The Axeman’s Final
Murders
After
the bloodbath at the Cortimiglia house – after which two other men were charged
and convicted for his crimes – the Axeman was quiet throughout the summer of
1919. And then on August 10, the deranged killed struck again.
An Italian grocery store in New Orleans of the early 1900s
His
bloody work was revealed again early that morning when Steve Boca, a New
Orleans grocer, stumbled from his home on Elysian Fields Avenue with axe wounds
in his skull. With blood running down his face and soaking his clothes, he managed
to make it to his friend Frank Genusa’s house, about a half block away. When
Genusa opened the door, he caught Boca as he collapsed into his arms. He
treated Boca’s wounds as best he could, but the man’s skull was split open and
he was drenched in blood. He called for help and an ambulance soon arrived from
Charity Hospital.
Boca
recovered from the attack, but he could tell the police nothing. He had
awakened, seen a shadowy form over his head and then received a blow to the
head. When he was conscious, he managed to stagger to his friend’s house. He
could offer no description of his attacker. But the police were sure of who it
had been – all of the signs were there. They found the signature of the Axeman:
the door panel chiseled out and removed, the axe left in the kitchen, and no
signs of theft. Unbelievably, though, the police arrested Frank Genusa for the
attack. Boca defended him, though, and he was released after a few days.
On
September 2, a druggist named William Carlson heard a noise at his back door as
he was reading late at night. He got his revolver, called out several times,
then fired through the door. When he went outside, he saw no one around but the
police officers who rushed to the scene found what they believed were the marks
of a chisel on one of the door panels. Had the Axeman narrowly missed claiming
another victim?
Meanwhile,
the Jordano case had not gone away, despite the convictions of the father and
son. It was announced in the papers that William F. Byrnes planned to take the
case all of the way to the Supreme Court. It was said that most of the citizens
of Gretna believed the two men innocent and that their conviction had been a
miscarriage of justice. Rose Cortimiglia was reported to be hiding out in New
Orleans while the Jordanos languished in jail, awaiting the new trial that
their attorney promised them – or for poor Frank to be hanged.
More
than a year after the trial, Rose Cortimiglia appeared in the newsroom of the Times-Picayune and asked to speak to a
reporter. Later accounts of her 1920 visit were highly dramatic. Rose was
utterly changed. Thin and ill, still dressed in black, her face almost unrecognizable
as the pretty young woman of the year before, she fell to her knees before the
reporter who was assigned to interview her, screaming, “I lied! I lied! God,
forgive me, I lied!” As staff members gathered around her to listen to what she
had to say, she added, “I lied. It was not the Jordanos who killed my baby. I
did not know the man who attacked us.”
Rose
was helped to her feet and then led to a chair. She leaned forward, clutching
at her now scarred and pitted cheeks. She cried out,” Look at me! I have had
smallpox. I have suffered for my lie. I hated the Jordanos, but they did not
kill Mary. St. Joseph told me that I must tell the truth no matter what it cost
me. You mustn’t let them hang Frank.”
Rose
was taken to the Gretna jail at once. On the way, she babbled incessantly about
her suffering, caused by the lies that she told. She said first that Sheriff
Marrero had forced her to accuse the Jordanos, then she said that she did it
simply because she hated the family. But when she arrived at the jail and found
herself in front of Frank’s cell, she threw herself to the floor and kissed his
feet. She cried to him, “Forgive me! Forgive me! You are innocent!” But then
went on to add, “God has punished me more than you. Look at my face! I have
lost everything – my baby is dead, my husband has left me, I have had smallpox.
God has punished me until I have offered more than you!”
The
Jordanos were soon released. There had never been any real evidence against
them but Rose’s testimony and so the prosecutor had no choice but to get a
judge to reverse their convictions. Frank Jordano was interviewed on the day
that he was released from prison. He said that he would marry his sweetheart at
once. He had always known that God would not let him die for a crime that he
did not commit. He stood by the window of the newspaper office and looked out
into Lafayette Square just across the street where the sun was shining on the
trees. “Ain’t it fine?” he said, “It all looks fine.”
But
the Axeman had not rested while the Jordano case was mired in the legal system
and the two men were waiting to be freed by the confession of Rose Cortimiglia.
After the Boca attack and the possible attempted attack on William Carlson, a
young woman named Sarah Laumann was attacked on September 3. Sarah, age nineteen,
lived alone and was found by neighbors who broke into her house when she failed
to answer her bell. She had been attacked in her bed and was found unconscious.
She had been struck in the face by an axe – the bloody implement was found
beneath an open window – and a number of her teeth had been knocked. She
suffered a brain concussion, but survived the attack. She could recall nothing
for the police.
On
October 27, the Axeman returned for one final slaughter.
Early
that morning, Mrs. Mike Pepitone, the wife of a grocer, awoke to hear the
sounds of a struggle in the room next to her own, where her husband slept. She
reached the door just in time to see a shadowy man disappear through a door on
the opposite side of the room. Mike Pepitone lay on his bed, soaked with blood.
He had been butchered and gore was splattered onto the walls, ceiling and
floor. Mrs. Pepitone and her six children, sleeping just down the hall, were
not disturbed. The children were awakened by the sound of their mother’s
shrieks.
When
the police arrived, they found the usual signs of the Axeman, including the
chiseled door panel and the discarded axe, which was found on the back porch.
Mike Pepitone was dead and his wife could provide no clues about his killer. She
told them that she had not gotten a clear look at the man who had fled from her
husband’s room.
The
case was as hopeless as the others before it. The police could do nothing more
than wait for the monster to strike again, hoping this time that he would make
a mistake.
No
one knew it then, but the Axeman would not return. His reign of terror in New
Orleans was over. The Pepitone killing was the last murder attributed to the
Axeman. He was never seen or heard from in the city again. His crimes would
remain unsolved and no one would ever learn his true identity – or would they?
The
story of the New Orleans Axeman was not quite over.
To be
continued….
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