogelbaum,
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Welcome to American shadows. Depending on which side of the
law they were on, the people of New Orleans either
loved or hated David Hennessy Jr. What was agreed on, though,
is that he made a name for himself in law
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enforcement right from the start, and by all accounts, he
had got his tenacity from his father, David Sr. Who
returned from the Civil War and joined the New Orleans
Metropolitan Ease. It was the only place that would hire him,
considering his mix of Union support and Irish heritage of
complete with some stereotypical heavy drinking. But the police force
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there had supported the Union's efforts during the war, which
meant the local citizens who had prospered from slavery weren't
supportive of their police department. Like many on the force,
David Hennessey Senior was a big man, and he spent
plenty of time with his fellow officers at the local bars,
drinking and occasionally getting into fights. One night in eighteen
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sixty six, one such fight got out of hand. A
man identified only as a Grouper hurled racial insults, especially
toward the Irish American officers. During the ensuing fight, Grouper
was stabbed fatally, and in the aftermath every officer in
the bar was arrested. The case went to trial, and
a few of the officers were released when the prosecution
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couldn't provide solid evidence that they had been the ones
who had stabbed Grouper. David Sr. Was among them. Some
people didn't believe he was innocent, though. On Christmas Eve
of eight sixty eight, Hennessy smelled smoke in his house.
An arsonist had set the home on fire, hoping to
catch the family asleep. They all got out just in time.
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Three months later, Hennessy sat with one Mister Gayron, a
former cop turned underworld hitman, at a bar near the courthouse.
Garron had been arrested for his crimes, but had walked
free every time. As the two men drank, they began
to argue. Geron suggested they paused the discussion long enough
to order another round of drinks. Hennessy rose to get them,
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and that's when Gayme drew a gun and shot three
rounds into his chest. Garon claimed it was self defense.
He was arrested, of course, just two weeks later, though
he walked free. The court decided that Hennessy's reputation was
all the proof they needed to buy the self defense plea.
One of Hennessy's fellow officers gave a eulogy at his funeral.
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He said David had been an honorable cop and pointed
out all the good he had done for the city.
But those kind words were small consolation for his widow
and young son, David Jr. There were no pensions set
aside for officers laying outside of the line of duty.
Margaret and David Junior had nowhere to go except the poorhouse.
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Two years later, in eighteen seventy, Hennessey's former boss hired
twelve year old David Junior as a messenger for the
Metropolitan Police. Despite his young age, he proved to be
a reliable and diligent worker. Like father, like son. As
a teen, he confronted two adult thieves in the act. Unarmed,
he not only subdued them both, but hauled them to
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the police department single handedly. The superintendent immediately hired Hennessey
as the youngest cop on the force. In two years,
David Hennessey Junior became a detective. The superintendent was so
taken by his work ethic and polite many inner, but
when he retired in eighteen seventy eight, he fired everyone
on his team except for the young detective. That left
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a lot of department openings and angry former cops. Hennessy's
cousin Mike, joined the force, and the two frequently teamed
up to solve the city's toughest cases. Then, in eighteen
eighty one, an Italian diplomat presented Chief of Police Thomas
Boylan with a photograph. In it he pointed to a
middle aged man with dark hair, eyes, and mustache. The
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Italian government wanted to find him with the utmost discretion.
The man, Giuseppe f Posito, had kidnapped an English clergyman
who had been traveling in Italy. Esposito had committed the
crime in broad daylight. He had forced Reverend Rose to
write his own ransom note demanding a thousand pounds for
his safe return, and Esposito had included an incentive with
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the letter, one of the reverend's ears. When the Rose
family couldn't come up with the money, they received the
other ear. The British government didn't take the crime lightly.
They sent military troops to rescue Reverend Rose and capture
as Posito. The mission was successful and the case was
awaiting trial when Esposito escaped, had been trapped as far
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as New Orleans, but the Metropolitan Police and the Italian
and British governments weren't the only ones interested in finding Esposito.
A hotshot New York detective by the name of James
Mooney was also looking for the escaped convict. Believing the
Italian government already had as Posito in custody, he barged
into the Italian consulate, demanding that they hand him over.
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Chief Boilingen handed the complicated case to the department's star
Detective Hennessy, was determined es Posito wouldn't escape justice, but
he had to find him quick. Mooney's arrest paperwork hadn't
been properly filed, and if the New York detective captured
him first, the Italian kidnapper would walk free on a technicality.
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It would make a better story if the man hunt
had been drawn out dramatic, but Hennessy and his cousin
made it look easy. They knapped Esposito in the middle
of the night, and that's not to say their prisoner
went willingly, though he fought the entire way to the
awaiting police carriage. He was transported to a ship and
taken back to Italy for his crimes overnight. David Hennessey Jr.
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Became a local hero, but that faded just as quickly
when a dark scandal within the force suddenly came into focus.
A rift developed between the Chief of Police and the
new Chief of Detectives that year, Thomas Devereaux, had no
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experience had been appointed politically. The power struggle between the
two men quickly made headlines, with each side accusing the
other of corruption, favoritism, and deteriorating the force. Hennessey Junior
and his cousin, Mike, didn't like Devereaux, and the feeling
was mutual. The new chief charged Mike with insubordination after
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a couple of arguments. The police board reviewed the incidents
and censored Devereaux. The chief's career began to tank, and
he was determined to take the Hennessey cousins down with him.
He had Mike charged with drunken assault at a brothel
on Basin Street. He claimed Mike had pointed his gun
at a man and used language unbecoming of an officer.
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Then he charged David with abandoning his post. Serious accusations,
but neither solidly based in fact. Mike presented a letter
to the Police Board of Commissioners from the brothels Madame,
saying had been well behaved. When the board called for
the victim and witnesses to step forward, none did. All
the board had on Mike was visiting a brothel, which
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wasn't precisely legal, but the case was dropped. The Board
of Commissioners also dropped the charges against Tennessee, he hadn't
abandoned his post, had been sick, and had sent a
messenger to the station informing his boss. The mayor suspended Devereaux. Then,
on October twelfth of eighteen eighty one, the Chief of
Detectives was fired. The next day, Devereaux was at a
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shop on the corner of Gravier and Charles Avenue when
he spotted Mike standing on the sidewalk outside Clerks dough
for cover as a hail of bullets shattered the windows
from the inside. Mike took a bullet to the face,
breaking his teeth and jaw before lodging in his neck.
As he lay bleeding on the sidewalk, Devereux stepped outside
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and aimed once more. He never saw David running toward him,
gunn drawn. Moments later, the former chief was dead by nightfall.
Devereux's friends were insisting Mike and David had staged an ambush.
Mike survived the shooting and was resting comfortably at the hospital,
while his cousin slept in a jail cell. The case
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went to court in April of eighteen eighty two. Witnesses
for both sides presented their testimony, but in the end
the Henesses were acquitted. Though they were free, their careers
were over. Mike and his wife relocated to Texas. David
found success working in private security. Corruption and turmoil within
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the city made sure there was plenty of work, and
wealthy citizens paid handsomely. Chief Boylan quit the Metropolitan Force
in eighteen eighty two and joined the private security business
as well. In eight eight former Mayor Shakespeare was reelected
and asked David to come back to the police department,
this time as the chief of Police. The department had
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seen a decade of corruption, and David thought he might
do some good by cleaning it up. Officers who were
trustworthy and had the best interest of the city at
heart he supported in every way. He asked for safety
gear in higher wages. His effort became the top of
the town. People described Hennessey as a handsome man, though
quick to anger, like his father, playing into their stereotype
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of the Irish, but unlike his dad, they admitted, he
never touched a drop of alcohol. By eighteen ninety, Hennessy
had cleaned up a lot of the corruption inside the
Metropolitan Police. However, criminal activity, especially committed against Italian immigrants,
plagued him. Violence within the Italian community flourished as well.
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That year, a string of vendetic killings made headlines. In
his attempt to stop the violence, Hennessy found himself in
the middle of two families believed to be involved in
the city's criminal underworld, the Matranga and Provenzano families were
business rivals on the waterfront. One night, the two families
ended up in a shootout, with fatalities on both sides.
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While the case awaited trial, Hennessy investigated both families. He
learned the Patrongas had ties to the Italian crime syndicates.
The headlines weren't kind to either family, claiming that both
sides were bugs and part of the mob. In turn,
talk began around town that Hennessy was protecting criminals instead
of fighting them. Once he testified on behalf of the
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Provenzano family, rumors flew that the police chief was siding
with the mafia. On October fift of eighteen ninety, the
cold rain had been relentless. It was late and attired,
Hennessey headed home after a long police board meeting. He
bit his friend Billy O'Connor good night on the corner
of Rampart and Gerard. Then, with only the rain to
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keep him company, he made his way home. A block over.
Just as he passed his neighbor's house, the gunfire erupted,
bullets striking the buildings lodging in the plaster and wood.
O'Connor heard the shots and ran back When the gunfire stopped,
neighbors hurried outside. Someone had shot David Hennessey Jr. O'Connor
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knelt next to him, and seeing the bullet wounds and
the amount of blood, he knew time was short. Who
did this to you? He asked? Some say Hennessy told
O'Connor that the Italians did it. Other reports dispute that,
saying he was too injured too possibly name his assailants.
Either way, As the chief of police, looking to eliminate
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crime both inside and outside of his department, he had
plenty of enemies. Hennessy died shortly after arriving at the hospital.
Had accomplished a lot in his short career. He was
just thirty two years old. O'Connor's report that the Italians
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had killed him spread through the department like wildfire. Police
rounded up every Italian American they could find. Before long,
the cells were crowded. They searched homes for weapons without warrants.
After questioning, some of the arrested immigrants were released. The
next morning, two paper boys arrived at the police station
to turn in a sawed off shotgun that found in
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the gutter near Basin and Julia Street. The police noticed,
and had been redesigned in a way that allowed the
weapon to fold up. Most likely, the killer had hidden
it under oat. The police followed the boys back to
the location where they had found the gun. A quick
search turned up another shotgun. By noon, the whole town
had heard about the murder. People showed up at the
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police station with information, regardless of whether they had witnessed
the murder or not. Some tipsters claimed the Matrongas had
killed Hennessy out of revenge. Others thought the mafia had
killed him in retaliation for putting away Esposito years ago.
Whatever the motive behind the murder, most of the town
agreed the Italians were to blame and demanded aggressive action
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against them. Hennessy's portrait sat on easels at the courthouse.
Black crape hung from the walls and courtrooms, and at
central station. The morbidly curious flocked to look at the
bloodstained street and bullet riddled buildings. Hennessy had lived with
his ailing mother, too, better care for her than the
constant stream of people outside, upset her. Undertakers brought his
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body to his mother's home and giving her the chance
to view her son's body privately without the prying eyes
of the public. She had lost her husband and now
her son. Flowers and telegrams of sympathy poured in from
across the country. Mrs Hensey opened her home to the
public for viewing on October and starting at six am,
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people came by to pay their respects. At ten am,
police pallbearers carried the casket out to the waiting horse
drawn hearse. The police escorted the hearse to City Hall,
where Henessey's body lay in state while the city mourned.
A man named Thomas Duffy arrived at the Orleans Parish
Prison bullpen. He asked to speak with a man named Scaffty.
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When guards brought the prisoner out, Duffy drew a pistol
and shot him. Duffy insisted that Scaffity, one of the
men recently rounded up, had been Hennessy's assassin. He ranted
that if he had to say, every Italian would be
run out of town. Duffy was taken to jail, though
hit only serve a six month sentence, and that wasn't
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the only violence, though fights broke out. By the time
the police had thanked Missus Hennessey for her son's service
and taken her home. A hundred more Italian Americans were arrested.
No one looked further than the Italian community. On October eighteenth,
Mayor Shakespeare stood at City Hall before a large crowd
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and railed against the Italians. He shouted that something had
to be done about the problems that brought to New Orleans.
The crowd cheered and echoed the mayor's sentiments. Nineteen more
men were dragged into the station on suspicion that they
were affiliated with the Metroangas and the mafia, though no
evidence supported the claims. In newspapers continued to carry the
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headlines that Hennessy's death had been a vendetta, painting the
entire Italian community as violent. It was a powder quet
for an anti Italian riot, making matters worse. Some of
the defendants received mysterious funding for their legal fees, and
instigations soon revealed that Lionel Adams, a non Italian lawyer,
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had fronted the money, but residents speculated that the money
had come from the Italian community, who in turn had
gotten it from the mafia. The Italian prisoners remained in
jail until February six of eight. Slowly, some of the
men were released four lack of evidence, leaving nine defendants.
As the trial dragged on, so called witnesses could hardly
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get their stories straight. The defense pointed out the chaos,
but surely the jurors couldn't be beyond reasonable doubt. After
two weeks, the jurors remained deadlocked and the judge declared
a mistrial. As the defendants were escorted out of the courtroom,
shouts and jeers rippled through the crowd gathered outside. A
few shouted that the mayor had been right. Something had
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to be done, and if the law couldn't or wouldn't
do it, then they would. They called themselves the Committee
of fifty from the lowest wage or two prominent business men.
The group handed out leaflets calling on every non Italian
resident to show up for a meeting the next day.
A great miscarriage of justice had been done, and as
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concerned citizens, it was their duty to set things right.
The next morning, speakers from the group fired up the crowd.
It was all up to the citizens, They said. They
needed to make the city safe again and carry out
proper justice. They said the police force and judicial system
were corrupt that the mafia had gotten to them. Ten
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thousand people marched towards the parish prison. Shopkeepers and business
owners cheered as they passed, fueling the crowd sense of righteousness.
The Italian consuls repeated pleas for assistance against the crowd,
were ignored. The prison sheriff made a few last minute
efforts to secure the prison, but nothing could stop the
thousands of rioters. The angry crowd broke past the gates
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and forced their way inside. They overtook any guard in
their path to the holding cells. Nine Italian men were
shot on sight, one of them forty two times. Then
they dragged the bodies outside, along with two other Italian
men still alive. They hung them from lamp posts, along
with the corpses from the nine other men. It was
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one of the worst lynchings in America. Oddly enough, the
crowd had left two men who were considered ringleaders of
the French Quarter mafia alive and unharmed inside the prison,
making some contemplate the real motives behind the lynching. The
mayor never took responsibility for his suggestions that something had
to be done with the Italians. Ethnic hatreds spilled into
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other states, where more violence against Italians was reported. The
following morning, newspapers praised the crowd for the lynchings. The
people convinced themselves their actions had been justified. It hadn't
been of vendetta, they told themselves, and that was for
the mafia. What they had done was justice. Hennessy's killers
would walk free, but they might have been wrong about that.
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It wasn't over quite yet. Although the public had applauded
the crowd's decision to lynch the men, a grand jury
convened to investigate on March sevent to get to the
root of the story, they also had to reopen Hennessy's
murder case as well. Weeks went by as the city
waited for the verdict. On May five, the jury announced
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that the crowd had stormed the prison, had formed spontaneously
and had not initially set out to harm anyone. Though
they had been swept up in the moment and eleven
men were killed, it was more than understandable, it was praiseworthy. Further,
they claimed that the mafia had bribed members of the
jury and the Hennessy trial who had voted against conviction.
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No action would be taken against them because the court
claimed the unnamed jurors feared retaliation. The Committee of fifty
released their own report, stating that they had acted on
the Mayor's speech that something be done. They also said
had permitted them to investigate all Italians. In their report,
they named several Italian families, stating they often gave substantial
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money to the criminal underground in New Orleans. They also
claimed the Italian consul Corte admitted to knowing a purely
Italian criminal class operated in the city. Facts and evidence
were vague. They strongly suggested that the city refused to
accept Italian immigrants or anyone who even looked Sicilian, and
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their suggestion fueled the bias that anyone with an olive
complexion and dark hair and eyes must be a criminal.
By the late eighteen eighties, other Americans became fascinated with
what they perceived to be secret Italian societies where crime flourished.
Even Harper's Weekly promoted ethnic hatred while reporting the Hennessey murder,
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stating the attack had been made by quote a murderous
society long formidable in Sicily and transplanted to this country
by Sicilian immigrants. Hennessy had been a first generation American,
had witnessed how the Irish had been blamed for crimes
simply because of stereotypes. Although the Committee of Fifty believed
the men that had lynched that day were mafia assassins
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and therefore deserved to die, no evidence has ever been
found that associated them with the mafia. With the evidence
or black thereof, it's hard to say whether Hennessy's assassination
was an inside job or not. Had racial Divide been
a smoke screen, or did the mafia have him killed
for capturing us Posito. It might have been any number
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of men had put away crooked cops, disgruntled officers, or
even one of Devereaux's connected friends. And Sadly, although Hennessy
had a reputation for buttoning up the toughest of crimes,
his own murder has yet to be solved. There's more
to this story. Stick around after this brief sponsor break
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to hear all about it. Locked room Mysteries. They're the
perfect impossible crime. They've been a favorite of detective story
fans for decades, so it's hard to believe that in
the early nineteen hundreds the genre had all but faded
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into obscurity, that is, until Joseph Elwell. On the morning
of June eleventh of nineteen twenty, the milkman dropped off
the daily delivery at a large New York brownstone. The
gates outside were closed and locked, as he expected. At
eight thirty a m. Marie Larson, l Well's maid, arrived
for work. Pink women's lingerie lay strewn on the floor.
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After picking it up, she looked for her employer. She
found the living room door locked from the inside, which
was unusual, and she fished the key from her pocket.
Upon entry, a cursory glance told her el Well was
at his desk, back toward her in his tall wingback chair.
When he didn't respond to several greetings, she drew closer
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and discovered a toothless, balding man gasping for breath with
a bullet wound in his head. In her shock, it
took a moment before she realized the man was el Well,
without his dentures and wig. Naturally, she called the police,
but not before hiding the lingerie in the clothes hamper.
Elwell was still alive when police showed up, but died
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shortly after arriving at the hospital. The police debated how
he could have been shot at close range inside a
locked room. El Well's brownstone was a virtual fortress, according
to those who knew him. No one gained entry unless
they were expected. A pile of half opened mail sat
on his desk. No one except Elwell had been seen
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entering the home during the last hours of his life.
Given the lack of dentures and hair piece, detective's surmise
had known his killer, So who shot him Well? There
were plenty of suspects, nearly a thousand according to police reports.
In the nineteen teens, Elwell was living the American dream.
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He had started life as an insurance salesman and found
the charm worked wonders at making deals. It worked so
well that he used his charisma to gain access to
an elite men's club reserved for the sons of the
rich upper class. The club revolved around Bridge. The game
had taken the country by storm, and the better players
earned quite a bit of money. For forty three year
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old Elwell, though, the club provided the perfect opportunity to
make wealthy connections with business tycoons and politicians. Elwell was
an exceptionally good player, and his ruthlessness at the table
earned him the nickname the bridge King of Manhattan. His
prowess attracted the best of partners. Harold Sterling Vanderbilt, grandson
of the railroad executive, He introduced Elwell to another socialite
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and bridge player, Helen Derby. Being the social climber he was,
it didn't take Elwell long to find that Helen's connections
would be beneficial. Her cousin, Richard Derby, was married to
Franklin D. Roosevelt's daughter Ethel Not to mention the young
socialite came from money as well. Their courtship was quick,
and before long the two married with his wealthy young
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wife and wins at the bridge table. Elwell left the
insurance business and spent his time either socializing, playing bridge,
or teaching affluent students how to play the game. Now
part of the upper class, he purchased a second home
in Palm Beach, Florida, along with twenty racehorses, five cars,
and a yacht. Helen was simply a means to acquire wealth.
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Then he immediately embarked on multiple affairs. He had so
many that Derby left in nineteen sixteen, taking their five
year old son with her. Free of his wife and child,
but still living off her money, Elwell took his womanizing
to a new level. He engaged in numerous encounters with
bridge students, cocktail waitresses, and the wives of very prominent
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business and political associates, as well as those of his
fellow players. Married women seemed to be his favorite. Between
gambling enemies, a host of angry husbands, and his demands
in the divorce settlement, Elwell had become the most despised
man in New York. He didn't care, though. He was
determined to have a good time, even at the expense
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of those who helped him along the way. On June
tenth of nineteen twenty, Elwell wined and dined Viola Krauss,
who had just recently divorced her wealthy husband. The couple
enjoyed a lavish dinner and a night of dancing at
the Ritz Carlton. Afterward, they attended a Zigfeld midnight frolic
show in Times Square that ended around one thirty a m.
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Viola took a taxi home, while Elwell said he preferred
to walk. Times Square was a good two and a
half miles from Elwell's brownstone on East Sandieth though he
didn't head home. He made a stop, probably a planned
one that he hadn't told Viola about, at a cafe
on Broadway. Witnesses said he spent some time with two
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men and another woman. They said he left with the
trio in a flashy roadster. Phone records show Viola called
Elwell at two thirty a m. She later told police
that he never answered. His neighbors said a noisy roadster
pulled up outside the brownstone at three forty five, but
only Elwell exited the vehicle. A search turned up the lingerie,
(32:34):
and they questioned the maid. Then they questioned Viola, who
admitted the lingerie was hers and that she had been
intimate with Elwell on multiple occasions in the past, but
denied being with him the knight of his murder. Her
ex husband had an air tight alibi. L Well's estranged
wife wasn't in town and was also removed as a suspect.
(32:55):
Elwell kept photographs and lingerie from his conquests, all of
whom were much younger than him. He also kept a
list that included names, phone numbers, and explicit notes. Now
detectives had a dizzying number of suspects and theories. Some
speculated that had had a woman at his home before
leaving her for his date, and the angry woman shot
(33:17):
him upon his return, but it could have been any
of the boyfriend's, husband's or jilted women. The case remained unsolved,
and Elwell became more famous for his death than his life,
reviving the appeal of locked room mysteries. If anything, were
as obsessed with unsolved murders as we are with solved cases,
(33:38):
because in the end, it's terrifying to know a killer
still walks among us. American Shadows is hosted by Lauren Vogelbaum.
This episode was written by Michelle Muto, researched by Ali Steed,
(34:00):
and produced by Miranda Hawkins and Trevor Young, with executive
producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. To learn
more about the show, visit Grim and Mild dot com.
From more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
You're listening to American Shadows, a production of I Heart
Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. We're fascinated
by true crime. Psychologists say it's normal. We're drawn to
(00:23):
good versus evil. True crime gives us a glimpse into
the minds of people who commit taboos against society. We
want to know who did it and why. We look
for the red flags, hoping we might ward off future danger.
But mostly we're hardwired for the story. It's the equivalent
(00:44):
of gathering around a campfire, and if you hear one
well told story, you'll want another. Of all crime stories,
we are most obsessed with murder, from serial killers to
unsolved homicides. We want those tails. We want to be
scared from the safety of our own homes or cars
(01:04):
or earbuds. We tell ourselves it can't happen to us,
or that we saw it coming all along. But the
cases where life seemed safe and normal, those terrify us
the most. Take New Orleans at the end of World
War One, for example, in late nineteen eighteen, Americans felt
at peace again, optimism for the future. Sword in celebration,
(01:29):
a new type of upbeat music swept the nation jazz.
At the heart of the jazz age was New Orleans,
where a combination of swing and blues with a big
band sound kept people dancing at nightclubs throughout the French Quarter.
The city was growing and people found New Orleans a
welcome place to earn a living. In less than a decade,
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there had been the edition of an amusement park, libraries,
as zoo, and several large businesses. The now world famous
Our Nose restaurant opened. Life was Good. On May twenty
third of nineteen eighteen, Jake and Andrew Maggio went to
their brother's home on the corner of Upperline and Magnolia,
like they did every morning. They had let themselves in
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and called to their brother, Joseph and his wife Katherine.
When the couple didn't answer, they searched the home and
stumbled across a gruesome discovery. Joseph and Katherine lay in
their bed. Some one had slashed their throats with a
straight razor, then struck their heads with an axe. Catherine's
throat had been cut so deep that her head had
(02:31):
practically been severed. Joseph clung to life, but died before
his brothers could summon help. Police searched the home, finding
a pile of bloody clothes. The killer had cleaned up
and changed into Joseph's clothing while the couple bled out
jewelry and money sat in plain sight. There had been
no sign of struggle or vandalism. The killer had had
(02:52):
a single focus. By August, four more people had been
killed and others left for dead. All had been attacked
by a man with an axe, and all the victims
were Italian immigrants. Dubbed the axe Man, the killer terrorized
the city. Men in the Italian community began trading shifts,
(03:12):
taking up watch from their porches to protect their families.
In nineteen nineteen, he crossed the river and struck again,
this time in the town of Gretna. He badly injured
a husband and wife before taking the axe to their
two year old daughter. Police and Gretna initially believed neighbors
were to blame. They ran a competing grocery business. Detectives
(03:34):
visited the couple in the hospital, often asking if the
two men who lived next door were the ones who
attacked them. After the wife, Rosie, left the hospital, police
arrested her as a material witness. They refused to let
her go until she signed an affidavit naming her neighbors
as the killers. After a brief trial, the men were convicted,
(03:55):
one faced a life sentence and the other was set
to hang. Rosie walked to the local newspaper office and
signed another appadavit stating she had been coerced into her confession.
The police threatened her with perjury, but she didn't back down.
Her neighbors were released in December. On March fourteenth, nineteen nineteen,
the Times Picayune received an open letter from the Axe
(04:17):
Man to the people of New Orleans. He promised to
leave the city the following Tuesday at twelve fifteen am
if the citizens would play jazz at that time. On
March nineteenth, at a quarter past midnight, the sound of
jazz filled homes and dance clubs, and just like that,
the Axe Man of New Orleans vanished. The police believed
(04:41):
the crimes were racially motivated. Prejudice towards those with Italian
heritage was common. Police choked up the killings as a
vendetta over perceived American jobs lost to Italian immigrants. Other
detectives suggested that the attacks had been mafia related, though
no evidence supported that theory. It was the first time
the Italian community had been accused of inciting violence in
(05:04):
New Orleans. All that stood between life and death for
Italian American citizens and the Axe Men killings was time
and apparently jazz. In the late eighteen eighties, though that
line was held by an Irish cop with a talent
for solving crimes and for making enemies. I'm Lauren Vogelbaum,
(05:27):
Welcome to American shadows. Depending on which side of the
law they were on, the people of New Orleans either
loved or hated David Hennessy Jr. What was agreed on, though,
is that he made a name for himself in law
(05:49):
enforcement right from the start, and by all accounts, he
had got his tenacity from his father, David Sr. Who
returned from the Civil War and joined the New Orleans
Metropolitan Ease. It was the only place that would hire him,
considering his mix of Union support and Irish heritage of
complete with some stereotypical heavy drinking. But the police force
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there had supported the Union's efforts during the war, which
meant the local citizens who had prospered from slavery weren't
supportive of their police department. Like many on the force,
David Hennessey Senior was a big man, and he spent
plenty of time with his fellow officers at the local bars,
drinking and occasionally getting into fights. One night in eighteen
(06:32):
sixty six, one such fight got out of hand. A
man identified only as a Grouper hurled racial insults, especially
toward the Irish American officers. During the ensuing fight, Grouper
was stabbed fatally, and in the aftermath every officer in
the bar was arrested. The case went to trial, and
a few of the officers were released when the prosecution
(06:54):
couldn't provide solid evidence that they had been the ones
who had stabbed Grouper. David Sr. Was among them. Some
people didn't believe he was innocent, though. On Christmas Eve
of eight sixty eight, Hennessy smelled smoke in his house.
An arsonist had set the home on fire, hoping to
catch the family asleep. They all got out just in time.
(07:16):
Three months later, Hennessy sat with one Mister Gayron, a
former cop turned underworld hitman, at a bar near the courthouse.
Garron had been arrested for his crimes, but had walked
free every time. As the two men drank, they began
to argue. Geron suggested they paused the discussion long enough
to order another round of drinks. Hennessy rose to get them,
(07:38):
and that's when Gayme drew a gun and shot three
rounds into his chest. Garon claimed it was self defense.
He was arrested, of course, just two weeks later, though
he walked free. The court decided that Hennessy's reputation was
all the proof they needed to buy the self defense plea.
One of Hennessy's fellow officers gave a eulogy at his funeral.
(08:02):
He said David had been an honorable cop and pointed
out all the good he had done for the city.
But those kind words were small consolation for his widow
and young son, David Jr. There were no pensions set
aside for officers laying outside of the line of duty.
Margaret and David Junior had nowhere to go except the poorhouse.
(08:23):
Two years later, in eighteen seventy, Hennessey's former boss hired
twelve year old David Junior as a messenger for the
Metropolitan Police. Despite his young age, he proved to be
a reliable and diligent worker. Like father, like son. As
a teen, he confronted two adult thieves in the act. Unarmed,
he not only subdued them both, but hauled them to
(08:44):
the police department single handedly. The superintendent immediately hired Hennessey
as the youngest cop on the force. In two years,
David Hennessey Junior became a detective. The superintendent was so
taken by his work ethic and polite many inner, but
when he retired in eighteen seventy eight, he fired everyone
on his team except for the young detective. That left
(09:08):
a lot of department openings and angry former cops. Hennessy's
cousin Mike, joined the force, and the two frequently teamed
up to solve the city's toughest cases. Then, in eighteen
eighty one, an Italian diplomat presented Chief of Police Thomas
Boylan with a photograph. In it he pointed to a
middle aged man with dark hair, eyes, and mustache. The
(09:30):
Italian government wanted to find him with the utmost discretion.
The man, Giuseppe f Posito, had kidnapped an English clergyman
who had been traveling in Italy. Esposito had committed the
crime in broad daylight. He had forced Reverend Rose to
write his own ransom note demanding a thousand pounds for
his safe return, and Esposito had included an incentive with
(09:52):
the letter, one of the reverend's ears. When the Rose
family couldn't come up with the money, they received the
other ear. The British government didn't take the crime lightly.
They sent military troops to rescue Reverend Rose and capture
as Posito. The mission was successful and the case was
awaiting trial when Esposito escaped, had been trapped as far
(10:13):
as New Orleans, but the Metropolitan Police and the Italian
and British governments weren't the only ones interested in finding Esposito.
A hotshot New York detective by the name of James
Mooney was also looking for the escaped convict. Believing the
Italian government already had as Posito in custody, he barged
into the Italian consulate, demanding that they hand him over.
(10:36):
Chief Boilingen handed the complicated case to the department's star
Detective Hennessy, was determined es Posito wouldn't escape justice, but
he had to find him quick. Mooney's arrest paperwork hadn't
been properly filed, and if the New York detective captured
him first, the Italian kidnapper would walk free on a technicality.
(10:57):
It would make a better story if the man hunt
had been drawn out dramatic, but Hennessy and his cousin
made it look easy. They knapped Esposito in the middle
of the night, and that's not to say their prisoner
went willingly, though he fought the entire way to the
awaiting police carriage. He was transported to a ship and
taken back to Italy for his crimes overnight. David Hennessey Jr.
(11:20):
Became a local hero, but that faded just as quickly
when a dark scandal within the force suddenly came into focus.
A rift developed between the Chief of Police and the
new Chief of Detectives that year, Thomas Devereaux, had no
(11:44):
experience had been appointed politically. The power struggle between the
two men quickly made headlines, with each side accusing the
other of corruption, favoritism, and deteriorating the force. Hennessey Junior
and his cousin, Mike, didn't like Devereaux, and the feeling
was mutual. The new chief charged Mike with insubordination after
(12:04):
a couple of arguments. The police board reviewed the incidents
and censored Devereaux. The chief's career began to tank, and
he was determined to take the Hennessey cousins down with him.
He had Mike charged with drunken assault at a brothel
on Basin Street. He claimed Mike had pointed his gun
at a man and used language unbecoming of an officer.
(12:26):
Then he charged David with abandoning his post. Serious accusations,
but neither solidly based in fact. Mike presented a letter
to the Police Board of Commissioners from the brothels Madame,
saying had been well behaved. When the board called for
the victim and witnesses to step forward, none did. All
the board had on Mike was visiting a brothel, which
(12:47):
wasn't precisely legal, but the case was dropped. The Board
of Commissioners also dropped the charges against Tennessee, he hadn't
abandoned his post, had been sick, and had sent a
messenger to the station informing his boss. The mayor suspended Devereaux. Then,
on October twelfth of eighteen eighty one, the Chief of
Detectives was fired. The next day, Devereaux was at a
(13:09):
shop on the corner of Gravier and Charles Avenue when
he spotted Mike standing on the sidewalk outside Clerks dough
for cover as a hail of bullets shattered the windows
from the inside. Mike took a bullet to the face,
breaking his teeth and jaw before lodging in his neck.
As he lay bleeding on the sidewalk, Devereux stepped outside
(13:30):
and aimed once more. He never saw David running toward him,
gunn drawn. Moments later, the former chief was dead by nightfall.
Devereux's friends were insisting Mike and David had staged an ambush.
Mike survived the shooting and was resting comfortably at the hospital,
while his cousin slept in a jail cell. The case
(13:50):
went to court in April of eighteen eighty two. Witnesses
for both sides presented their testimony, but in the end
the Henesses were acquitted. Though they were free, their careers
were over. Mike and his wife relocated to Texas. David
found success working in private security. Corruption and turmoil within
(14:12):
the city made sure there was plenty of work, and
wealthy citizens paid handsomely. Chief Boylan quit the Metropolitan Force
in eighteen eighty two and joined the private security business
as well. In eight eight former Mayor Shakespeare was reelected
and asked David to come back to the police department,
this time as the chief of Police. The department had
(14:32):
seen a decade of corruption, and David thought he might
do some good by cleaning it up. Officers who were
trustworthy and had the best interest of the city at
heart he supported in every way. He asked for safety
gear in higher wages. His effort became the top of
the town. People described Hennessey as a handsome man, though
quick to anger, like his father, playing into their stereotype
(14:56):
of the Irish, but unlike his dad, they admitted, he
never touched a drop of alcohol. By eighteen ninety, Hennessy
had cleaned up a lot of the corruption inside the
Metropolitan Police. However, criminal activity, especially committed against Italian immigrants,
plagued him. Violence within the Italian community flourished as well.
(15:17):
That year, a string of vendetic killings made headlines. In
his attempt to stop the violence, Hennessy found himself in
the middle of two families believed to be involved in
the city's criminal underworld, the Matranga and Provenzano families were
business rivals on the waterfront. One night, the two families
ended up in a shootout, with fatalities on both sides.
(15:40):
While the case awaited trial, Hennessy investigated both families. He
learned the Patrongas had ties to the Italian crime syndicates.
The headlines weren't kind to either family, claiming that both
sides were bugs and part of the mob. In turn,
talk began around town that Hennessy was protecting criminals instead
of fighting them. Once he testified on behalf of the
(16:02):
Provenzano family, rumors flew that the police chief was siding
with the mafia. On October fift of eighteen ninety, the
cold rain had been relentless. It was late and attired,
Hennessey headed home after a long police board meeting. He
bit his friend Billy O'Connor good night on the corner
of Rampart and Gerard. Then, with only the rain to
(16:23):
keep him company, he made his way home. A block over.
Just as he passed his neighbor's house, the gunfire erupted,
bullets striking the buildings lodging in the plaster and wood.
O'Connor heard the shots and ran back When the gunfire stopped,
neighbors hurried outside. Someone had shot David Hennessey Jr. O'Connor
(16:44):
knelt next to him, and seeing the bullet wounds and
the amount of blood, he knew time was short. Who
did this to you? He asked? Some say Hennessy told
O'Connor that the Italians did it. Other reports dispute that,
saying he was too injured too possibly name his assailants.
Either way, As the chief of police, looking to eliminate
(17:04):
crime both inside and outside of his department, he had
plenty of enemies. Hennessy died shortly after arriving at the hospital.
Had accomplished a lot in his short career. He was
just thirty two years old. O'Connor's report that the Italians
(17:27):
had killed him spread through the department like wildfire. Police
rounded up every Italian American they could find. Before long,
the cells were crowded. They searched homes for weapons without warrants.
After questioning, some of the arrested immigrants were released. The
next morning, two paper boys arrived at the police station
to turn in a sawed off shotgun that found in
(17:50):
the gutter near Basin and Julia Street. The police noticed,
and had been redesigned in a way that allowed the
weapon to fold up. Most likely, the killer had hidden
it under oat. The police followed the boys back to
the location where they had found the gun. A quick
search turned up another shotgun. By noon, the whole town
had heard about the murder. People showed up at the
(18:12):
police station with information, regardless of whether they had witnessed
the murder or not. Some tipsters claimed the Matrongas had
killed Hennessy out of revenge. Others thought the mafia had
killed him in retaliation for putting away Esposito years ago.
Whatever the motive behind the murder, most of the town
agreed the Italians were to blame and demanded aggressive action
(18:33):
against them. Hennessy's portrait sat on easels at the courthouse.
Black crape hung from the walls and courtrooms, and at
central station. The morbidly curious flocked to look at the
bloodstained street and bullet riddled buildings. Hennessy had lived with
his ailing mother, too, better care for her than the
constant stream of people outside, upset her. Undertakers brought his
(18:57):
body to his mother's home and giving her the chance
to view her son's body privately without the prying eyes
of the public. She had lost her husband and now
her son. Flowers and telegrams of sympathy poured in from
across the country. Mrs Hensey opened her home to the
public for viewing on October and starting at six am,
(19:18):
people came by to pay their respects. At ten am,
police pallbearers carried the casket out to the waiting horse
drawn hearse. The police escorted the hearse to City Hall,
where Henessey's body lay in state while the city mourned.
A man named Thomas Duffy arrived at the Orleans Parish
Prison bullpen. He asked to speak with a man named Scaffty.
(19:40):
When guards brought the prisoner out, Duffy drew a pistol
and shot him. Duffy insisted that Scaffity, one of the
men recently rounded up, had been Hennessy's assassin. He ranted
that if he had to say, every Italian would be
run out of town. Duffy was taken to jail, though
hit only serve a six month sentence, and that wasn't
(20:00):
the only violence, though fights broke out. By the time
the police had thanked Missus Hennessey for her son's service
and taken her home. A hundred more Italian Americans were arrested.
No one looked further than the Italian community. On October eighteenth,
Mayor Shakespeare stood at City Hall before a large crowd
(20:21):
and railed against the Italians. He shouted that something had
to be done about the problems that brought to New Orleans.
The crowd cheered and echoed the mayor's sentiments. Nineteen more
men were dragged into the station on suspicion that they
were affiliated with the Metroangas and the mafia, though no
evidence supported the claims. In newspapers continued to carry the
(20:43):
headlines that Hennessy's death had been a vendetta, painting the
entire Italian community as violent. It was a powder quet
for an anti Italian riot, making matters worse. Some of
the defendants received mysterious funding for their legal fees, and
instigations soon revealed that Lionel Adams, a non Italian lawyer,
(21:03):
had fronted the money, but residents speculated that the money
had come from the Italian community, who in turn had
gotten it from the mafia. The Italian prisoners remained in
jail until February six of eight. Slowly, some of the
men were released four lack of evidence, leaving nine defendants.
As the trial dragged on, so called witnesses could hardly
(21:26):
get their stories straight. The defense pointed out the chaos,
but surely the jurors couldn't be beyond reasonable doubt. After
two weeks, the jurors remained deadlocked and the judge declared
a mistrial. As the defendants were escorted out of the courtroom,
shouts and jeers rippled through the crowd gathered outside. A
few shouted that the mayor had been right. Something had
(21:49):
to be done, and if the law couldn't or wouldn't
do it, then they would. They called themselves the Committee
of fifty from the lowest wage or two prominent business men.
The group handed out leaflets calling on every non Italian
resident to show up for a meeting the next day.
A great miscarriage of justice had been done, and as
(22:10):
concerned citizens, it was their duty to set things right.
The next morning, speakers from the group fired up the crowd.
It was all up to the citizens, They said. They
needed to make the city safe again and carry out
proper justice. They said the police force and judicial system
were corrupt that the mafia had gotten to them. Ten
(22:31):
thousand people marched towards the parish prison. Shopkeepers and business
owners cheered as they passed, fueling the crowd sense of righteousness.
The Italian consuls repeated pleas for assistance against the crowd,
were ignored. The prison sheriff made a few last minute
efforts to secure the prison, but nothing could stop the
thousands of rioters. The angry crowd broke past the gates
(22:54):
and forced their way inside. They overtook any guard in
their path to the holding cells. Nine Italian men were
shot on sight, one of them forty two times. Then
they dragged the bodies outside, along with two other Italian
men still alive. They hung them from lamp posts, along
with the corpses from the nine other men. It was
(23:15):
one of the worst lynchings in America. Oddly enough, the
crowd had left two men who were considered ringleaders of
the French Quarter mafia alive and unharmed inside the prison,
making some contemplate the real motives behind the lynching. The
mayor never took responsibility for his suggestions that something had
to be done with the Italians. Ethnic hatreds spilled into
(23:39):
other states, where more violence against Italians was reported. The
following morning, newspapers praised the crowd for the lynchings. The
people convinced themselves their actions had been justified. It hadn't
been of vendetta, they told themselves, and that was for
the mafia. What they had done was justice. Hennessy's killers
would walk free, but they might have been wrong about that.
(24:10):
It wasn't over quite yet. Although the public had applauded
the crowd's decision to lynch the men, a grand jury
convened to investigate on March sevent to get to the
root of the story, they also had to reopen Hennessy's
murder case as well. Weeks went by as the city
waited for the verdict. On May five, the jury announced
(24:31):
that the crowd had stormed the prison, had formed spontaneously
and had not initially set out to harm anyone. Though
they had been swept up in the moment and eleven
men were killed, it was more than understandable, it was praiseworthy. Further,
they claimed that the mafia had bribed members of the
jury and the Hennessy trial who had voted against conviction.
(24:52):
No action would be taken against them because the court
claimed the unnamed jurors feared retaliation. The Committee of fifty
released their own report, stating that they had acted on
the Mayor's speech that something be done. They also said
had permitted them to investigate all Italians. In their report,
they named several Italian families, stating they often gave substantial
(25:14):
money to the criminal underground in New Orleans. They also
claimed the Italian consul Corte admitted to knowing a purely
Italian criminal class operated in the city. Facts and evidence
were vague. They strongly suggested that the city refused to
accept Italian immigrants or anyone who even looked Sicilian, and
(25:36):
their suggestion fueled the bias that anyone with an olive
complexion and dark hair and eyes must be a criminal.
By the late eighteen eighties, other Americans became fascinated with
what they perceived to be secret Italian societies where crime flourished.
Even Harper's Weekly promoted ethnic hatred while reporting the Hennessey murder,
(25:57):
stating the attack had been made by quote a murderous
society long formidable in Sicily and transplanted to this country
by Sicilian immigrants. Hennessy had been a first generation American,
had witnessed how the Irish had been blamed for crimes
simply because of stereotypes. Although the Committee of Fifty believed
the men that had lynched that day were mafia assassins
(26:19):
and therefore deserved to die, no evidence has ever been
found that associated them with the mafia. With the evidence
or black thereof, it's hard to say whether Hennessy's assassination
was an inside job or not. Had racial Divide been
a smoke screen, or did the mafia have him killed
for capturing us Posito. It might have been any number
(26:41):
of men had put away crooked cops, disgruntled officers, or
even one of Devereaux's connected friends. And Sadly, although Hennessy
had a reputation for buttoning up the toughest of crimes,
his own murder has yet to be solved. There's more
to this story. Stick around after this brief sponsor break
(27:03):
to hear all about it. Locked room Mysteries. They're the
perfect impossible crime. They've been a favorite of detective story
fans for decades, so it's hard to believe that in
the early nineteen hundreds the genre had all but faded
(27:25):
into obscurity, that is, until Joseph Elwell. On the morning
of June eleventh of nineteen twenty, the milkman dropped off
the daily delivery at a large New York brownstone. The
gates outside were closed and locked, as he expected. At
eight thirty a m. Marie Larson, l Well's maid, arrived
for work. Pink women's lingerie lay strewn on the floor.
(27:50):
After picking it up, she looked for her employer. She
found the living room door locked from the inside, which
was unusual, and she fished the key from her pocket.
Upon entry, a cursory glance told her el Well was
at his desk, back toward her in his tall wingback chair.
When he didn't respond to several greetings, she drew closer
(28:11):
and discovered a toothless, balding man gasping for breath with
a bullet wound in his head. In her shock, it
took a moment before she realized the man was el Well,
without his dentures and wig. Naturally, she called the police,
but not before hiding the lingerie in the clothes hamper.
Elwell was still alive when police showed up, but died
(28:32):
shortly after arriving at the hospital. The police debated how
he could have been shot at close range inside a
locked room. El Well's brownstone was a virtual fortress, according
to those who knew him. No one gained entry unless
they were expected. A pile of half opened mail sat
on his desk. No one except Elwell had been seen
(28:53):
entering the home during the last hours of his life.
Given the lack of dentures and hair piece, detective's surmise
had known his killer, So who shot him Well? There
were plenty of suspects, nearly a thousand according to police reports.
In the nineteen teens, Elwell was living the American dream.
(29:14):
He had started life as an insurance salesman and found
the charm worked wonders at making deals. It worked so
well that he used his charisma to gain access to
an elite men's club reserved for the sons of the
rich upper class. The club revolved around Bridge. The game
had taken the country by storm, and the better players
earned quite a bit of money. For forty three year
(29:36):
old Elwell, though, the club provided the perfect opportunity to
make wealthy connections with business tycoons and politicians. Elwell was
an exceptionally good player, and his ruthlessness at the table
earned him the nickname the bridge King of Manhattan. His
prowess attracted the best of partners. Harold Sterling Vanderbilt, grandson
of the railroad executive, He introduced Elwell to another socialite
(30:00):
and bridge player, Helen Derby. Being the social climber he was,
it didn't take Elwell long to find that Helen's connections
would be beneficial. Her cousin, Richard Derby, was married to
Franklin D. Roosevelt's daughter Ethel Not to mention the young
socialite came from money as well. Their courtship was quick,
and before long the two married with his wealthy young
(30:24):
wife and wins at the bridge table. Elwell left the
insurance business and spent his time either socializing, playing bridge,
or teaching affluent students how to play the game. Now
part of the upper class, he purchased a second home
in Palm Beach, Florida, along with twenty racehorses, five cars,
and a yacht. Helen was simply a means to acquire wealth.
(30:45):
Then he immediately embarked on multiple affairs. He had so
many that Derby left in nineteen sixteen, taking their five
year old son with her. Free of his wife and child,
but still living off her money, Elwell took his womanizing
to a new level. He engaged in numerous encounters with
bridge students, cocktail waitresses, and the wives of very prominent
(31:06):
business and political associates, as well as those of his
fellow players. Married women seemed to be his favorite. Between
gambling enemies, a host of angry husbands, and his demands
in the divorce settlement, Elwell had become the most despised
man in New York. He didn't care, though. He was
determined to have a good time, even at the expense
(31:29):
of those who helped him along the way. On June
tenth of nineteen twenty, Elwell wined and dined Viola Krauss,
who had just recently divorced her wealthy husband. The couple
enjoyed a lavish dinner and a night of dancing at
the Ritz Carlton. Afterward, they attended a Zigfeld midnight frolic
show in Times Square that ended around one thirty a m.
(31:50):
Viola took a taxi home, while Elwell said he preferred
to walk. Times Square was a good two and a
half miles from Elwell's brownstone on East Sandieth though he
didn't head home. He made a stop, probably a planned
one that he hadn't told Viola about, at a cafe
on Broadway. Witnesses said he spent some time with two
(32:12):
men and another woman. They said he left with the
trio in a flashy roadster. Phone records show Viola called
Elwell at two thirty a m. She later told police
that he never answered. His neighbors said a noisy roadster
pulled up outside the brownstone at three forty five, but
only Elwell exited the vehicle. A search turned up the lingerie,
(32:34):
and they questioned the maid. Then they questioned Viola, who
admitted the lingerie was hers and that she had been
intimate with Elwell on multiple occasions in the past, but
denied being with him the knight of his murder. Her
ex husband had an air tight alibi. L Well's estranged
wife wasn't in town and was also removed as a suspect.
(32:55):
Elwell kept photographs and lingerie from his conquests, all of
whom were much younger than him. He also kept a
list that included names, phone numbers, and explicit notes. Now
detectives had a dizzying number of suspects and theories. Some
speculated that had had a woman at his home before
leaving her for his date, and the angry woman shot
(33:17):
him upon his return, but it could have been any
of the boyfriend's, husband's or jilted women. The case remained unsolved,
and Elwell became more famous for his death than his life,
reviving the appeal of locked room mysteries. If anything, were
as obsessed with unsolved murders as we are with solved cases,
(33:38):
because in the end, it's terrifying to know a killer
still walks among us. American Shadows is hosted by Lauren Vogelbaum.
This episode was written by Michelle Muto, researched by Ali Steed,
(34:00):
and produced by Miranda Hawkins and Trevor Young, with executive
producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. To learn
more about the show, visit Grim and Mild dot com.
From more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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