December 11, 2013 • 25 mins
The second half of the Axman story involves his famous letter to the New Orleans Times-Picayune warning that he would descend on the city, but would spare anyone with a live jazz band playing in their house. But had the Axman been murdering before 1918?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast
I'll Fry and I'm Won. Today we are going to
resume our talk about X Murderer, Yes, part two of
(00:23):
our American horror story Kevin inspired episode. Yeah. I'm actually
pretty glad that something else came up, because a suit
like the soon as Kevin premiered, people were tweeting at
us and writing on our Facebook and stuff saying can
you please, please please do something about the history of
the show, And we were like, well, past hosts have
already covered the history that is Marie Laveau. Yeah, like,
(00:46):
they're already episodes about that in archive, and so I
was sort of like, well, if they have something else
we haven't talked about before, then sure. Well. And I
remember during the second season of the show, I got
really excited when I found out they were gonna use
some historical happenings to inspire things, but they kind of
(01:06):
abandoned them or they changed them so much that it
really wasn't worth making the connection. Yeah. Well, in the
second season of it was also so much more scattered
and all of the different elements of things that we're
sort of disparate weird things happening at the time. This
one is much more focused on New Orleans and horror. Uh. So,
(01:28):
in case you missed our intro in the last episode
when they introduced the act Man of New Orleans, and
we have when we're recording this, he has only appeared
in one episode. We'll see what happens and how completely
out of whack it gets in terms of history. I mean,
we're already out of whack in terms of history with him. Uh.
But the way they introduced that character is very rooted
(01:49):
in reality and in an event that actually happened in
New Orleans in the early nineteen hundred's, So we are
picking up kind of in the middle of his crimes
free uh on March tenth of nineteen nineteen, which is
yet another incident of an attack. So because there had
been this pause in attacks, the last one that we
(02:10):
talked about was towards the inh of nineteen eighteen. Now
we were getting into the early part of nineteen nineteen.
UM the nation had kind of turned its eyes instead
to the end of the fighting of World War One,
although the war didn't formally end until later in the year.
So the next axe attack took the city a little
(02:31):
bit by surprise. This incident actually took place in Gretna, Louisiana,
which is across the Mississippi River from uptown New Orleans.
And at that point it was kind of an immigrant
suburb of New Orleans. Yeah, and Gretna is still there,
but it's changed significantly obviously. Um. And so on March
(02:52):
tenth of nineteen nineteen, UH Orlando Jordano. Just in case
anyone's curious, it is not Orlando. There is an eye.
At the beginning, UH heard screams from his neighbor's house
and he went to render aid, and that is how
he discovered the next uh ax man's victims. And these
were grocer Charles Courtemiglia and his wife and daughter. This
(03:17):
is when I started to go, God, what are you?
What are you have against grocers? We'll talk about that
a little bit. Yeah, it's really at this point though,
I think we're on grocer number three, right, Ah, that
sounds correct. Um that I kind of go, okay, this
is a weird grocery store pattern. So when Orlando arrived,
Charles was unconscious and Rosie was cradling their two year
(03:40):
old daughter, who had been killed by a blow to
the back of the head. Rosie said the family had
all been asleep in the same bed when the killer
attacked them, and the attacker had once again entered through
a chiseled away door panel, had not taken him in
anything of value, and had left a bloody axe behind.
So while young Mary had died at the scene, her
(04:01):
parents were both alive, although they both had serious skulf fractures,
and they were admitted to the hospital. When Rosie had recovered,
she clearly named her attacker as her neighbor, Orlando Jordano.
Both Orlando and his son Frank, who were business rivals
of the Cortemiglia's, were arrested. Whether or not Charles corroborated
(04:24):
her story is actually a matter of some debate. Uh.
Some accounts say that he challenged her version of the story,
and others say that he actually accused the son, Frank Jordano. Uh.
There's also a pretty significant discrepancy as to what exactly
happened to Charles after all of these accusations took place.
In some versions of the story, he divorced Rosie after
(04:46):
the trial, and in others, he died of his wounds
and didn't live to trial time. And some of the
tellings of this story just seemed to abandon Charles because
it becomes much more about Rosie and her version of
the story. And while I found the death record for
their daughter Mary in Louisiana's online government database of death,
I did not find Charles's, so I couldn't confirm or
(05:08):
negate any of those different timeline accounts of his death.
I love that you were crawling through the death database
to try to pin that down. It's a sobering thing
to crawl through. Just to look at that many death
records is uh not the most uplifting way to spend
your day, but it is super fascinating. Yeah. So, even
(05:29):
though Orlando was an older man, he was sixty nine
years old, he was apparently unlikely to have been strong
enough to pull off these murders. Um and Frank was
much too big to fit through the opening that the
killer had made in the door. That Jordanos were found
guilty based on Rosa's testimony, the older received life in
(05:51):
prison and the Sun got a death sentence. Eventually, However,
sometime down the road, uh like a year later, Rosie
actually confessed that she had falsely accused the Giordano's Uh,
and thankfully before the death sentence had been carried out,
so they were released UH and all counts against them
(06:12):
eradicated for the record. Three days after this attack, on
March fourteenth, nineteen, the editor of the New Orleans Times
picking received a letter which has become the most famous
piece of the axe Man puzzle, and also will be
familiar to people who watch American horror story. They printed
this letter in its entirety, and here it is UH.
(06:36):
This letter is dated Hell March nineteen nineteen, so the
day before the editor received it, and it says esteemed mortal.
They have never caught me, and they never will. They
have never seen me, for I am invisible, even as
the ether that surrounds your earth. I am not a
human being, but a spirit and a demon from the
hottest Hell. I am what you are, Lenians and your
(06:58):
foolish police call the axe in. When I see fit,
I shall come and claim other victims. I alone know
whom they shall be. I shall leave no clue except
my bloody acts, besmeared with blood and brains of he
whom I have sent below to keep me company. If
you wish you may tell the police to be careful
not to rile me. Of course, I am a reasonable spirit.
(07:20):
I take no offense that the way they have conducted
their investigation in the past, in fact, they have been
so utterly stupid as to not only amuse me but
his satanic majesty Francis Joseph, etcetera. But tell them to beware,
Let them not try to discover what I am, for
it were better that they were never born than to
incur the wrath of the axe man. I don't think
(07:41):
there is any need of such a warning, for I
feel sure the police will always dodge me, as they
have in the past. They are wise and know how
to keep away from all harm. Undoubtedly you are Lenians
think of me as a most horrible murderer, which I am.
But I could be much worse if I wanted to.
If I wish, I could pay a visit to your
city every night at will, I could slay thousands of
(08:04):
your best citizens. For I am in close relationship with
the Angel of Death. Now to be exact, at twelve
fifteen earthly time on next Tuesday night, I am going
to pass over New Orleans in my infinite mercy. I
am going to make a little proposition to you people here.
It is I am very fond of jazz music, and
I swear by all the devils in the nether regions
(08:26):
that every person shall be spared in whose home a
jazz band is in full swing at the time I
have just mentioned. If everyone has a jazz band going well,
then so much the better for you people. One thing
is certain, and that is that some of your people
who do not jazz it on Tuesday night, if there
be any, will get an ax well. As I am
cold and crave the warmth of my native Tartarus, and
(08:49):
it is about time I leisure earthly home. I will
cease my discourse, hoping that thou wilt publish this, that
it may go well with thee I have been am
and will be the worst spirit that ever existed, either
in fact or realm of fancy. Signed the x Man.
That is quite a note to dash off, it is.
(09:09):
And if you imagine that there was lots of jazz
playing in New or New Orleans after this, that would
be right. By all accounts, there was basically jazz everywhere,
and lo and behold, there were no murders, although There's
always been some debate about whether the letter was truly
from the X men or just a prank. Uh. Yeah,
(09:30):
And I have to wonder if you know, Tracy as
a site director not quite the same thing as lead
editor on a newspaper. If you got like a bizarre
warning like that that was like published this and warned everyone,
I don't even know how I would feel. I would
call the police, well, of course, and freak out a
little bit. And I would probably have shaky hands handling
(09:50):
the whole thing. I would freak out and call the
police with my handshaking. Uh. And While the next several
months passed without incident, uh, and some began to believe
that the axe man had somehow been appeased or moved on. Unfortunately,
the late summer saw a return of the familiar brutality.
But we're going to pause for a moment before we
get into those attacks and talk about our sponsor. Okay,
(10:14):
So now back to uh, the more serious subjects of
AX murders murdering grocers. Another Italian grocer as the next victim.
On August ten, Steve Boca was attacked while he slept,
and the assailant escaped into the night, and Boca made
a full recovery, but he couldn't recall any details of
the attack. Once again, there was a panel chiseled from
(10:35):
the door, and the chisel was found next to the door,
and the axe was left in the kitchen and nothing
was stolen. The next incident happened a little less than
a month later, a few weeks later, on September three.
Uh and Sarah Lawman was a nineteen year old woman
who was living alone in New Orleans, and so she
was attacked on September three. Because the city had been
(10:56):
kind of in the throes of this horrible series of attacks,
some nay bors went to check on her because they
knew she was a young woman alone, and that's when
they discovered her unconscious on her bed, with several head
wounds and teeth missing from a blow to the face.
Like Steve Boca, she recovered, but she didn't have any
memory of the assault. A bloody axe was found either
(11:18):
outside the window or in the front lawn, depending on
the source of the account. However, in the departure from
most of the previous incidents attributed to the axe Man,
Uh there was not a chiseled door panel. It's believed
that the assailant in this instance had come in through
a window. And she also wasn't a grocer, was she no?
And not a man? No, So again we wonder it
(11:42):
does call into question whether these should really all be
grouped under the same killer or not, or the same
attacker or not. Right next came in October of nineteen nine,
and this was the last known assault committed by the axeman,
or at least attributed in to him. On the night
of October twenty, even after hearing noises in her husband's room, Uh,
(12:03):
the wife of Mike Peppertoni hurried in to find a
fleeing assailant and her husband's inert body one of their
six children. Some of the police who found an ax
outside the back door and a panel chiseled away from
the door. And Mrs Peppatoni had actually claimed that there
were two large men in the house. So a little
(12:23):
bit different, uh than any other accounts that we had
had heard up to that point. Yeah, there's also some
suspicion in the accounts of this because Mrs Peppertoni seemed
very calm as she talked to the police about her
husband's murder. Uh. Yeah, she didn't seem particularly distraught. There
is one version of the story that suggests that when
(12:44):
the police got there, she basically was like, well, he
was killed by the axe Man and just very matter
of fact about it, so which calls, you know, into
question other suspicious things. Uh. And While that was the
last of the murderers that are attributed to the Axe Man,
there are still plenty of questions about the whole series
of incidents. Yeah. One of the big questions is whether
(13:04):
some previous murders were also the work of the axe Man.
From January of nineteen eleven to April of nineteen twelve,
there was another large series of ax murders that claimed
the lives of forty nine victims in Louisiana and Texas,
and in these cases, entire families were savagely killed in
their beds. Uh. In one instance in early nineteen twelve,
(13:28):
where a family of five had been slain, a note
had been left behind with the words, when he maketh
the inquisition for blood, he forgetteth not the cry of
the humble human five. Sort of a weird bizarre note. Uh.
And justice with the New Orleans killings, nothing was taken
in any of these crime scenes. There was also another
(13:50):
series of murders in nineteen eleven that similarly targeted Italian grocers.
There were three of the incidents and all of them
were unsolved. The idea that only Italian businessmen were being
targeted caused some citizens to speculate that there was a
mafia tie into the nineteen eleven killings. So the speculation
was that these victims had not made good on the
(14:12):
protection arrangements that they had with organized crime. But according
to a detective working on the Axe Man crimes, UH,
the mafia wouldn't really target women, but the Axe Man
clearly did that. Yeah, and children too. Um So there
there many people who really like the uh the mafia
(14:33):
tie into this story and think that that's really the
key to who the X Man was. But there's that
whole women and children thing that's problematic, so some discount
based exclusively on that. So UH tying into the mafia
hit man idea is another story that um some dismisses
an urban legend and in this tale, a man named
(14:54):
Joseph Mumphrey was shot and killed in December of Los Angeles,
US and the killer was Mike Peppertoni's widow, and this
tale appears to have first surfaced in Robert Talent's book
Murder in New Orleans, and others who were researching these
stories jumped on this idea, and at some point it
(15:16):
was pointed out that Mumfrey was actually imprisoned during the
gap between nineteen eleven and nineteen eighteen, which suggests that
his incarceration and freedom fit the timeline pretty well. It
doesn't match up perfectly, uh, and Mumfrey had also been
theorized as a mafia hit man. However, if you look
at the Encyclopedia of Serial Killers in the early two thousand's,
(15:37):
a researcher named William Kingman was doing some digging and
he actually got a notification from the California State Registrar
that there had been no record of a Joseph Mumphrey
dying in the state during this time, so that sort
of detracts it, and he, the author of the Encyclopedia
of Serial Killers, makes the argument that this whole thing
had been a fabrication, although I will say, having crawled
(15:59):
through Louisiana records, not all of these people that are
in the center pretty much accounted for. In the newspaper
show up in those death records either, so I don't know.
We know that at this point in time, things like
that would fall through the cracks, not everything was noted perfectly.
So in the last century there have been numerous theories
(16:22):
put forth about the Axe Man's identity, but there's never
been conclusive evidence for any of them. So this legend
really lives on because of the inconsistencies in some of
the attacks. It could easily be that there were multiple
assailants involved, either working together or sort of mistakenly grouped
under the same header of the Axe Man. There's also
(16:43):
the prospect that some of these killers, as we said earlier,
we're just copycats. But because there was some mediocre handling
of evidence early on in these cases, uh that you know,
presumably in the first instance with the Maggios, and in
even in the second one, I don't know that the
police were thinking serial killer. Uh. Fingerprinting had been available
(17:05):
during this time, but they didn't really use it, so
conclusive forensic evidence has really been lost to time at
this point. Which is also this pesky issue of pretty
small openings in the doors that the axe Man seemed
to pass through, Like if you imagine a door that
has panels that you could knock out with the chisel.
It's not a very big hole. No. Um. This has
(17:26):
led some people to say that he was really a
demon or other supernatural entity, including him or whoever wrote
the letter to the paper and American Horris Story Eric
Norris story. Um, Yeah, that's an interesting thing. I only
found one instance where they mentioned specifically that they had
to have gone through the door panel and it was
not a case of them popping that open and then
(17:48):
reaching up to unlock the door, because all the doors
were found still locked. But I only found that mentioned
in one place, so I don't know how accurate that was.
So here we go, we reach up and unlock it,
and then we reach up and kind I mean that
was my thinking. That's not conclusive one way or the
other either. Uh. So it's interesting because while the X
(18:08):
Man is not a huge story, I think in American
serial killer mythology, it has come up a lot in
various um media. American Horror Story maybe the most recent
fiction to use it for inspiration, but is definitely not
the first. Yeah. And in cartoonist and illustrator Rick Geary
(18:28):
published a horror comic about the X Man as part
of the Treasury of twentieth century Murder, and brief mention
of him is also made in Chuck Pollini's book Haunted,
which is a great read. I'm a huge fan of
his uh and it's shown up in many other places
as well. There have been bands that have been named
albums after it and songs based on it. There was
(18:48):
actually a song written in in a jazz song inspired
by the events. Yeah, I've read, you know a lot
about serial killers when I first discovered the Internet and
discovered that there were websites that had basically everything about
every serial killer. Ever, we're spending a lot of time
reading these serial killer stories, and I had not ever
(19:09):
heard of this particular one until American Horror Story. Yeah.
I had heard of it, uh, primarily because of the
Chuck Politic book, And I was like, wait, what is that?
And I happened to do a quick search and discovered
that it was a real thing. Yeah. As soon as
I tell you, hey, people are asking us can we
talk about this? You were like, is that a real thing? Yes?
Real things? Uh. So there's shockingly real thing and bizarre
(19:34):
and unfortunately it is, even though it is not so
far back it's less than a hundred years ago. There's
still so much story and lore that's grown around it
that there are often, as we talked about in the
Babush Lady, like eyewitness accounts even aren't even aren't al
as accurate. So even at the time when people that
were near the scene, we're saying things, fear was sort
(19:55):
of you know, making their stories embellish in certain ways,
and we can't count on the act received any of it. Yeah. Well,
and when you think about, like with today's forensic methods,
it's still I mean, it's not a rare occurrence for
somebody to be exonerated through DNA evidence. I it's amazing
to me that anyone was ever identified and and correctly
(20:19):
imprisoned before all of those forensic methods really existed and
like evidence handling procedures and that kind of thing. Yeah,
and you know that was fingerprints were available, but they
were not where they're at now. I think they were
first used. I'm I'm completely doing this off the top
of my head. I think the first case they were
(20:40):
conclusively used in within nineteen eleven, so we pretty knew
at this point. Yeah, within within a decade of when
they were being used for actual investigation in court cases
and evidence, so you can understand why they would not
have necessarily fingerprinted the scene. So that is the scoop
on the x Man of New Orleans. And already I
can tell you that American horror story has diverged because
(21:03):
in their version, uh, you know, I'm not going to
spoiler it in case anybody's waiting to vertically view the
whole thing, but it diverges pretty significantly well. And the
letter is included in him passing through New Orleans on
that night wanting lots of jazz, and then it gets
very different. Okay, well, and then that when we started
getting the AxMan requests, I think that it's like, so
(21:25):
I haven't watched last night episode yet, but apparently there's
some kind of ax Man. So there you go. And
now we will go on too. Listener mail. So I
have two bits. One is an actual email, one is
just a very funny message we've got on Facebook. The
first one is from Allison and she says, hello, Hollee
and Tricy, Greetings from Juneo, Alaska. I just finished listening
(21:45):
to your podcast about and probably effective Holocaust rescuers, and
I was pleasantly surprised when you mentioned miss Irene good
up Dike, as I feel she has often overlooked. Miss
Opticke came to my high school in southern California to
talk about her experiences during the war. While Miss Opticke
did mention being captured by Russian soldiers, she mainly focused
on her experience at the club and the villa, including
(22:07):
becoming Major Rudemer's mistress. When a student asked why she
became his mistress, I recalled that Miss Optike responded that
she had more than her life to protect. There were
many lives at stake, and although her talk lasted only
one hour, it made quite an impression on me. Her
talk was part of what inspired me to join the U. S.
Coast Guard and to get my master's in public health,
which I am now completing in order to assist those
(22:29):
in me. I've attached a copy of the brochure that
was handed out by Miss optics those who attended the
talk at my high school, since I thought it might
interest to you, and it did. It's very cool and
it's neat to have. We always learned people right in
where they have a direct connection to a piece of history.
That we've talked about, and I know that she did
do a lot of lectures and outreached, so love it.
(22:50):
Our second note comes from our listener Russ and he
wrote to us on Facebook and he says, Hi, ladies,
I love the podcast to keep things informative yet light
and fun. But the Babushka Lady podcast give me some
concern and suspicions. Okay, when I read that, I got
a little scared. But I was like, Oh, this is
gonna be somebody that really studies the assassinations and they're
gonna yell at me for some reason. Well, and I
think you and I both when we get an email
(23:11):
or Facebook message or whatever that starts. I really love
the podcast, but there's a bracing for impact that happened.
But Rust goes on to say, probably mentioned a couple
of times that she is quote not in the CIA,
which is exactly what she would say if she were
in the CIA. This may need to be looked at
by the people. That's definitely don't want you to know.
(23:33):
Thanks Ray show. That makes my horrible commute much more
tolerable and even educational. I don't know Ben sits near me.
He hasn't raised any red flags. You all are on
the same row and frequently late into the evening and
chattering with each other, two of you on that row,
and then no one and then me. Yeah, so he
would know if I were suspicious. I think I'm too
(23:54):
loud and goofy to be, but or that could be
the perfect cover. So if you would like to write
to us with your suspicious that we are spies or
connections to history, you should do that. Uh. You can
email us at History Podcast at Discovery dot com. You
can also connect with us on Facebook at facebook dot
com slash history class stuff, or on Twitter at misston
(24:15):
history and at mist in history dot tumbler dot com
on Tumblr, and you can visit us on Pinterest, where
we are pinning many many things, both related to our
podcast directly and not. I often been a lot of
historical garments. Yeah, I think you and I both follow
a lot of historical clothing boards. Sometimes what's there is
really lovely. You know it's dangerous though, because then I
(24:35):
want to make copies or things inspired by all with them,
and I already have a list eight emails. When I
want to watch you do that, I guess, Okay, you
come over and hang out because I don't want to
Kitty's climbing all over you. Um So, if you want
to learn a little bit more about what we talked
about today, you can go to our website and type
in the word serial killer, which I mentioned in the
last episode. But this time I'm going to mention a
(24:57):
different article. It's not really an article, it's a quiz.
It's the Ultimate serial Killers Quit, which could be a
fun diversion. And you can learn about serial killers and
a great deal more at our website, which is helped
up work dot com for lare on this and thousands
of other topics because at how stuff works dot com.
(25:27):
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Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast
I'll Fry and I'm Won. Today we are going to
resume our talk about X Murderer, Yes, part two of
(00:23):
our American horror story Kevin inspired episode. Yeah. I'm actually
pretty glad that something else came up, because a suit
like the soon as Kevin premiered, people were tweeting at
us and writing on our Facebook and stuff saying can
you please, please please do something about the history of
the show, And we were like, well, past hosts have
already covered the history that is Marie Laveau. Yeah, like,
(00:46):
they're already episodes about that in archive, and so I
was sort of like, well, if they have something else
we haven't talked about before, then sure. Well. And I
remember during the second season of the show, I got
really excited when I found out they were gonna use
some historical happenings to inspire things, but they kind of
(01:06):
abandoned them or they changed them so much that it
really wasn't worth making the connection. Yeah. Well, in the
second season of it was also so much more scattered
and all of the different elements of things that we're
sort of disparate weird things happening at the time. This
one is much more focused on New Orleans and horror. Uh. So,
(01:28):
in case you missed our intro in the last episode
when they introduced the act Man of New Orleans, and
we have when we're recording this, he has only appeared
in one episode. We'll see what happens and how completely
out of whack it gets in terms of history. I mean,
we're already out of whack in terms of history with him. Uh.
But the way they introduced that character is very rooted
(01:49):
in reality and in an event that actually happened in
New Orleans in the early nineteen hundred's, So we are
picking up kind of in the middle of his crimes
free uh on March tenth of nineteen nineteen, which is
yet another incident of an attack. So because there had
been this pause in attacks, the last one that we
(02:10):
talked about was towards the inh of nineteen eighteen. Now
we were getting into the early part of nineteen nineteen.
UM the nation had kind of turned its eyes instead
to the end of the fighting of World War One,
although the war didn't formally end until later in the year.
So the next axe attack took the city a little
(02:31):
bit by surprise. This incident actually took place in Gretna, Louisiana,
which is across the Mississippi River from uptown New Orleans.
And at that point it was kind of an immigrant
suburb of New Orleans. Yeah, and Gretna is still there,
but it's changed significantly obviously. Um. And so on March
(02:52):
tenth of nineteen nineteen, UH Orlando Jordano. Just in case
anyone's curious, it is not Orlando. There is an eye.
At the beginning, UH heard screams from his neighbor's house
and he went to render aid, and that is how
he discovered the next uh ax man's victims. And these
were grocer Charles Courtemiglia and his wife and daughter. This
(03:17):
is when I started to go, God, what are you?
What are you have against grocers? We'll talk about that
a little bit. Yeah, it's really at this point though,
I think we're on grocer number three, right, Ah, that
sounds correct. Um that I kind of go, okay, this
is a weird grocery store pattern. So when Orlando arrived,
Charles was unconscious and Rosie was cradling their two year
(03:40):
old daughter, who had been killed by a blow to
the back of the head. Rosie said the family had
all been asleep in the same bed when the killer
attacked them, and the attacker had once again entered through
a chiseled away door panel, had not taken him in
anything of value, and had left a bloody axe behind.
So while young Mary had died at the scene, her
(04:01):
parents were both alive, although they both had serious skulf fractures,
and they were admitted to the hospital. When Rosie had recovered,
she clearly named her attacker as her neighbor, Orlando Jordano.
Both Orlando and his son Frank, who were business rivals
of the Cortemiglia's, were arrested. Whether or not Charles corroborated
(04:24):
her story is actually a matter of some debate. Uh.
Some accounts say that he challenged her version of the story,
and others say that he actually accused the son, Frank Jordano. Uh.
There's also a pretty significant discrepancy as to what exactly
happened to Charles after all of these accusations took place.
In some versions of the story, he divorced Rosie after
(04:46):
the trial, and in others, he died of his wounds
and didn't live to trial time. And some of the
tellings of this story just seemed to abandon Charles because
it becomes much more about Rosie and her version of
the story. And while I found the death record for
their daughter Mary in Louisiana's online government database of death,
I did not find Charles's, so I couldn't confirm or
(05:08):
negate any of those different timeline accounts of his death.
I love that you were crawling through the death database
to try to pin that down. It's a sobering thing
to crawl through. Just to look at that many death
records is uh not the most uplifting way to spend
your day, but it is super fascinating. Yeah. So, even
(05:29):
though Orlando was an older man, he was sixty nine
years old, he was apparently unlikely to have been strong
enough to pull off these murders. Um and Frank was
much too big to fit through the opening that the
killer had made in the door. That Jordanos were found
guilty based on Rosa's testimony, the older received life in
(05:51):
prison and the Sun got a death sentence. Eventually, However,
sometime down the road, uh like a year later, Rosie
actually confessed that she had falsely accused the Giordano's Uh,
and thankfully before the death sentence had been carried out,
so they were released UH and all counts against them
(06:12):
eradicated for the record. Three days after this attack, on
March fourteenth, nineteen, the editor of the New Orleans Times
picking received a letter which has become the most famous
piece of the axe Man puzzle, and also will be
familiar to people who watch American horror story. They printed
this letter in its entirety, and here it is UH.
(06:36):
This letter is dated Hell March nineteen nineteen, so the
day before the editor received it, and it says esteemed mortal.
They have never caught me, and they never will. They
have never seen me, for I am invisible, even as
the ether that surrounds your earth. I am not a
human being, but a spirit and a demon from the
hottest Hell. I am what you are, Lenians and your
(06:58):
foolish police call the axe in. When I see fit,
I shall come and claim other victims. I alone know
whom they shall be. I shall leave no clue except
my bloody acts, besmeared with blood and brains of he
whom I have sent below to keep me company. If
you wish you may tell the police to be careful
not to rile me. Of course, I am a reasonable spirit.
(07:20):
I take no offense that the way they have conducted
their investigation in the past, in fact, they have been
so utterly stupid as to not only amuse me but
his satanic majesty Francis Joseph, etcetera. But tell them to beware,
Let them not try to discover what I am, for
it were better that they were never born than to
incur the wrath of the axe man. I don't think
(07:41):
there is any need of such a warning, for I
feel sure the police will always dodge me, as they
have in the past. They are wise and know how
to keep away from all harm. Undoubtedly you are Lenians
think of me as a most horrible murderer, which I am.
But I could be much worse if I wanted to.
If I wish, I could pay a visit to your
city every night at will, I could slay thousands of
(08:04):
your best citizens. For I am in close relationship with
the Angel of Death. Now to be exact, at twelve
fifteen earthly time on next Tuesday night, I am going
to pass over New Orleans in my infinite mercy. I
am going to make a little proposition to you people here.
It is I am very fond of jazz music, and
I swear by all the devils in the nether regions
(08:26):
that every person shall be spared in whose home a
jazz band is in full swing at the time I
have just mentioned. If everyone has a jazz band going well,
then so much the better for you people. One thing
is certain, and that is that some of your people
who do not jazz it on Tuesday night, if there
be any, will get an ax well. As I am
cold and crave the warmth of my native Tartarus, and
(08:49):
it is about time I leisure earthly home. I will
cease my discourse, hoping that thou wilt publish this, that
it may go well with thee I have been am
and will be the worst spirit that ever existed, either
in fact or realm of fancy. Signed the x Man.
That is quite a note to dash off, it is.
(09:09):
And if you imagine that there was lots of jazz
playing in New or New Orleans after this, that would
be right. By all accounts, there was basically jazz everywhere,
and lo and behold, there were no murders, although There's
always been some debate about whether the letter was truly
from the X men or just a prank. Uh. Yeah,
(09:30):
And I have to wonder if you know, Tracy as
a site director not quite the same thing as lead
editor on a newspaper. If you got like a bizarre
warning like that that was like published this and warned everyone,
I don't even know how I would feel. I would
call the police, well, of course, and freak out a
little bit. And I would probably have shaky hands handling
(09:50):
the whole thing. I would freak out and call the
police with my handshaking. Uh. And While the next several
months passed without incident, uh, and some began to believe
that the axe man had somehow been appeased or moved on. Unfortunately,
the late summer saw a return of the familiar brutality.
But we're going to pause for a moment before we
get into those attacks and talk about our sponsor. Okay,
(10:14):
So now back to uh, the more serious subjects of
AX murders murdering grocers. Another Italian grocer as the next victim.
On August ten, Steve Boca was attacked while he slept,
and the assailant escaped into the night, and Boca made
a full recovery, but he couldn't recall any details of
the attack. Once again, there was a panel chiseled from
(10:35):
the door, and the chisel was found next to the door,
and the axe was left in the kitchen and nothing
was stolen. The next incident happened a little less than
a month later, a few weeks later, on September three.
Uh and Sarah Lawman was a nineteen year old woman
who was living alone in New Orleans, and so she
was attacked on September three. Because the city had been
(10:56):
kind of in the throes of this horrible series of attacks,
some nay bors went to check on her because they
knew she was a young woman alone, and that's when
they discovered her unconscious on her bed, with several head
wounds and teeth missing from a blow to the face.
Like Steve Boca, she recovered, but she didn't have any
memory of the assault. A bloody axe was found either
(11:18):
outside the window or in the front lawn, depending on
the source of the account. However, in the departure from
most of the previous incidents attributed to the axe Man,
Uh there was not a chiseled door panel. It's believed
that the assailant in this instance had come in through
a window. And she also wasn't a grocer, was she no?
And not a man? No, So again we wonder it
(11:42):
does call into question whether these should really all be
grouped under the same killer or not, or the same
attacker or not. Right next came in October of nineteen nine,
and this was the last known assault committed by the axeman,
or at least attributed in to him. On the night
of October twenty, even after hearing noises in her husband's room, Uh,
(12:03):
the wife of Mike Peppertoni hurried in to find a
fleeing assailant and her husband's inert body one of their
six children. Some of the police who found an ax
outside the back door and a panel chiseled away from
the door. And Mrs Peppatoni had actually claimed that there
were two large men in the house. So a little
(12:23):
bit different, uh than any other accounts that we had
had heard up to that point. Yeah, there's also some
suspicion in the accounts of this because Mrs Peppertoni seemed
very calm as she talked to the police about her
husband's murder. Uh. Yeah, she didn't seem particularly distraught. There
is one version of the story that suggests that when
(12:44):
the police got there, she basically was like, well, he
was killed by the axe Man and just very matter
of fact about it, so which calls, you know, into
question other suspicious things. Uh. And While that was the
last of the murderers that are attributed to the Axe Man,
there are still plenty of questions about the whole series
of incidents. Yeah. One of the big questions is whether
(13:04):
some previous murders were also the work of the axe Man.
From January of nineteen eleven to April of nineteen twelve,
there was another large series of ax murders that claimed
the lives of forty nine victims in Louisiana and Texas,
and in these cases, entire families were savagely killed in
their beds. Uh. In one instance in early nineteen twelve,
(13:28):
where a family of five had been slain, a note
had been left behind with the words, when he maketh
the inquisition for blood, he forgetteth not the cry of
the humble human five. Sort of a weird bizarre note. Uh.
And justice with the New Orleans killings, nothing was taken
in any of these crime scenes. There was also another
(13:50):
series of murders in nineteen eleven that similarly targeted Italian grocers.
There were three of the incidents and all of them
were unsolved. The idea that only Italian businessmen were being
targeted caused some citizens to speculate that there was a
mafia tie into the nineteen eleven killings. So the speculation
was that these victims had not made good on the
(14:12):
protection arrangements that they had with organized crime. But according
to a detective working on the Axe Man crimes, UH,
the mafia wouldn't really target women, but the Axe Man
clearly did that. Yeah, and children too. Um So there
there many people who really like the uh the mafia
(14:33):
tie into this story and think that that's really the
key to who the X Man was. But there's that
whole women and children thing that's problematic, so some discount
based exclusively on that. So UH tying into the mafia
hit man idea is another story that um some dismisses
an urban legend and in this tale, a man named
(14:54):
Joseph Mumphrey was shot and killed in December of Los Angeles,
US and the killer was Mike Peppertoni's widow, and this
tale appears to have first surfaced in Robert Talent's book
Murder in New Orleans, and others who were researching these
stories jumped on this idea, and at some point it
(15:16):
was pointed out that Mumfrey was actually imprisoned during the
gap between nineteen eleven and nineteen eighteen, which suggests that
his incarceration and freedom fit the timeline pretty well. It
doesn't match up perfectly, uh, and Mumfrey had also been
theorized as a mafia hit man. However, if you look
at the Encyclopedia of Serial Killers in the early two thousand's,
(15:37):
a researcher named William Kingman was doing some digging and
he actually got a notification from the California State Registrar
that there had been no record of a Joseph Mumphrey
dying in the state during this time, so that sort
of detracts it, and he, the author of the Encyclopedia
of Serial Killers, makes the argument that this whole thing
had been a fabrication, although I will say, having crawled
(15:59):
through Louisiana records, not all of these people that are
in the center pretty much accounted for. In the newspaper
show up in those death records either, so I don't know.
We know that at this point in time, things like
that would fall through the cracks, not everything was noted perfectly.
So in the last century there have been numerous theories
(16:22):
put forth about the Axe Man's identity, but there's never
been conclusive evidence for any of them. So this legend
really lives on because of the inconsistencies in some of
the attacks. It could easily be that there were multiple
assailants involved, either working together or sort of mistakenly grouped
under the same header of the Axe Man. There's also
(16:43):
the prospect that some of these killers, as we said earlier,
we're just copycats. But because there was some mediocre handling
of evidence early on in these cases, uh that you know,
presumably in the first instance with the Maggios, and in
even in the second one, I don't know that the
police were thinking serial killer. Uh. Fingerprinting had been available
(17:05):
during this time, but they didn't really use it, so
conclusive forensic evidence has really been lost to time at
this point. Which is also this pesky issue of pretty
small openings in the doors that the axe Man seemed
to pass through, Like if you imagine a door that
has panels that you could knock out with the chisel.
It's not a very big hole. No. Um. This has
(17:26):
led some people to say that he was really a
demon or other supernatural entity, including him or whoever wrote
the letter to the paper and American Horris Story Eric
Norris story. Um, Yeah, that's an interesting thing. I only
found one instance where they mentioned specifically that they had
to have gone through the door panel and it was
not a case of them popping that open and then
(17:48):
reaching up to unlock the door, because all the doors
were found still locked. But I only found that mentioned
in one place, so I don't know how accurate that was.
So here we go, we reach up and unlock it,
and then we reach up and kind I mean that
was my thinking. That's not conclusive one way or the
other either. Uh. So it's interesting because while the X
(18:08):
Man is not a huge story, I think in American
serial killer mythology, it has come up a lot in
various um media. American Horror Story maybe the most recent
fiction to use it for inspiration, but is definitely not
the first. Yeah. And in cartoonist and illustrator Rick Geary
(18:28):
published a horror comic about the X Man as part
of the Treasury of twentieth century Murder, and brief mention
of him is also made in Chuck Pollini's book Haunted,
which is a great read. I'm a huge fan of
his uh and it's shown up in many other places
as well. There have been bands that have been named
albums after it and songs based on it. There was
(18:48):
actually a song written in in a jazz song inspired
by the events. Yeah, I've read, you know a lot
about serial killers when I first discovered the Internet and
discovered that there were websites that had basically everything about
every serial killer. Ever, we're spending a lot of time
reading these serial killer stories, and I had not ever
(19:09):
heard of this particular one until American Horror Story. Yeah.
I had heard of it, uh, primarily because of the
Chuck Politic book, And I was like, wait, what is that?
And I happened to do a quick search and discovered
that it was a real thing. Yeah. As soon as
I tell you, hey, people are asking us can we
talk about this? You were like, is that a real thing? Yes?
Real things? Uh. So there's shockingly real thing and bizarre
(19:34):
and unfortunately it is, even though it is not so
far back it's less than a hundred years ago. There's
still so much story and lore that's grown around it
that there are often, as we talked about in the
Babush Lady, like eyewitness accounts even aren't even aren't al
as accurate. So even at the time when people that
were near the scene, we're saying things, fear was sort
(19:55):
of you know, making their stories embellish in certain ways,
and we can't count on the act received any of it. Yeah. Well,
and when you think about, like with today's forensic methods,
it's still I mean, it's not a rare occurrence for
somebody to be exonerated through DNA evidence. I it's amazing
to me that anyone was ever identified and and correctly
(20:19):
imprisoned before all of those forensic methods really existed and
like evidence handling procedures and that kind of thing. Yeah,
and you know that was fingerprints were available, but they
were not where they're at now. I think they were
first used. I'm I'm completely doing this off the top
of my head. I think the first case they were
(20:40):
conclusively used in within nineteen eleven, so we pretty knew
at this point. Yeah, within within a decade of when
they were being used for actual investigation in court cases
and evidence, so you can understand why they would not
have necessarily fingerprinted the scene. So that is the scoop
on the x Man of New Orleans. And already I
can tell you that American horror story has diverged because
(21:03):
in their version, uh, you know, I'm not going to
spoiler it in case anybody's waiting to vertically view the
whole thing, but it diverges pretty significantly well. And the
letter is included in him passing through New Orleans on
that night wanting lots of jazz, and then it gets
very different. Okay, well, and then that when we started
getting the AxMan requests, I think that it's like, so
(21:25):
I haven't watched last night episode yet, but apparently there's
some kind of ax Man. So there you go. And
now we will go on too. Listener mail. So I
have two bits. One is an actual email, one is
just a very funny message we've got on Facebook. The
first one is from Allison and she says, hello, Hollee
and Tricy, Greetings from Juneo, Alaska. I just finished listening
(21:45):
to your podcast about and probably effective Holocaust rescuers, and
I was pleasantly surprised when you mentioned miss Irene good
up Dike, as I feel she has often overlooked. Miss
Opticke came to my high school in southern California to
talk about her experiences during the war. While Miss Opticke
did mention being captured by Russian soldiers, she mainly focused
on her experience at the club and the villa, including
(22:07):
becoming Major Rudemer's mistress. When a student asked why she
became his mistress, I recalled that Miss Optike responded that
she had more than her life to protect. There were
many lives at stake, and although her talk lasted only
one hour, it made quite an impression on me. Her
talk was part of what inspired me to join the U. S.
Coast Guard and to get my master's in public health,
which I am now completing in order to assist those
(22:29):
in me. I've attached a copy of the brochure that
was handed out by Miss optics those who attended the
talk at my high school, since I thought it might
interest to you, and it did. It's very cool and
it's neat to have. We always learned people right in
where they have a direct connection to a piece of history.
That we've talked about, and I know that she did
do a lot of lectures and outreached, so love it.
(22:50):
Our second note comes from our listener Russ and he
wrote to us on Facebook and he says, Hi, ladies,
I love the podcast to keep things informative yet light
and fun. But the Babushka Lady podcast give me some
concern and suspicions. Okay, when I read that, I got
a little scared. But I was like, Oh, this is
gonna be somebody that really studies the assassinations and they're
gonna yell at me for some reason. Well, and I
think you and I both when we get an email
(23:11):
or Facebook message or whatever that starts. I really love
the podcast, but there's a bracing for impact that happened.
But Rust goes on to say, probably mentioned a couple
of times that she is quote not in the CIA,
which is exactly what she would say if she were
in the CIA. This may need to be looked at
by the people. That's definitely don't want you to know.
(23:33):
Thanks Ray show. That makes my horrible commute much more
tolerable and even educational. I don't know Ben sits near me.
He hasn't raised any red flags. You all are on
the same row and frequently late into the evening and
chattering with each other, two of you on that row,
and then no one and then me. Yeah, so he
would know if I were suspicious. I think I'm too
(23:54):
loud and goofy to be, but or that could be
the perfect cover. So if you would like to write
to us with your suspicious that we are spies or
connections to history, you should do that. Uh. You can
email us at History Podcast at Discovery dot com. You
can also connect with us on Facebook at facebook dot
com slash history class stuff, or on Twitter at misston
(24:15):
history and at mist in history dot tumbler dot com
on Tumblr, and you can visit us on Pinterest, where
we are pinning many many things, both related to our
podcast directly and not. I often been a lot of
historical garments. Yeah, I think you and I both follow
a lot of historical clothing boards. Sometimes what's there is
really lovely. You know it's dangerous though, because then I
(24:35):
want to make copies or things inspired by all with them,
and I already have a list eight emails. When I
want to watch you do that, I guess, Okay, you
come over and hang out because I don't want to
Kitty's climbing all over you. Um So, if you want
to learn a little bit more about what we talked
about today, you can go to our website and type
in the word serial killer, which I mentioned in the
last episode. But this time I'm going to mention a
(24:57):
different article. It's not really an article, it's a quiz.
It's the Ultimate serial Killers Quit, which could be a
fun diversion. And you can learn about serial killers and
a great deal more at our website, which is helped
up work dot com for lare on this and thousands
of other topics because at how stuff works dot com.
(25:27):
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