THE AXEMAN'S MYSTERIOUS JAZZ: PART FOUR

Aftermath of the Axeman

After the brutal slaughter of Mike Pepitone on October 27, 1919, the Axeman vanished as mysteriously as he had arrived in New Orleans in the first place. That was the last murder attributed to the Axeman. Like his other crimes, the murder was never solved. It was almost as if the cruel attacks had been committed by a supernatural being, by a “demon from the hottest hell,” as the letter purporting to be from the Axeman had put it. Many men had been charged, but all of them had been set free. No clue of the killer’s identity was ever found. Who was the Axeman? Had there been one Axeman – or several? Had each attack been the work of a different person? Or had there been several killers at work?

The Axeman’s true identity was never learned – or was it?

Joseph Mumfre

More than a year after the Axeman’s final murder, New Orleans police learned of a strange occurrence in Los Angeles. At first the news seemed almost unbelievable, but later they seemed almost too anxious to believe it.

Los Angeles in 1920

On December 2, 1920, a former New Orleans man named Joseph Mumfre was shot to death in Los Angeles. He was walking down a busy street one afternoon when a woman “in black and heavily veiled” stepped from the doorway of a building with a revolver in her hand. She emptied the gun into Mumfre, who fell dead on the sidewalk. The woman stood over him, still holding the gun, making no effort to escape.

The woman was taken to the police station. At first, she would only say that her name was Esther Albano. She would not reveal the reason why she killed Mumfre. Days later, she changed her mind and confessed that she was Mrs. Mike Pepitone, the widow of the last victim of the New Orleans Axeman. She explained why she shot Mumfre: “He was the Axeman. I saw him running from my husband’s room. I believe he killed all of those people.”

The New Orleans police were immediately drawn into the case. They knew a lot about Mumfre. He had a criminal record and had spent quite a bit of time in prison. Dates were checked carefully. He had been released from a prison term in 1911, just before the earlier slaughters of Schiambras, of Cruti and Rosetti – cases that many linked to the earlier crimes of the Axeman. Then he had been sent back to jail on other charges and was freed just weeks before the Maggio attack began the latest series of murders. In the lull between August 1918 attacks and March 1919 on the Cortimiglias, he had been in jail on burglary charges. It was known that Mumfre left New Orleans just after the slaying of Mike Pepitone.

The timeline seemed to fit, but it was almost too perfect. Despite the dates, there was no real evidence to say that Mumfre was the Axeman. As the newspapers pointed out, the dates might be just a coincidence. He might have been the man who killed Mike Pepitone, but the rest was just conjecture.   

Mrs. Pepitone was tried in a Los Angeles court in April. She entered a guilty plea and the proceedings were brief. Her attorney claimed that it was justifiable homicide, and while this was disregarded, she did have the sympathy of the court. She was sentenced to ten years in prison but served less than three. She subsequently vanished into history.

Had the murder of Joseph Mumfre solved the Axeman murders? Probably not since it seems unlikely that this neatly-wrapped ending the story ever happened at all. It seems that the entire story (including that Joseph Mumfre had some ties to Mafia extortion rings) may have been the result of poor research, misunderstandings and one author after the next passing on the original, flawed research. Recent research has revealed that there are no police or public court records in New Orleans nor Los Angeles that mention a man named “Joseph Mumfre” (or even “Momfre”) having been assaulted or killed in Los Angeles.  In addition, other investigators have failed to find any record of Mrs. Pepitone being arrested, tried, or convicted for such a crime.

Here is what has been found in subsequent research:

* On April 11, 1922, Mrs. Esther Albano of Reno, Nevada was tried for the murder of Leon Menfre on April 11, 1922 after she shot him in self-defense after he had entered her home and demanded $500 under threat of death. She testified that she believed the man was responsible for the disappearance of her husband, Angelo Albano. She was acquitted at the trial.

* In 1940, a woman named Esther Pepitone Albano died in New Orleans of natural causes.

It appears that the Nevada murder case was somehow confused with the New Orleans Axeman’s crimes, perhaps due to inaccurate records at the time. We cannot say if Esther Pepitone Albano was related to Axeman victim Mike Pepitone, although her death in New Orleans may be suggestive. In any case the woman in Nevada blamed Leon Menfre for the disappearance of her husband, Angelo Albano, who was not an Axeman victim. There – at least for now, the matter rests as it began, as a mystery.

1911 Murders

The Joseph Mumfre connection may turn out to be a dead end, but what about other possible suspects in the murders? In the beginning of the case, many of the police detectives drew parallels between the current Axeman murder and a series of attacks on Italian grocers in 1911. At that time, most believed the 1911 murders were linked to the New Orleans mafia and “Black Hand” extortion plots. But what if they weren’t?

In 1911 and 1912, axe murders left more than four dozen people slaughtered in their sleep across portions of Louisiana and Texas. All of the victims were asleep and many of them were dismembered and even decapitated by a killer wielding an axe. (I wrote a separate blog about this murders: Click Here to see it) While those murders appeared to be religiously driven, purifying the white race against what the killer saw as an incursion by African-Americans, many have noted the similarities between the murders in New Orleans and what were known as the “Mulatto Ax Murders.” Were they also connected to the Axeman? It seems unlikely.

Jake Bird

Some researchers have connected a convicted murderer and self-confessed serial killer to the Axeman legend. Bird was eventually tried and executed for the axe murders of Bertha Kludt and her daughter, Beverly June Kludt, which took place in Tacoma, Washington on October 30, 1947. Criminologists who studied him before his execution came to believe that he may have killed as many as forty-six people. Survivors of the Axeman attacks stated that the killer was a “large, white man,” which seems to rule our Bird, who was African-American, but some researchers have still insisted that he is a suspect.

Axe murderer Jake Bird, believe by some (although not this author) as a viable suspect in the New Orleans Axeman murders.

Bird was born in 1901 in Louisiana, although he could not recall the location. He was a transient and supported himself as a manual laborer and with railroad work, which kept him moving from place to place. He had an extensive criminal record, including burglary and attempted murder and had spent thirty-one of his years in jail in Michigan, Iowa and Utah. In his later confession, Bird said that he entered the Kludt house to commit robbery and hit Bertha in the head with an axe while trying to flee the house after she discovered him and tried to stop him. When Beverly June came to her mother’s aid, he killed her. Detectives didn’t believe his story. They were convinced that Bird had entered the house to commit rape and had killed Bertha in her bedroom while trying to sexually assault her. He killed the daughter, they believed, while trying to escape.

The bodies of the Kludts were found by police after they apprehended Bird, whom they saw flee the Kludt residence when they arrived in response to calls that there were screams coming from the house. They saw the barefoot man run out and crash through a picket fence. They gave pursuit and had to scale several fences before cornering them in an alley. Bird attacked the officers with a knife before he could be subdued. His clothes were covered with blood and brain matter and his shoes were back at the house. There was an axe on the kitchen floor where the body of Beverly June lay lifeless. Her mother was found dead in her bedroom.

Bird was charged with first-degree murder and held without bail. His trial began on November 24, 1947 and lasted two days. Bird's request to represent himself was denied, and a court-appointed attorney represented him. Bird recanted his confession at the trial. His defense attorney claimed that Bird's confession was inadmissible, as it had been obtained under duress as Bird claimed the police had beat him. The judge permitted the confession to be admitted into evidence. The confession, along with the bloody clothes and Bird’s fingerprints at the scene were enough to convict him. The jury deliberated only thirty-five minutes before finding him guilty. He was sentenced to death by hanging.

After his conviction was announced, Bird was allowed to make a final statement. He spoke for twenty minutes, noting that his request to represent himself had been denied and that his own lawyers were against him. He then added, “I’m putting the Jake Bird hex on all of you who had anything to do with my being punished. Mark my words you will die before I do.”

Allegedly, six people connected with the trial died: Judge Edward D. Hodge of a heart attack within a month of sentencing him to death, as did one of the officers who took his first confession. A police officer who took a second confession died, as did the court’s chief clerk, and one of Bird's prison guards. J.W. Selden, one of Bird’s lawyers, died on the first anniversary of his sentencing.

The execution at the Washington State Penitentiary was scheduled for January 16, 1948, but Bird claimed he had committed forty-four other murders, which he was willing to help the police solve. Washington governor Monrad C. Wallgren granted him a sixty-day reprieve. Police from other states interviewed Bird, and eleven murders were substantiated. He was knowledgeable enough about the thirty-three other murders to be considered a prime suspect. The interviews with Bird enabled the police departments of many states to declare many unsolved murders as solved. In addition to his Washington state murders, the transient Bird apparently had killed people in Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wisconsin. He mostly preyed on Caucasian women. Bird had dispatched his victims with an axe.

It should be noted that none of those murders included the New Orleans Axeman victims.

During his reprieve, Bird attempted to appeal his death sentence, but it was denied. He was hanged on the morning of July 15, 1949 and buried in an unmarked grave in the prison cemetery.

Who was the Axeman?

While many New Orleans’ residents of the early 1920s were willing to believe the stories that the Axeman had been murdered in Los Angeles, most were not. Most dismissed the idea that they had been Mafia murders as well. Detective Dantonio stated that the crimes never fit the Mafia pattern. The Mafia did not attack anyone but Italians and they never murdered women.

A fairly typical door on a New Orleans home. The panels inset in the wooden door are what the Axeman would remove and then somehow work his way into the house. It seems impossible that the killer could have been as "large" or as "heavy-set" as some victims described him. How did he get through the door panel and then disappear just as quickly?

The Axeman had a signature. The modus operandi in the attacks was the method of entry (through a chiseled hole in a door) and the weapon used in the attacks – an axe. The method of entry into the homes was quite puzzling. It would have taken a lot of work to chisel a panel from a door and then would leave a very small space to crawl through. Many have claimed that the openings were too small for a grown man to pass through. Robbery was never the motive in the attacks. Money and jewelry was always left behind. The majority of attacks were against Italian-Americans leading some to believe the attacks were racially motived. Since many of the victims were grocers, some wondered if the attacks were Mafia hits conducted to pressure the businesses into paying “protection taxes.” Leading detectives of the time dismissed this idea, though.

Some have pointed out that most of the attacks seemed to target women and could have been sexually motivated, especially given the fact that Axeman seemed to only kill male victims when they obstructed his attempts to murder the women. A sexual motive to the crime seems to fit with Dantonio’s theory that the killer as a “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” maniac, hiding his compulsions until the need overcame him and forced him to strike again. Perhaps the Axeman just killed for pleasure and had no other motive at all.

Again, though, we return to the majority of victims begin Italian grocers? Why these certain people? Did he hate Italians? Did he hate grocers? Or just Italian grocers? Did the Axeman want to kill all of the grocers in New Orleans? And if so, we come full circle again? What about the victims that were not Italian grocers?

 We will never know any of the answers to these questions for certain. His ability to quickly flee the scene (“as if he had wings”) and the fact that the door holes that he used to enter the homes were unusually small led the citizens of New Orleans to wonder if Axeman was even human or if, as his infamous letter stated, he was "the worst demon that ever existed either in fact or in the realm of fancy?”

All that we can say for sure is that the Axeman vanished from New Orleans in 1919 and he never returned. It is unlikely that we will ever know anything more than that. The Axeman came, haunted the city for a time, and then disappeared without a trace, leaving one of the great mysteries of American crime in his wake.

THE AXEMAN'S MYSTERIOUS JAZZ: PART THREE

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….

THE AXEMAN'S MYSTERIOUS JAZZ: PART TWO

From Hell: The Axeman Returns

During the spring and summer months of 1918, a sinister killed known only as the “Axeman” kept the city of New Orleans in a state a panic. Seemingly random attacks were carried out by a killer who was able to vanish without a trace. The police had no leads and were no closer to capturing the maniac than they had been when the string of murders began. After a failed attack against a grocer in September, the Axeman mysterious vanished – but he did not stay gone for long.

During the early morning hours of March 10, 1919, the Axeman struck again. Iorlando Jordano, a grocer in Gretna, just across the river from New Orleans, heard screams coming from the living quarters of another grocer across the street. He rushed over to the apartment of fellow grocer Charles Cortimiglia and found the man’s wife, Rose, sitting on the floor, still shrieking, and blood gushing from her head. The body of her two-year-old daughter, Mary, was clutched in her arms. Charles Cortimiglia lay silently on the floor nearby, drenched in blood.

Jordano tried to take Mary from her mother’s arms, but she wouldn’t let the child go. He got wet towels from the bathroom and tried to bathe her face and that of her husband. Cortimiglia was still alive, but fading fast. Frank Jordano, Iorlando’s young son, ran over to try and help. His father sent him to call an ambulance. Both of the Cortimiglias were taken to the hospital with fractured skulls. They survived the attack, but Mary was dead.

When the police searched the property, they found all of the familiar signs of the Axeman: the back door panel chiseled out, and a bloody ax, which belonged to Charles Cortimiglia, on the back steps. Once again, nothing was stolen. It was obvious that the Axeman had returned.

As soon as she was able to talk, Rose Cortimiglia told of what she had seen that night. She had awakened to find her husband struggling with a large white man in dark clothing who was armed with an axe. The man tore himself loose from the hold that Cortimiglia had on him, sprang backward and then struck once with the axe. When her husband fell to the floor, the Axeman spun around Rose seized Mary, who was asleep in her crib next to her parents’ bed. Rose clung to the little girl, begging her attacker for mercy, at least for the child. But he swung the axe anyway, striking both mother and daughter before fleeing the house. The little girl was instantly killed and Rose’s skull was shattered.

Both of the Cortimiglias were badly injured but Charles recovered first and left the hospital. A few days later, Rose made another statement, an accusation that stunned the police, “It was the Jordanos! It was Frank Jordano and the old man helped him. It was those Jordanos!”

Charles Cortimiglia was questioned, as startled as the police by his wife’s accusations. He told them, “It was not the Jordanos. I saw the man well and he was a stranger. No, it was not Frank Jordano.”

In spite of this, both Jordanos were arrested, charged with murder and placed in the Gretna jail. The police were so eager to say that they had captured the Axeman that all logic was thrown out the window. The Jordanos fervently proclaimed their innocence. Frank, who was only eighteen and about to be married, said at first that he had been home all night, then admitted that he was out with a girl and didn’t want her name to be brought into the affair. The elder Jordano, sixty-nine and in poor health, told his story about discovering the attack over and over again.

And yet Rose Cortimiglia told her story over and over again too. Frank and Iorlando had both been in the room. It was Frank who had attacked them and killed her baby. She said that the Jordanos hated her husband because both families were in the grocery business in the same block. It was jealousy, she claimed. She gave the police everything they needed – eyewitness testimony and even a motive. Charles Cortimiglia continued to deny her story, “My wife must be out of her mind.”

A few police detectives questioned her story. Frank Jordano was more than six feet tall and weighed over two hundred pounds. Making a test with a man of similar size, they admitted that a man of Frank’s size could not squeeze through the panel of a door. A sarcastic reporter at the Times-Picayune suggested that perhaps the Axeman was a midget.

When Rose was released from the hospital, she was taken to the Gretna jail. There, she identified the Jordanos again. Pointing a finger at them, she screamed, “You murdered my baby!” and fainted. It was announced that, despite the lack of any real evidence and a continued denial of their guilt by Charles Cortimiglia, the Jordanos would go on trial for murder in May.

But before that could happen, the unfortunate Louis Bossumer went on trial on April 30. He was still being held for the attack on Annie Lowe the previous June, when she had also accused him of being a German spy before she died. The trial was brief and few witnesses were called. District Attorney Chandler Luzenberg summoned Coroner Joseph O’Hara for the state, who described Annie’s wounds and her cause of death. Zanca, the baker, said that Bossumer did not seem to know what he was doing that morning when he opened the door or to even realize that Annie was hurt. The police officers to whom Annie had made her accusation against Bossumer admitted that she had not been very coherent when she said it. Dr. H. W. Kostmayer said that only a very powerful man could have inflicted himself with the kind of wound that Bossumer suffered and he did not believe the defendant was strong enough to have accomplished it. To top it off, federal officers admitted that they had no real evidence that the defendant was a German spy. The next day, the jury deliberated for only ten minutes before finding Bossumer not guilty. Released, Bossumer told reporters that he believed the Axeman had attacked Annie and himself as he had attacked others and that his imprisonment had been due almost entirely to “war feelings,” because he was thought to be a German and was not.

Meanwhile, following the Cortimiglia attacks, New Orleans was again filled with terror. As soon as the attacks appeared in the newspapers, the police began to receive numerous reports of chiseled door panels, axes being found and dark, heavy-set men lurking in neighborhoods, particularly around grocery stores. Many residents, particularly Italian grocers, appealed once more to the police for protection. The newspapers reviewed all of the cases from 1918 and editorialized on the mystery. Police Superintendent Frank Mooney announced that he had assigned a special task force for uncovering the perpetrator of the attacks. He expressed the opinion that he was “sure that all the crimes were committed by the same man, probably a bloodthirsty maniac, filled with a passion for human slaughter.”

Strangely, though, with this being New Orleans, not all of the reaction to the new 1919 attacks was grim and fearful. Probably because the war was over and people were in a more celebratory mood than they had been the day before, there were some who joked about him and even found a bit of humor in the situation. In a bizarre way, the Axeman had become sort of a cult figure in the city. There were reports of “Axeman Parties” and a New Orleans composer wrote a song called “The Mysterious Axman’s Jazz” or “Don’t Scare Me Papa!” which became a local favorite. Then, on Friday, March 14, 1919, a letter purporting to be from the Axeman was printed by the editor of the Times-Picayune. The letter appeared as follows:

Hell, March 13, 1919

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 Orleanians and your foolish police call the Axeman.

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 axe, 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. I take no offense at the way they have conducted their investigations in the past. In fact, they have been so utterly stupid as to not only amuse me, but His Satanic Majesty, Francis Josef, etc. 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 Axeman. I don‘t think 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 Orleanians think of me as a most horrible murderer, which I am, but I could be much worse if I wanted to. If I wished, I could pay a visit to your city every night. At will I could slay thousands of your best citizens, for I am in close relationship with the Angel of Death.

Now, to be exact, at 12:15 (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 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 the axe.

Well, as I am cold and crave the warmth of my native Tartarus, and it is about time I leave your 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.

The Axeman

The Tuesday on which the Axeman promised to visit the city was March 19, St. Joseph’s Night, a night when New Orleans residents gave parties and dances to celebrate a break in Lent. So, the locals did their best to follow the Axeman’s instructions to the letter. Restaurants and clubs all over town were jammed with revelers. Friends and neighbors gathered in homes throughout the city to "jazz it up" and midnight found New Orleans alive with activity. Banjos, guitars and mandolins strummed into the night and Joseph Davilla’s song, “The Mysterious Axman’s Jazz,” became the theme song for the occasion. The cover of the sheet music featured a drawing of a frightened-looking family playing musical instruments in their living room as a young woman peers nervously out the front door.

When the sun rose the next morning, it was learned that not a single attack had occurred that night. Even though it’s doubtful that every home was filled with the sounds of jazz, the Axeman passed over the city, perhaps satisfied by the celebration that was held in his honor.

Frank and Iorlando Jordano went on trial on May 21 for the murder of Mary Cortimiglia. The Gretna courtroom of Judge John H. Fleury was packed with friends and neighbors of both the victims and the accused, making it a chaotic scene. Tensions were running high as the judge called the courtroom to order.

The first witness was Coroner J.R. Fernandez, who described the cause of Mary’s death. In the front row, Rose Cortimiglia, dressed in black, was tense and obviously near hysteria from the moment the proceedings began. Her husband was seated a short distance away, but they did not look at or speak to one another. They had separated immediately after their disagreement over the identification of the Jordanos. Louis Bossumer was in the room, having been called as a survivor of a visitation by the Axeman. He was brought to the stand early in the trial and stated that he could not identify either of the Jordanos as the man who attacked him and Annie Lowe. He couldn’t identify anyone, he concluded, because he never saw the Axeman.

Rose burst into tears when she took the stand, but she reiterated her identification, pointing to the two men again. Some of the people in the courtroom whispered about her and Judge Fleury had to call for order and threaten to clear the room. In spite of his warnings, whispering and angry voices were still heard from friends of the Jordanos.

Charles Cortimiglia once again flatly denied the man with whom he had struggled was either of the Jordanos. He could not understand his wife’s insistence on placing the blame on them, he said. He had seen the man. It had not been Frank or Iorlando – No! She was wrong!

Defense Attorney William F. Byrnes summoned a steady stream of character witnesses for almost all of two days. All testified that the accused were respectable men of fine reputation. Mrs. Iorlando Jordano took the stand and, nervous and tense, was only kept for a moment. She stated that her husband had been home all night and her son had been out with a girl. They had not harmed anyone.

During the second day, a reporter named Andrew Ojeda, was called by the defense. He testified that he had interviewed Mrs. Cortimiglia soon after she regained consciousness. At that time, she had told him, “I don’t know who killed Mary. I believe my husband did it!” This caused another commotion in the courtroom. A woman screamed in the back. Supporters of the Jordanos applauded, while friends of the Cortimiglias booed and hissed. Again the judge had to threaten to clear the courtroom. Charles Cortimiglia sprang to his feet, then sat down again.

The defense and the prosecution both summoned several doctors to the stand, all of whom were asked about Rose Cortimiglia’s mental condition. Predictably, witnesses for the prosecution considered her to be sane, while a doctor called by the defense said that he believed she was suffering from paranoia.

As the trial continued, more and more people fought their way into the courthouse. They brought along small children, babies and box lunches. Several times each day, the judge had to issue his threats because of the bedlam in the courtroom.

On the fourth day, the defense offer more character witnesses for the Jordanos and called another Gretna grocer, Santo Vicari, to the stand. He testified that someone had tried to chisel out a panel in one of his doors only two nights before the attack on the Cortimiglias. He knew the whereabouts of the Jordanos at the time. When Iorlando Jordano took the stand, he said that he thought Rose Cortimiglia was not in her right mind. He had loved little Mary. She had called him “Grampa.” Only a lunatic could imagine that he would have harmed her. He had been as shocked and grieved by the attack as if he had been the child’s grandfather. He had run to the Cortimiglias’ home in answer to Rose’s screams, then his son had come and later his, his wife. All they had tried to do was help.

Frank Jordano was on the stand for two hours. He answered every question with a strong, clear voice and did not waver under the prosecutor’s cross-examination. He had been at a dance with a girl that night. He had lied about that, yes, but had done so to protect the girl and keep her out of the situation. He had been at home and in bed for a little while when he heard Rose Cortimiglia screaming. He had followed his father to her home. His father had been trying to help.

Sheriff L.H. Marrero testified that Rose Cortimiglia had accused the Jordanos at once. There had been no hesitation on her part to do so, he said, no doubt in her mind. She had been positive.

On the fifth day, the case went to the jury and they deliberated for only forty-five minutes. The Jordanos were found guilty. The courtroom erupted with angry shouts of protest. A few days later, sentence was passed. Frank Jordano was sentenced to be hanged. Iorlando Jordano was sentenced to life in prison.

During the excitement of the Jordanos’ trial, and throughout the summer of 1919, the Axeman had been silent. He had either left New Orleans, or his bloodlust had been satiated for a time. But just as the city was getting back to normal again, the killer struck once more. The Axeman had returned.

To be continued….  

THE AXEMAN'S MYSTERIOUS JAZZ: PART ONE

THE BOOGEYMAN CAME TO NEW ORLEANS

New Orleans is a city that was literally born in sin. From the original charters that were based on fraud to the emptying of the French prisons to provide settlers to the region, widespread government corruption, gaudy social functions, rampant prostitution and frequent lapses in any civilized moral code, New Orleans has a long and very colorful history of crime and vice. Known for many years as America’s “murder capital,” it has seen more than its share of blood over the years.

One of the most mysterious – and still unsolved – crime sprees to grip the city came in the years of 1918 and 1919 with the arrival of the enigmatic “Axeman.” Who was this strange and terrifying creature? Was it a man bent on revenge, a crazed serial killer, or perhaps something worse? The period of death and bloodshed that was reigned over by this allegedly supernatural creature is still remembered as one of the darkest times in city’s history. He arrived in May 1918 and his coming began a period of terror that would last for the next eighteen months. With the fall of darkness, the residents of New Orleans spent each night listening intently for suspicious sounds and nervously shrinking from every shadow. They opened their newspapers with trembling hands each morning. It seemed that no one in the city was safe.

The “boogeyman” had come to New Orleans.

In 1918, the people of New Orleans were not thinking about a murderer in their midst. Like most Americans of the day, they were busy worrying about and waiting for the Great War to end in Europe. In the spring of that year, no one knew that the war would end in November, although there was hope that it would not go on too much longer and, of course, great optimism that the Allies would win. But on the morning of May 24, another kind of headline dominated the morning editions of the newspapers – a headline of blood and savagery.

On the morning of May 23, Joseph Maggio, an Italian grocer, and his wife, were butchered with an axe while sleeping in their apartment behind the Maggio grocery store. According to the police, the killer had entered their home just before dawn. He had chiseled out a panel in the rear door of the apartment, and slipped inside.  He had struck each of his sleeping victims once with an axe and then had slit their throats with a straight razor. Mrs. Maggio was found on the floor with her head nearly severed from her body. Joseph Maggio was sprawled half out of bed. The razor lay on the floor in a pool of blood and the ax, as blood-soaked as the razor, was found on the steps leading out into the backyard.

A small safe in the room was open and empty, yet more than $100 was found beneath Maggio’s blood-soaked pillow, and on the dresser was a small pile of Mrs. Maggio’s jewelry, including several diamond rings. The police stated that they did not believe that robbery was the motive for the crime, although the killer had opened the safe to make it look like it was.

In rooms on the other side of the house lived Joseph’s brothers, Andrew and Jacob. They discovered the bodies after hearing moaning sounds coming from the other side of the wall. They went into the bedroom together and found Joseph half out his bed and still alive. They called the police at once. The police arrested both men after a neighbor reported that he had seen Andrew coming home some time between 2: 00 and 3:00 a.m. Later in the morning, detectives made a curious discovery. Written in chalk on the sidewalk, a block away from the house, were these words: “Mrs. Maggio is going to sit up tonight just like Mrs. Toney.”

Investigators began digging into old files, looking for possible cases that matched the Maggio murders, and to their surprise discovered that three murders and a number of attacks against Italian grocers had already taken place in 1911. The murders bore a striking resemblance to the Maggio crime in that an axe had been used in each and access to each home had been gained through a panel in the rear door. These earlier crimes had been thought to be a vendetta of terror organized by the Mafia. Was the vendetta starting again? The Italian residents of the French Quarter began preparing for the worst and many of them demanded protection from the police.  

In the meantime, Andrew and Jake Maggio were in jail swearing their innocence. Andrew admitted that he had been out late, celebrating his call to serve in the military and had come home drunk. Both brothers were respectable, hard-working men and they insisted they had nothing to do with the murders of their brother and sister-in-law. Jake was released the following day and Andrew on May 26. Andrew tearfully told a reporter for the Times-Picayune newspaper that he would never get over his arrest. He was quoted, “It’s a terrible thing to be charged with the murder of your own brother when your heart is already broken by his death. When I’m about to go to war, too. I had been drinking heavily. I was too drunk to have heard any noise next door.” But he and Jake were free and were cleared of any suspicion.

The police continued their investigation and several suspects were questioned and let go because of a lack of evidence. The newspapers returned to covering the war and when nothing else happened, many residents probably forgot about the Maggio case. And then, just over a month after the Maggios were murdered, the killer struck again.

On June 28, a baker named John Zanca, made his morning call to deliver bread and cakes to a grocery store owned by Louis Bossumer. The store was closed when he arrived, so he went around back to where Bossumer lived with the woman that Zanca believed was the grocer’s wife, Annie Harriet Lowe. The baker did not want to take a chance of the bread being stolen if he left it in front of the store. When he reached the back door, he stopped and stared in horror -- a lower panel on the door had been carefully chiseled out. Zanca tried to open the door but it was locked.

Suddenly, the door burst open and Louis Bossumer stumbled into the doorway. Blood was streaming from a wound in his head. He cried out, “My God! My God!”

Zanca rushed past him into the house and found Annie lying on the bed, bleeding from a ghastly head wound. Both victims were badly injured, each having been struck with an axe. Zanca immediately called the police and Charity Hospital.

The police believed that Annie had been attacked on the porch that was located on one side of the living quarters, based on the amount of blood that they found there. She had then dragged herself or had been carried to the bed, possibly by Bossumer. An axe, which belonged to the grocer, was discovered in the bathroom, still dripping with blood. Bossumer, the newspapers stated, was Polish and had lived in New Orleans for only three months. He had come to the city from Jacksonville, Florida and before that, had operated a farm in South America.

Louis Bossumer's grocery with apartment in back. 

The following day, there were further developments. It was stated that letters written to Louis Bossumer in German, Russian and Yiddish had been found in a trunk in his apartment. Rumors flew that his grocery store was actually a front for a German spy ring. The country was in the middle of a war and despite the fact that there was little so suggest he had anything to do with spies, many took the allegations seriously. Finally, on July 1, Bossumer’s own statements were made public. The first thing he is reported to have said was, “That woman is not my wife.” He said that Annie Lowe had come to New Orleans with him from Jacksonville and that they had been living together ever since. His own wife was ill, he said, with relatives in Cincinnati. He swore he did not know what had happened. Someone had struck him while he slept. When he regained consciousness, he found Annie on the floor and carried her to bed. He had been about to summon an ambulance when Zanca knocked at the back door. He was not a German, he was Polish, and he had no use for Germans. He spoke and received mail in a half dozen languages. He was certainly not a spy, he stated. He offered the police his full cooperation.

On July 5, Annie Lowe finally regained consciousness at Charity Hospital. She made her first statement to the police and said, “I’ve long suspected that Mr. Bossumer is a German spy.” Bossumer was arrested at once.

On July 6, she was interviewed again. She told the police, “I am married to Mr. Bossumer. If I am not, I don’t know what I’ll do.” Then she added, “I did not say that Mr. Bossumer is a German spy. That is perfectly ridiculous.” A few days later, Bossumer was freed from custody.

Eventually, Annie spoke of the attacks. She said that Bossumer had been working on his accounts around midnight, sitting at a table with a lot of money in front of him. She always worried about how careless he was with money, she said, and warned him that he should put it in the safe. Then she smelled prunes cooking in the kitchen and went into the kitchen to look at them. Then her memory left her. She guessed it was from the blow to the head. She could not even remember going to bed. Her next memory was of waking up. She said that she had awakened in bed with a man standing over her. She described him as a rather tall white man, heavy-set with dark hair that stood almost on end, wearing a white shirt that was open at the neck. He had an axe in his hands and he stood there, making motions with the axe, but not hitting her. She recalled, “The next thing I remember is lying out in the gallery with my face in a pool of blood.”

Her story changed again on July 15. In another police interview, Annie said that she was not in bed when she was struck. She was on the porch. The police thought this made more sense – and agreed with their thoughts at the crime scene – and Bossumer was once again looked at with suspicion. They questioned neighbors and learned that the Bossumers occasionally had violent quarrels. Annie was thirty years younger than the fifty-nine-year-old grocer and he was often jealous. A check with the authorities in Jacksonville and Cincinnati confirmed that the two were not married and that Bossumer had a living wife. That did not help matters and they were still concerned that he was a German spy. The neighbors gossiped about his odd ways and his ability to speak a number of languages, including German. Could he have tried to kill Annie, and then wounded himself, in an imitation of the Maggio murders, perhaps because the woman knew too much about his clandestine activities?

The police were skeptical about how Bossumer could have fractured his own skull with the ax but were ruling nothing out. On August 3, doctors at Charity Hospital performed surgery on Annie. Two days later, she died but before she did, she again stated that it had been Bossumer who had attacked her. He was arrested and charged with her murder.

The Axeman chose that night, August 5, to strike again.

Edward Schneider, a young married man, was working late that evening and it was after midnight when he arrived home. When he reached his bedroom and turned on the light, he was horrified to find his wife unconscious on the bed, her head and face covered with blood. Mrs. Schneider, who was expecting a baby in a few days, was rushed to Charity Hospital. She remembered seeing a tall, phantom-like form standing over her bed and she remembered screaming when the axe fell, but nothing else. She ended up with a large gash in her head and several missing teeth.

Luckily, she recovered and gave birth to a baby girl less than a week later. She was never able to tell more about what had occurred. The police searched the Schneider home, but there were no clues to be found. To add to the general confusion, the Axeman had entered the house through a window instead of through the back door. As usual, nothing was stolen.

A day after the Schneider attack, a newspaper printed a headline that asked the question that many city residents had been asking each other for months: “Is an Axeman at Large in New Orleans?”

During the early morning hours of August 10, Pauline Bruno, age eighteen, and her younger sister, Mary, age thirteen, were awakened by strange noises coming from the bedroom where their uncle, Joseph Romano, was sleeping. Pauline crept to her uncle’s door and peered into the room. She saw a man standing next to her uncle’s bed. She later described the man as, “dark, tall, heavy-set, wearing a dark suit and a black slouch hat.” Pauline screamed and the man just seemed to vanish. Joseph Romano lurched out of bed, staggered through a door on the other side of the room and collapsed on the floor in the parlor.

Pauline later told of the attack to the newspapers: “I’ve been nervous about the Axeman for weeks and I haven’t been sleeping much. I was dozing when I heard blows and scuffling in Uncle Joe’s room. I say up in bed and my sister woke up too. When I looked into my uncle’s room this big heavy-set man was standing at the foot of his bed. I think he was a white man, but I couldn’t swear to it. I screamed. My little sister screamed too. We were horribly scared. Then he vanished. It was almost as if he had wings!

“We rushed into the parlor, where my uncle had staggered. He had two big cuts on his head. We got him up and propped him in a chair. ‘I’ve been hit,’ he groaned. “I don’t know who did it. Call the Charity Hospital.’ Then he fainted. Later he was able to walk to the ambulance with some help. I don’t know that he had any enemies.”

Romano died two days later in the hospital, without being able to make any further statements. The police found that all of the Axeman’s “signatures” were in place. An axe was found in Romano’s backyard, covered in blood. The panel of the rear door had been cut out. Nothing in the house had been taken, although Romano’s room looked as though it had been ransacked. The only thing that was odd was Romano was a barber, not a grocer like so many of the earlier victims had been.

 

By this time, hysteria was sweeping through the city, especially in the Italian neighborhoods. Families divided into watches and stood guard over their relatives as they slept. People went about with loaded shotguns and waited for news of the latest "Axeman sightings." A few were said to be leaving the city.

The police began to be flooded with reports about the Axeman after the Romano attack. On the morning of August 11, Al Durand, a grocer, reported finding an axe and chisel outside his back door. Joseph LeBeouf, a grocer at Gravier and Miro Streets, only a block from the Romano home, came forward with the story that someone had chiseled out a panel on his back door on July 28, a day when he was not home. Still another grocer, Arthur Recknagel, told of finding a panel in one of his doors removed back in June, and of finding an axe in the grass in his backyard. Recknagel lived only a few blocks from the Romano home. On August 15, several people telephone the police to tell them that the Axeman had been spotted in the neighborhood of Tulane and Broad, masquerading as a woman. A manhunt was organized, but without success. On August 21, a man was seen leaping a back fence at Gravier and South White Streets. A woman reported that she clearly saw an axe in the man’s hands. Immediately, the neighbors organized a search, as other people ran from their houses screaming that the Axeman had just jumped their fence. A young man named Joseph Garry stated that he had fired at the Axeman with his shotgun. Police arrived on the scene, but no one was apprehended. The excitement quieted down around midnight, although it’s doubtful that anyone in the vicinity slept very well that night – or for several nights thereafter.

On August 30, a man named Nick Asunto called the police to tell them that he had been awakened by strange sounds on the lower floor of his home. He went to the top of the stairs and saw a dark, heavy-set man standing below with an axe in his hands. When Asunto yelled at him, the man ran out the front door. On August 31, Pau Lobella, a notions store proprietor on Zimple Street, found an axe in his alley. There were a dozen similar reports around this same time.

Meanwhile, the police were still focused on the Bossumer case, stating that they did not believe that it was of the now ordinary variety. They made public Annie Lowe’s last story that claimed that Bossumer struck her with an axe after she asked him for money. He then chased her down the porch, screaming, “I am going to make fire for you in the bottom of the ocean!” She had reiterated, too, that Bossumer was a German spy. Therefore, the police were sure that this was not the Axeman at work, although they believed that all of the other attacks, including the one on Mrs. Schneider, were the crimes of a single person, perhaps a “homicidal maniac.”

Joseph Dantonio, a retired detective, told a reporter, “The Axeman is a modern ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.’ A criminal of this type many be a respectable, law-abiding citizen when his normal self. Compelled by an impulse to kill, he must obey this urge. Some years ago, there were a number of similar cases, all bearing such strong resemblance to this outbreak that the same fiend might be responsible. Like Jack the Ripper, this sadist may go on with his periodic outbreaks until his death. For months, even for years, he may be normal, then go on another rampage.”

On September 15, a grocer named Paul Durel found that someone had attempted to cut through his rear door. A case of tomatoes that had been resting against the inside panel had foiled the attack.

Then, as if he were exactly as Detective Dantonio theorized, the Axeman vanished as mysteriously as he had arrived. After the Romano attack – and the unsubstantiated attacks, scares and hysteria that followed – nothing happened at all happened. Weeks and months passed, the war ended, Christmas came and then the New Year and no more attacks occurred. The people of New Orleans, even the Italians, breathed a little easier. The police, still mystified, were no closer to solving the crimes. From time to time, suspects were arrested, but all of them were eventually released. Only Bossumer remained in jail since he was the only real suspect that they had in connection with any of the crimes.

And then, in March 1919, the Axeman returned with a vengeance.

To be continued….