HALL OF HORROR: The Axeman of the New Orleans

One unknown serial killer was feared for a very long time in the New Orleans. The Axeman of the New Orleans was a mysterious figure that would expertly break into a house and brutally murder the occupants with an axe that would be left by the back door when the killer left. The first kill was in 1918 and the victims were a man and his wife by the name of Joseph and Cathrine Maggio. The Maggios lived with Joseph’s two brothers Jake and Andrew. Jake was the first one to awake and realize there was something wrong. He heard groaning coming from his brother, Joseph’s, room next door. He went to wake Andrew up and the two of them went to investigate Joseph and Cathrine’s room together. They found a horrible sight. Joseph and Cathrine lay on their bed, lying in pools of blood. Joseph was barely alive when Jake and Andrew entered. But he soon died before the ambulance could even get to his house. The police found a bloody axe in the bathroom tub and a chisel on top of a wood panel that had been removed by the tool. Years earlier the same event occurred. People suspected the Mafia had committed the crimes because all the people who had been killer were Italian. Little did they know it was the works of a serial killer.

The next victims were Louis Besumer and his mistress. A bread deliverer had been bringing bread to the grocer, who was a native of Poland, when he noticed that the store wasn’t open. That was unusual since the man would wake up early to wait for his bread. The deliverer went around the house to check on Louis and he found a horrific sight. Besumer had had blood dripping down his face and he barely managed to tell the young man to look in his bedroom. His mistress, Anna Harriett, was lying on the bed in a pool of blood. She had been struck in the head and there were bloody footprints leading from the bed. Besumer had told the man, Zanca, that he wanted him to call his personal physician instead of the police, but Zanca went against his will and called the police anyways. Anna and Besumer were taken to the hospital. A hatchet was found in the metal tub and a panel in the back door had been chiseled off. Before Anna died, she told many stories one story was that Besumer was the murderer. That was when the theory was dropped that it had been the Mafia, because Besumer had not been Italian. When Anna died, Besumer was arrested for murder, but he was soon acquitted because it was soon clear that he was not the Axeman.

The Axeman waited a period of two months before he started to kill again. His next victim was a pregnant woman who survived because her husband got home and got her to the hospital before she could die. She gave birth a week later to a healthy baby girl. 

                

Following this attack, the Axeman mailed a letter to the authorities, mimicking Jack the Ripper’s lead. In the letter he promised at 12:15 AM on a Tuesday he would hunt again. However, he promised that if people were playing jazz music, no one would be hurt. So that night everyone had jazz music playing and no one was killed. Soon the killings stopped and the killer seemed to disappear.