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Speaker 4: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 4: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 4: written about them, Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every
Speaker 4: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 4: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 4: journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 5: Good Evening. From nineteen ten to nineteen nineteen, New Orleans
Speaker 5: suffered at the hands of its very own Jack the
Speaker 5: Ripper style killer. The story has been the subject of websites,
Speaker 5: short stories, novels, a graphic novel, and most recently, the
Speaker 5: FX television series American Horror Story. But the full story
Speaker 5: of gruesome murders, sympathetic victims, accused innocence, public panic, the
Speaker 5: New Orleans Mafia, and a mysterious killer has never been
Speaker 5: written until now. The Axeman repeatedly broke into the homes
Speaker 5: of Italian grocers in the dead of night, leaving his
Speaker 5: victims in a pool of blood. Irelando Giordano, an innocent
Speaker 5: Italian grocer, and his teenage son Frank, were wrongly accused
Speaker 5: of one of those murders corrupt officials that convicted them
Speaker 5: with coarced testimony. Miriam C. Davis here expertly tells the
Speaker 5: story of the search for the Axemen and of the
Speaker 5: eventual exoneration of the innocent Giordano's She proves that the
Speaker 5: person most widely suspected of being the ax Man was
Speaker 5: not the killer. She also shows what few have suspected,
Speaker 5: the acts continued killing after leaving New Orleans in nineteen nineteen,
Speaker 5: only thirty years after the Jack. After Jack, the Ripper
Speaker 5: stock the streets of Whitechapel, The Axe Man of New
Speaker 5: Orleans held in the American city hostage. This book tells
Speaker 5: that story. The book to are featuring this evening is
Speaker 5: The Axe Man of New Orleans, The True Story by
Speaker 5: historian and author Miriam Davis. Welcome to the program, and
Speaker 5: thank you for agreeing to this interview. Miriam C.
Speaker 2: Davis, Well, thank you for having me.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much. A very, very very interesting and
Speaker 5: fascinating book. Let's get right to this book. We have
Speaker 5: a lot to cover. You open this book in nineteen
Speaker 5: nineteen and New Orleans and the Marty Grass and Carnival
Speaker 5: and a couple people Charlie and rosie Courtemigia, as you
Speaker 5: do when the book tell us a little bit about
Speaker 5: New Orleans and Marty Gras in nineteen nineteen, tell us
Speaker 5: a little bit of the state of the city at
Speaker 5: that time. And as you do in the book, you open,
Speaker 5: get the setting, set the stage, tell us a little
Speaker 5: bit about Marty Grass and New Orleans in nineteen nineteen,
Speaker 5: and the courtemilguless.
Speaker 2: Well, the war in Europe had just ended and they
Speaker 2: had decided not to have an official monogral. A mounogral
Speaker 2: in those days was a very big deal. Everybody dressed up,
Speaker 2: I mean even bigger deal than you have now, where
Speaker 2: today you have a lot of tourists, you have a
Speaker 2: lot of praise, but at that time everybody would dress
Speaker 2: up and sort of participate in a way and had
Speaker 2: the old fashioned monogral balls in a way you don't
Speaker 2: really have today. But what seems to have happened is
Speaker 2: that there were these spontaneous celebrations that had just broken out,
Speaker 2: with people dressing up and music going up and down
Speaker 2: the streets. So it really was a very celebratory time.
Speaker 2: And it was only a few days after the end
Speaker 2: of Mardigras that you have the attack in Gretna at
Speaker 2: the Court of Miglia Grocery and Gretina is now part
Speaker 2: of Greater New Orleans, but at the time it was
Speaker 2: right across It was a separate little town, a little
Speaker 2: settlement right across the river, right across from New Orleans.
Speaker 5: Now you talk about Charles and Rosie, tell us what
Speaker 5: business they were in, because this is important to this story.
Speaker 5: Who they were, where they originally come from historically, and
Speaker 5: just the business that they'd set up. Tell us a
Speaker 5: little bit about the Italians and immigration and them settling
Speaker 5: in this area.
Speaker 2: Well, there were a lot of Italians, mostly eighty percent
Speaker 2: of them Sicilians, who came into Louisiana through a New
Speaker 2: Orleans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The
Speaker 2: plantation owners, the cotton plantation owners, the sugarcane planters, wanted
Speaker 2: really cheap labor, and they brought in the Sicilians because
Speaker 2: they worked really hard and they were very dependable laborers.
Speaker 2: And what the Sicilians wanted to do was to go
Speaker 2: into business for themselves. So what they tended to do
Speaker 2: was to work really hard to save every dime they had,
Speaker 2: and then as soon as they could to go into
Speaker 2: some sort of business for themselves. They often started out
Speaker 2: as little, small peddlers and many of them ended up
Speaker 2: as a little corner grocery store owners. Now at the time,
Speaker 2: of course, there's no refrigeration and people have to shop
Speaker 2: or housewives have to shop, sometimes twice a day. So
Speaker 2: on corner there's a small, small, little grocery, usually family owned,
Speaker 2: and the Sicilians, the Italians, were in the process in
Speaker 2: the early twentieth century of sort of taking over this business.
Speaker 2: This was become a little niche so corner, a family
Speaker 2: owned where the family lived in the back of the grocery.
Speaker 2: Family owned Italian groceries were very common in New Orleans
Speaker 2: at the time, and so Charlie and Rosie are a
Speaker 2: typical Italian couple. He was born in Italy and so
Speaker 2: as an immigrant. She actually was born of the immigrant
Speaker 2: parents in Louisiana in one of the Sugarcane parishes. He
Speaker 2: had been a laborer. They were in I guess Charlie
Speaker 2: was probably in his middle twenties, Rosie was about twenty one.
Speaker 2: They had a small child. He had worked as a
Speaker 2: laborer for many years until he'd saved the money to
Speaker 2: go into the grocery business. And again they had just
Speaker 2: this very small I mean smaller than you know, most
Speaker 2: of the quick stops that we go to these days,
Speaker 2: but their own little grocery in Gretna that they were running.
Speaker 5: Now you talk about the attack itself, let's get to that,
Speaker 5: because then quickly you retrack and say that the serial killer.
Speaker 5: Of course that wasn't called it that at that time
Speaker 5: at all, and wasn't recognized as that. But you say
Speaker 5: the serial killer has started nine years earlier. But let's
Speaker 5: go to just the attack before we as you do,
Speaker 5: rewind back to nineteen ten and the beginning of this.
Speaker 5: So what is the attack characterized by.
Speaker 2: Usually, Well, in the case of the courtamiglia is, they
Speaker 2: were discovered in their bedroom, slumped across their bed with
Speaker 2: their daughter in between. They were both badly, badly injured
Speaker 2: by the acts. Their daughter had been killed. She's a
Speaker 2: two year old toddler. And they're discovered very early, uh
Speaker 2: Sunday morning, when a woman is trying to get into
Speaker 2: the grocery, you know, finds it very strange that it's
Speaker 2: not open as as it normally would be. And so
Speaker 2: the neighbors discover them, and that George, the Court Amiglia,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry that Geordano family are their neighbors, and there's
Speaker 2: some of the first to arrive on the scene, and
Speaker 2: you know, the sheriff is sent for, our doctors are
Speaker 2: sent for. The whole neighborhood seems to scramble into operation
Speaker 2: and to eventually transport the short of the court Amiglias,
Speaker 2: who are you know, who are still alive while they're
Speaker 2: they're badly injured, to to the hospital in New Orleans.
Speaker 5: As fast as possible, right and then this charity hospital
Speaker 5: which figures centrally in this as well as where they
Speaker 5: were taken to. Now you you talk about that, you
Speaker 5: talk about that right away, that there is the police
Speaker 5: are on the job. But of course these kinds of attacks,
Speaker 5: as you write, are very very uncommon, and so they
Speaker 5: don't understand motive. And so the police immediately look into
Speaker 5: the two couples and the Jordano's living next door, and
Speaker 5: what do they find and what information do they find
Speaker 5: and what do they then attribute this attack?
Speaker 2: Too? Well, the Giordano's and the Courtmiglius had had in
Speaker 2: previous months a business disagreement. They'd actually had to go
Speaker 2: to court over it. So even though the Jordana's are
Speaker 2: completely forthcoming and cooperative and the investigation, the police, as
Speaker 2: Sheriff Marrero just sort of decides, I think, because he
Speaker 2: doesn't understand the idea of the serial killer, he decides
Speaker 2: that they must have done it simply because they're the
Speaker 2: most likely, the most likely enemies that the Court of
Speaker 2: Meglias might have had. Now, in fact, they seem to
Speaker 2: have made up and have been on very good terms.
Speaker 2: That Frank Giordano, particularly who was seventeen at the time,
Speaker 2: just adored the little toddler Mary and she used to
Speaker 2: come over to their grocery and play all the time.
Speaker 2: But I think it was that the authorities in Gretna
Speaker 2: understood the idea of the Sicilian vendetta. Sicilians, because they
Speaker 2: had a distrust of the government, tended to handle things
Speaker 2: what we might call extra legally through the vendetta. And
Speaker 2: when the first generation of immigrants come over, unfortunately, some
Speaker 2: of them bring that practice with them, and so it's
Speaker 2: not uncommon for there to be shootings or stabbings among
Speaker 2: the immigrant Italian community that nobody will cooperate with the
Speaker 2: police about. And this happens with the first generation immigrants.
Speaker 2: So the police in Gretna understand that they're they're acquainted
Speaker 2: with that idea, but the idea of a serial killer
Speaker 2: is so uncommon and so unusual, and like you say,
Speaker 2: at the time, there wasn't even the term that I
Speaker 2: think that they just couldn't wrap their heads around it. Now,
Speaker 2: the across the river where there have been this series
Speaker 2: of attacks, the police superintendent Frank Mooney, he doesn't use
Speaker 2: the term serial killer, but he's tumble to the fact
Speaker 2: that there seems to be somebody who is serially attacking
Speaker 2: Italian grocers. But the trouble is is that the Gretna
Speaker 2: authorities refused to listen to the to the New Orleans authorities,
Speaker 2: and they just jump to the conclusion that the Jordana's
Speaker 2: must have been guilty because they were the most obvious suspects.
Speaker 5: Now, this is the story of Frank Giordano and his father,
Speaker 5: and Frank Jordano's seventeen years old, and as you write
Speaker 5: in a book too, there's this relationship where he just
Speaker 5: loves his child and he plays with his child. And
Speaker 5: then through all of these circumstances, Rosie is questioned by
Speaker 5: the police, and again the police are looking for a
Speaker 5: natural motive, something that makes sense to them, And of
Speaker 5: course they have this idea that it's based on a
Speaker 5: rental dispute. And despite the closeness of the family, and
Speaker 5: despite everything, the Jordanos are accused. How does this happen?
Speaker 5: Tell us about the identification process that puts these two
Speaker 5: people as he accused.
Speaker 2: Well, it seems to have happened, is that while Charlie
Speaker 2: and Rosie were in Charity Hospital recovering that the police
Speaker 2: basically seem to have badger them and said, you know,
Speaker 2: ask them very leading questions, and you know, did the
Speaker 2: Georgianas do it? Did the Gordanas do it? Was Frank there,
Speaker 2: you know. And in fact, none of the doctors ever
Speaker 2: heard either one of them accuse anybody. Rosie's doctor, up
Speaker 2: until when she left the hospital after three weeks, testified
Speaker 2: in court that she told him she had no memory
Speaker 2: of who of who attacked her. She had no memory
Speaker 2: of the attack whatsoever. But after several weeks of this badgering,
Speaker 2: the police claim that both of them have identified the Giordana's.
Speaker 2: Nobody else claims to have heard this. In fact, there
Speaker 2: are reporters who then will after this report came out
Speaker 2: that the police are claiming that they've identified that Giordana's
Speaker 2: the police. There are several reporters who go and talk
Speaker 2: to them, and it's pretty clear that they have no
Speaker 2: idea who who attacked them. And in fact, Charlie Courtamiglia
Speaker 2: is in such bad shape that he will just agree
Speaker 2: to anything you ask him. So it seems to me
Speaker 2: that this identification, that this claim on the part of
Speaker 2: the police in Gretna is at best as a result
Speaker 2: of the police asking them very leading questions to which
Speaker 2: they will automatically answer, you know, yes. And then Rosie,
Speaker 2: after three weeks, is actually well enough to be released,
Speaker 2: and she's taken from Charity Hospital directly to Greta jail
Speaker 2: and she's kept in jail overnight. And she later said
Speaker 2: and then it's at that point that she seems to
Speaker 2: indict her neighbors, and she later testified that it's because
Speaker 2: the sheriff and the jailer told her that basically they
Speaker 2: were going to keep her in there, ostensibly as a
Speaker 2: material witness, but they were going to keep until she
Speaker 2: did what they wanted her to do, which was to
Speaker 2: identify her neighbors as the attacker.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's incredible. So we again, like I mentioned, we
Speaker 5: you go backwards in time and then come back to
Speaker 5: this incredible case and to the trial. Needless to say
Speaker 5: that before we rewind back to August thirteen, nineteen ten
Speaker 5: and what you call the cleaver and Harriet Crudy and
Speaker 5: that attack that these two innocent men, his father is
Speaker 5: sort of not sickly but certainly not a strong man.
Speaker 5: And then this strapping young boy, Giordano, who loved the
Speaker 5: baby next door, are accused of this atrocious attack and
Speaker 5: on the baby and on the couple and are consequently
Speaker 5: sentenced Frank to death and to the father for life.
Speaker 5: Let's rewind to August thirteen, nineteen ten and what you
Speaker 5: call a cleaver and the attack of Harriet Crudy. Why
Speaker 5: do you go back? Yeah, and what was characterized by
Speaker 5: that attack? What was similarities or differences in that attack?
Speaker 5: Tell us about that?
Speaker 2: Well. I think that this attack of August thirteen, nineteen
Speaker 2: ten is probably the first attack of the killer who
Speaker 2: comes to be known as the axe Man. I think
Speaker 2: this was his first sort of dabbling in this sort
Speaker 2: of thing. And I think there's a lot of evidence
Speaker 2: the police believed at the time that he actually started
Speaker 2: out as a burglar, because he seemed to used some
Speaker 2: of the typical tools of burglars at the time, and
Speaker 2: in this case, he seems to have started by robbing
Speaker 2: the Cruti family. Harriet Cruty wakes up in the middle
Speaker 2: of the night. Her husband has been hit with a cleaver,
Speaker 2: and this man is waving the cleaver at her, demanding money.
Speaker 2: She gives them money. He leaves very leisurely. He walks
Speaker 2: to the house. He puts back on his boots that
Speaker 2: he'd taken off. And I think that this is I
Speaker 2: suspect this is somebody who started out as a burglar,
Speaker 2: but for whatever reason, ended up attacking somebody. Maybe the
Speaker 2: grocer woke up in the middle of the night and
Speaker 2: startled him, and he hit him because he was afraid
Speaker 2: he would start yelling for help. Then and I talked
Speaker 2: to a homicide detective and to a profiler, and what
Speaker 2: may have happened is this burglar discovers that when he
Speaker 2: hits somebody with this sharp implement, that he just likes it.
Speaker 2: He likes the side of the blood, he likes the power,
Speaker 2: and so his sort of descent into serial killer may
Speaker 2: have begun almost accidentally. So I do think that the
Speaker 2: attack with a butcher's cleaver probably the first in this
Speaker 2: series of attacks, because I asked a profiler, a retired
Speaker 2: profiler from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, how likely was
Speaker 2: it that somebody would attack the same demographic the same
Speaker 2: time of night with a sharp implement, you know that
Speaker 2: there would be one attacker in nineteen ten, nineteen eleven,
Speaker 2: and then another attacker in nineteen eighteen and nineteen nineteen,
Speaker 2: and he said it was extremely unlikely. So I feel
Speaker 2: pretty confident in saying that the person who started off
Speaker 2: with a cleaver and then eventually moved to using an
Speaker 2: axe was probably the same person. And I think I
Speaker 2: can come up with a good reason for that. After
Speaker 2: the cleaver attacked Harriet Cruti. Of course, the next month
Speaker 2: another couple is attacked with a similar implement, and these
Speaker 2: are their rezetties and they are very, very badly injured.
Speaker 2: And it's not until though the next early the next summer,
Speaker 2: that Joe Davy is actually killed.
Speaker 5: And what the.
Speaker 2: Attacker seems to be doing in these cases is he's
Speaker 2: stealing a butcher's cleaver with him. He's using it for
Speaker 2: the attack and he's dropping it at the scene. Well,
Speaker 2: of course that means that he's running a risk by
Speaker 2: an additional risk by having to go and break into
Speaker 2: a butcher's shop and steal a cleaver if he uses
Speaker 2: the everybody at the time has an axe because everybody
Speaker 2: is using a wood burning stove. So anytime he breaks
Speaker 2: into somebody's house, he knows there's going to be an
Speaker 2: axe lying round. He can use that, he can leave
Speaker 2: it at the scene, and then he can leave without
Speaker 2: carrying anything incriminating like a butcher's cleaver or like a
Speaker 2: bloody axe. So so yeah, the attacks start with the
Speaker 2: cruties in I think it's September of nineteen ten. The
Speaker 2: next month you have another Italian grocer immigrant couple, the Rossetties,
Speaker 2: who were not killed, but who were both very badly injured.
Speaker 2: And then a few months after that, I think it's
Speaker 2: June of nineteen ten, you have Joe and Mary Davy
Speaker 2: who were attacked and she's slightly injured, but he is
Speaker 2: actually killed. He's the first, I think he's the first
Speaker 2: actual fatality of the ax man.
Speaker 5: You talk about some of the characteristics of the crime itself.
Speaker 5: That was interesting is that the person gained entry into
Speaker 5: some of these places by removing a door panel and
Speaker 5: then getting in and being barefoot or at least shoeless.
Speaker 5: And the thing is that even though police were accustomed
Speaker 5: to seeing the would have as robbery and looking at
Speaker 5: it very simplistically, even to the police at that time,
Speaker 5: they could see that robbery, it looked like was not
Speaker 5: the main purpose because stuff was things were, money was
Speaker 5: left behind, wasn't it.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, he'd the prying off. I mean, of course
Speaker 2: these doors would have been very big, heavy doors, and
Speaker 2: there were these big, by our standards door panels that
Speaker 2: the ax men would often pry off to reach in
Speaker 2: his hand to slip the latch. Now, that was not
Speaker 2: his only means of jury. Sometimes he just climbed through
Speaker 2: an open window if there was one available. Sometimes he
Speaker 2: climbed through a kitchen window. But the prying off of
Speaker 2: the door panel is one that sort of becomes six
Speaker 2: mind of signature. Often he would steal, as he did
Speaker 2: in the Cruti case. He'd steal small amounts of money,
Speaker 2: but he leaves valuable jewelry behind. Sometimes he's stole nothing.
Speaker 2: Oftentimes it would look through like he was throwing things
Speaker 2: around looking for something, but nothing valuable was taken. So
Speaker 2: the police pretty quickly concluded that burglary was not his
Speaker 2: major major object, although sometimes small amounts were taken.
Speaker 5: You talk about and introduce this Jim Reynolds, inspector of Police,
Speaker 5: but you also talk about what his opinion was on
Speaker 5: these murders, what the police in their opinion was, and
Speaker 5: then the media media's take on this, and then some
Speaker 5: of the important media members that really advanced this and also,
Speaker 5: as we talk later helped the case of the Jordanos
Speaker 5: later to when they were at trial. So tell us
Speaker 5: what Reynolds thinks and depicts this killer as and and
Speaker 5: other police and the media what is all of their
Speaker 5: takes on who this is and who it could be.
Speaker 2: Well, Jim Reynolds is the first New Orleans Police superintendent
Speaker 2: who appears in the story. He sort of kept his
Speaker 2: cards close to the vest at first because he's the
Speaker 2: one who's dealing with the Cruti, the Recetto and the
Speaker 2: Davy attacks, and so it's kind of hard to get
Speaker 2: at exactly what he thinks. Oh, it's pretty clear that
Speaker 2: he doesn't think these are ordinary attacks. The in this
Speaker 2: first set of attacks, you actually the press are making
Speaker 2: all kind of speculations. This is when you actually see,
Speaker 2: you know, the attacker compared to Jack the Ripper, New
Speaker 2: Orleans own Jack the Ripper. But you know, in the
Speaker 2: first set of attacks, there is a man named Flannery
Speaker 2: who is arrested. Jim Reynolds sort of assumes that whoever's
Speaker 2: doing this is not quite in his right mind, because
Speaker 2: this attacker is acting very oddly. In the case of
Speaker 2: the Crutie attack, he not only sort of nonchalantly walks
Speaker 2: down the street as if he didn't have a care
Speaker 2: in the world, but he also grabs the Cruties bird
Speaker 2: on the way out and sits on the stoop and
Speaker 2: releases the bird. Reynalds sort of thinks this is a
Speaker 2: person who might be what they called at the time,
Speaker 2: a drug fiend, you know, somebody and this is a
Speaker 2: time and you can get things like morphine at the
Speaker 2: drug store, that this was somebody who was doing this
Speaker 2: to get drugs and who wasn't quite in his right mind. Well,
Speaker 2: there's a guy named John John Flannery who is caught
Speaker 2: breaking into a grocery in the months thereafter, and sort
Speaker 2: of he's got a history of burglary, he's got a
Speaker 2: history of attack but he also seems to had been
Speaker 2: sort of mentally imbalanced and perhaps a drug user. He's
Speaker 2: charged with that first attack of the Crusie attack. However
Speaker 2: he's never well, he's arrested for it, but he's never
Speaker 2: actually charged because by the time they come around to
Speaker 2: putting him on trial, you've had these other attacks, and
Speaker 2: so it's pretty clear that he couldn't be the attacker,
Speaker 2: since the superintendent does sort of assume this is the
Speaker 2: same person committing all of these attacks, and the poor guy,
Speaker 2: I think Flannery ends up being sent to a mental institution.
Speaker 2: But Jim Reynolds does start out thinking that this is
Speaker 2: somebody who is not only a burglar, but has some
Speaker 2: sort of drug problem, and that's why poor Flannery gets arrested,
Speaker 2: because he seems to meet that profile.
Speaker 5: When you talk about the murder of Joe Davie, then
Speaker 5: you also talk about the assassination of the Scambrias, and
Speaker 5: then later right after that a month after is the
Speaker 5: Magile murders? Again, tell us what's the characteristic of these murders,
Speaker 5: and you talk about the ensuing panic and the media response.
Speaker 5: Tell us about that.
Speaker 2: Well, of course, the Jim Reynolds had really been expecting
Speaker 2: another attack because he didn't think that if the person
Speaker 2: was still out there, if it wasn't Flannery, he didn't
Speaker 2: think this person was going to stop. So when Joe
Speaker 2: Davey is attacked in June, it's not really such a surprise,
Speaker 2: and he really you know, they pull out all the stops,
Speaker 2: they question everybody they can think of, but you know,
Speaker 2: they can't find anybody who seems to be a really
Speaker 2: appropriate person to charge with the Dabut murder. And so
Speaker 2: Jim Reynolds almost certainly was expecting another attack, which never came. Now,
Speaker 2: I do talk about the Scambra murder in nineteen twelve,
Speaker 2: and the reason I talk about that is because, you know,
Speaker 2: I start out the book talking about the writer Robert
Speaker 2: Talent and his version of the X Men story that
Speaker 2: he publishes in nineteen fifty two in his book Ready
Speaker 2: to Hang. Because most of most versions of the X
Speaker 2: Men story that people are acquainted with or sort of
Speaker 2: Talents version of it. So I use him as kind
Speaker 2: of a paradigm to sort of, you know, sort of
Speaker 2: test to what extent his version is accurate. And he
Speaker 2: had mentioned the Scaunbre murder possible precursor to these attacks
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighteen and nineteen nineteen, and so I wanted
Speaker 2: to examine the Sciambre murder and see how it fit
Speaker 2: in with these other attacks, and I could go to
Speaker 2: I don't think there was a killing of an Italian
Speaker 2: grocery owning couple, young couple Joanna and Tony's Sciambra in
Speaker 2: nineteen twelve, but I don't think it had anything to
Speaker 2: do with the cleaver of the axe man attacks. They
Speaker 2: were shot, and it was pretty clearly that the wife,
Speaker 2: Joanna was shot by accident, that whoever was trying to
Speaker 2: kill her husband Tony shot him in the dead and knights,
Speaker 2: you know, point blank was really trying to kill him.
Speaker 2: This I think had nothing to be the axe man attacks.
Speaker 2: I think this was some sort of personal grudge, probably
Speaker 2: having to do with the grocery business. So, oh, I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: I think I lost track. Was that you asked?
Speaker 5: After these I get get started.
Speaker 2: I get started on this. No, I'm sorry, I get
Speaker 2: started on this and then I don't know when to stop.
Speaker 5: That's okay, fine, you talk about the The important is
Speaker 5: the the Maggio murders, and so tell us about those
Speaker 5: two murders.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, the death of Joe Clevy Joe Klevy. After
Speaker 2: the death by the cleaver of Joe Davy in nineteen eleven,
Speaker 2: you know, the police superintendent fully expects another attack, which
Speaker 2: doesn't come. There is another attack, and my theory is
Speaker 2: that the the cleaver basically is arrested for some other
Speaker 2: crime and goes to prison for six years. There is
Speaker 2: another attack in December of nineteen seventeen on Italian grocers.
Speaker 2: This is the Angelina family again and it's with it
Speaker 2: with a hatchet, and it's very very similar to all
Speaker 2: the other attacks, but it's not fatal. And I think
Speaker 2: this is the reason more where people haven't heard about
Speaker 2: it is because nobody died. But the next spring in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighteen May of nineteen eighteen is one of the
Speaker 2: really most gruesome of these murders. This is the one
Speaker 2: that Robert Tallent thought was the first axe men murder.
Speaker 2: Joseph and Catherine Maggio, middle aged battalion grocer couple. They
Speaker 2: are discovered in their bedroom early one morning. Joseph has
Speaker 2: been hit twice with his axe, fractured a skull, and
Speaker 2: he had had his throat cut, probably with a razor.
Speaker 2: Katherine actually hadn't been hit with an axe at all.
Speaker 2: She had been slashed to debt with a razor, and
Speaker 2: the position of her body led the police to conclude
Speaker 2: that she'd actually gotten up out of bed and gone
Speaker 2: around the bed to try to defend her husband, and
Speaker 2: that the killer had turned around and slashed her, slashed
Speaker 2: her throat, and she kind of exhiciated and strangled on
Speaker 2: her own blood. I mean, it was a very very
Speaker 2: gruesome death. But she's one, I think, maybe the only
Speaker 2: woman who's killed by the axe men, and I suspect
Speaker 2: that if she hadn't tried to defend her husband, she
Speaker 2: would have survived the attack like the other women did.
Speaker 2: And so this attack gets a lot, a lot of
Speaker 2: attention because it's so gruesome and and so this is
Speaker 2: why I think this was the first X men attack
Speaker 2: that the writer Robert Talent, you know, writing writing thirty
Speaker 2: years to forty years later, that he knew about.
Speaker 5: What is the media's depiction. You talked about two different
Speaker 5: newspapers and different approaches from their editors. You talk about
Speaker 5: a paper called The States, and you also talk about
Speaker 5: another one and hopefully and I'm mispronounced it, but it's
Speaker 5: the Times.
Speaker 2: Of the House Pickyun. Yes, yes, yes, that is pick Well.
Speaker 2: The Times Picky Un actually is still in existence. It's
Speaker 2: sort of the New Orleans newspaper. There was a young
Speaker 2: reporter named Jim Colton, and he very quickly became convinced
Speaker 2: that there was a single attacker behind all these attacks.
Speaker 2: There was a lot of debate. Okay, by this time,
Speaker 2: Jim Reynolds is dead. He has been in a completely
Speaker 2: separate but weird story. He's been actually assassinated by one
Speaker 2: of his own men. And the police superintendent by this
Speaker 2: time is is Frank Mooney, who is a former who's
Speaker 2: got no experience as a police officer at all, but
Speaker 2: a railroad superintendent. But there's a lot of speculation as
Speaker 2: to is this the mafia, is this these are just
Speaker 2: burglary has gone wrong? Is it the same attacker? And
Speaker 2: Jim Colton, who's this young crime reporter for the Times
Speaker 2: piggy Un and he becomes very convinced early on that
Speaker 2: there is a single attacker. And this plays a role
Speaker 2: much later on in in what happens to Frank Frank Tordano.
Speaker 2: So the newspapers are reflecting these various points of view
Speaker 2: of uh, you know, speculation is about what is behind
Speaker 2: these attacks. But I also think that Frank Mooney, the
Speaker 2: police superintendent, eventually himself comes to be persuaded that there
Speaker 2: is a single attacker.
Speaker 5: What is.
Speaker 2: What they called at the time, a bloodthirsty scened. And
Speaker 2: then there's just a month or so after the Masreo attacks,
Speaker 2: there's an attack on another couple that owns a grocery store.
Speaker 5: Can we go on and talk about that, absolutely, yes.
Speaker 2: Okay, I just I didn't want to stop you if
Speaker 2: you had a question. Well, what happens is about a
Speaker 2: month later, there is a grocer named Louis Bessemer and
Speaker 2: the woman who's living with him named Harriet Lowe, which
Speaker 2: everybody had assumed was his wife, but turns out not
Speaker 2: to be his wife. The press always referred to her
Speaker 2: very diplomatically as his housekeeper, but there was clearly there
Speaker 2: was intimation, so there was more to it than that.
Speaker 2: But anyway, June twenty sixth, nineteen eighteen, they are found
Speaker 2: all bloodied and missus low has clearly she's found in
Speaker 2: her bed covered with blood. She's clearly been you know,
Speaker 2: attacked with it with their acts. But right from the beginning.
Speaker 2: Frank Mooney, the police superintendent, has reason to believe that
Speaker 2: these attacks are very different from the Cleaver axe Man attacks. Now,
Speaker 2: remember this is a month after Demaggio attacks. It's very
Speaker 2: natural to see this as a as a similar attack.
Speaker 2: But the thing is is there's evidence that Bessemer and
Speaker 2: missus Low hadn't been attacked in bed like the other victims.
Speaker 2: The blood evident that missus Low had been attacked on
Speaker 2: a back porch and then dragged to her bed. Bessemer
Speaker 2: claimed that he had just woken up in his bedroom
Speaker 2: in his bed covered with blood. Now the police didn't
Speaker 2: think that could be the case because there wasn't an
Speaker 2: enough blood. If he had been attacked in bed, there
Speaker 2: would have just been more blood in his bedroom, and
Speaker 2: there wasn't enough. They didn't think. The other thing is
Speaker 2: these other attacks they occur between one and three in
Speaker 2: the morning, in the middle of the night, usually on
Speaker 2: a moonless night. The blood was so fresh when the
Speaker 2: best Bessemer and Low were discovered that the attack they
Speaker 2: were discovered about seven o'clock in the morning by the
Speaker 2: bread delivery guy. The blood was so fresh that it
Speaker 2: indicated they were only attacked about maybe an hour or
Speaker 2: so earlier. That meant the attack occurred about six in
Speaker 2: the morning, when the street would have started stirring, and
Speaker 2: there would been a neighbors to see if anybody entered
Speaker 2: the premises or exited, and neighbors all testified that they
Speaker 2: saw nobody go into the grocery or come out. So
Speaker 2: and there's also, unlike other attacks, there's no evidence of
Speaker 2: fourth entry. So this leads the police superintendent to treat
Speaker 2: this from the beginning as very different from the Maggio
Speaker 2: attack of the month before. Now, the newspapers tend to
Speaker 2: lump them together, and in the future months, whenever they're
Speaker 2: talking about these series of attacks, the Bessemer and Low
Speaker 2: attack is lumped in with them. But the police had
Speaker 2: reason to believe from the very beginning that they're different
Speaker 2: from these other attacks. And the other thing is Missus
Speaker 2: Low changes her story several times about what's going on.
Speaker 2: So in the end Lewis Bessemer is actually arrested and charged,
Speaker 2: and Missus Low dies several months later about September, of
Speaker 2: her injuries, the injuries she got as a result of
Speaker 2: this attack, and so he is actually charged with her murder.
Speaker 2: And I think I think the police were right. I
Speaker 2: think this is a very different kind of attack. There's
Speaker 2: all sorts of differences between it and the other X
Speaker 2: Men attacks that I think, in fact, even though Bessemer
Speaker 2: is acquitted and I think legally there was probably reasonable
Speaker 2: doubt on the jury's part, I think in fact he
Speaker 2: is he is the most likely person to have killed
Speaker 2: missus Lowe.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's very interesting case is how the media portrays
Speaker 5: some of the things that his wife says about him,
Speaker 5: some of the mysterious stuff, and then they claim that
Speaker 5: he may be a spy for a German spy, and
Speaker 5: so you have a very very interesting exchange between the
Speaker 5: police and Bessemer, and he is not a very timid
Speaker 5: sort of suspect and so he scoffs that sort of
Speaker 5: those notions, and very very interesting the media response at
Speaker 5: that time, what they take and their their role in
Speaker 5: this story and continuing the sort of the myth. But
Speaker 5: at the same time, we will find out soon that
Speaker 5: media like Colton are very instrumental in helping some of
Speaker 5: these in this case, UH find its truth. You talk
Speaker 5: about and introduce a character named Andy Ojaida to speaking
Speaker 5: of the media from the States, from the newspaper the States.
Speaker 5: Tell us a little bit about the state of the
Speaker 5: media and their response to all of these crimes and
Speaker 5: how they were portrayed in the newspapers.
Speaker 2: Well, I will say, oh, Jada is one of the
Speaker 2: people who goes to interview the Courtamiglias after the police
Speaker 2: are claiming that the court Amiglias are are are, you know,
Speaker 2: identifying their neighbors. And he's one of the ones who
Speaker 2: writes a story showing that this is just nonsense. So
Speaker 2: he is, he is a crime reporter. He's very much
Speaker 2: interested in this. He I'm trying to I'm trying to
Speaker 2: remember because it's been a long time since I've looked
Speaker 2: back at this section. But Ojada is convinced that there
Speaker 2: is one attacker. I think that the Jada's newspaper might
Speaker 2: have been a little bit more skeptical of that, at
Speaker 2: least initially. But I know that different you know, different
Speaker 2: newspapers are reflecting some of the different opinions on the
Speaker 2: part of the police. Because while Frank Mooney is convinced
Speaker 2: that there is a single attacker, some of his police
Speaker 2: officers aren't all convinced. Others, some of them suggest maybe
Speaker 2: it's the mafia, although a lot of them just want
Speaker 2: to argue that they're just burglaries, burglary's gone wrong.
Speaker 5: I bring this up because there's a very very interesting Again,
Speaker 5: is this parallels with today and again the golden age
Speaker 5: of serial killers the seventies to two thousand. But you
Speaker 5: talk about a letter purported to be from the ax
Speaker 5: Man in the Times, pickayun and it was with the
Speaker 5: heading hell, tell me tell us the gist of what
Speaker 5: was said in this letter purported to be from the
Speaker 5: ax Man? And what was the response from media? Did
Speaker 5: they believe this? And what was the response from the public.
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is if people have heard of the X
Speaker 2: Men New Orleans, this is the part of the story
Speaker 2: they probably heard about. I mean, this is the version
Speaker 2: of the story you get an American horror story, you know,
Speaker 2: the acts of the jazz loving serial killer. Okay, About
Speaker 2: a week after the Courtamigli attacks the Times. Picky wishes
Speaker 2: a letter which purports to be from the axe Man,
Speaker 2: and it is it is, you know, from hell. He
Speaker 2: claims to be a fell demon from the Hottest Tale
Speaker 2: and he says that the next Tuesday night. The letter
Speaker 2: is published on a Sunday, the next Tuesday night, he
Speaker 2: will be roaming through New Orleans at midnight looking for victims.
Speaker 2: But he would spare any household that was listening to jazz.
Speaker 2: Now I think that well, I am virtually certain, and
Speaker 2: I talked to the profiler that I work with in
Speaker 2: the homicide detective and they agree that almost certainly the
Speaker 2: real killer did not write this letter. The person who
Speaker 2: wrote this letter was very educated. He makes the classical
Speaker 2: allusion to Tartaro's. It's very well written. From the identifications
Speaker 2: that we have of the attacker, he was. He was
Speaker 2: a working class person who at that time would not
Speaker 2: have been well educated. So he's not likely to have
Speaker 2: written such a letter, I think. And you can't wible
Speaker 2: the dead, so I'm safe in saying this. I think
Speaker 2: the most likely suspect is a local songwriter named John
Speaker 2: Joseph Davila, who right after the letter came out and
Speaker 2: it got all this attention, he came out with a
Speaker 2: song called the Mysterious Axe Man's Jazz, which was a
Speaker 2: big hit. So I remember when I when I I
Speaker 2: think there's a homicide detective. When I was telling him
Speaker 2: about this, he goes, Yep, he done it. He's the
Speaker 2: person who probably wrote this. So that that's my theory
Speaker 2: about this, but almost certainly the actual killer did not
Speaker 2: write this letter. Of course it does obviously, it gets
Speaker 2: a lot of media attention, and it's one of the
Speaker 2: aspects of the story that has, you know, remained in
Speaker 2: the public consciousness.
Speaker 5: You talk about that while this search for this axe man,
Speaker 5: and in Thrilled this book, you talk about too that
Speaker 5: the black man at that time was just the person
Speaker 5: that they looked at first because of just supposed the
Speaker 5: black man's sense of criminality, their predilection for criminality was
Speaker 5: was well known or well accepted, and so they instantly
Speaker 5: went to a black man. And you talk about a
Speaker 5: man named Mumphrey and tell us a little bit about
Speaker 5: this idea that this black man was the axe Man.
Speaker 2: Well, now, Joseph Mumphrey wasn't black, he was actually Italian.
Speaker 2: They did in many cases one of the first people
Speaker 2: that they arrested and questioned would often be a black man.
Speaker 2: But that's I mean, first of all, you know, New
Speaker 2: Orleans was a you know, there were a lot of
Speaker 2: black people there, and so both black and white people
Speaker 2: were questioned and then released. In fact, while they were
Speaker 2: black people, black men questioned in almost all of these cases,
Speaker 2: there were you know, white men questioned as well, so
Speaker 2: I think and of course, you know, black people were
Speaker 2: poor then, and you know often you looked at at
Speaker 2: poorer people to be burglars in this sort of thing.
Speaker 2: So I don't think it's well, of course, it was
Speaker 2: a very racist, segregated time. I don't really think that's
Speaker 2: a good example, although I do talk about how, yes,
Speaker 2: there was sort of this assumption of black criminality that
Speaker 2: I think led some people to suspect that this kind
Speaker 2: of strange murderer might be black. But in fact the
Speaker 2: major suspect that but again people still talk about is
Speaker 2: an Italian immigrant named Joseph Mumfrey, and he was a
Speaker 2: basically a low level thug. He had been sent to
Speaker 2: prison for bombing a grocer who wouldn't pay kind of blackmail.
Speaker 2: He later, after all of these attacks are ended in
Speaker 2: New Orleans, he ends up in Los Angeles where he's murdered, well,
Speaker 2: I won't say murdered, because but he's shot and killed
Speaker 2: by the widow of the last person in New Orleans
Speaker 2: who Robert Tallent claims is the last axe Man victim.
Speaker 2: It's a Mike Pepatone is kind of a an Italian immigrant.
Speaker 2: He's got he's got sort of criminal connections. He is
Speaker 2: killed in the middle of the night. Now, if you
Speaker 2: read the police reports, it's pretty clear the police concluded
Speaker 2: very quickly that it was not an axe man killing.
Speaker 2: There were two men at the scene at this at
Speaker 2: the at the crime. He was not hit with an axe.
Speaker 2: But still you've got the newspaper headlines, which i'll you know,
Speaker 2: mention the axe man. But when you read the stories,
Speaker 2: it's clear that the police think this is sort of
Speaker 2: an Italian crime related murder. Well, anyway, Mike Capatoni's widow
Speaker 2: ends up several years later in Los Angeles, married to
Speaker 2: a man named Angelo Albano, who had been in business
Speaker 2: with this thug who's now out of prison, Joseph Mumfrey.
Speaker 2: Apparently her husband disappears and Mumfrey shows up demanding money
Speaker 2: from her and says, if you don't give me money,
Speaker 2: I'll do to you what you did to my husband.
Speaker 2: So she empties two revolvers into him, including three shots
Speaker 2: in his back as he's trying to get down the stairs.
Speaker 2: She pleads self defense and she is acquitted by a
Speaker 2: jury in law. Angeles, and is the reports of this trial,
Speaker 2: the murder, the killing of Mumphrey and her trial, and
Speaker 2: the reports of this filter back to New Orleans, and
Speaker 2: it's at that point that you get the sort of
Speaker 2: scrambling of the story in which Mumphrey is reported to
Speaker 2: be the Axe Man. You have this misreporting of the
Speaker 2: events in Los Angeles, and I think that's what leads
Speaker 2: to this legend that Joseph Mumphrey with the Axe Man.
Speaker 2: I mean the press play a central role in the story,
Speaker 2: not only in getting Frank Giordano eventually exonerated, but also
Speaker 2: in sort of creating this legend of the Axe Man,
Speaker 2: which is which is not. I'm not totally rooted in inaccuracy.
Speaker 5: Yes, what you have is that you talk about Andy
Speaker 5: o Jada's stories are basis for talents axe Man tail
Speaker 5: and then he claims that the axe murders are solved
Speaker 5: and would blame for Crudi, Joseph Davies, Scambria, the Maggios Andelina.
Speaker 5: So it was wrong his this Robert talent. You take
Speaker 5: a fair amount of time explaining that this stuff is fictional.
Speaker 5: A lot of this in his accounts and based on
Speaker 5: some of the newspaper reporting, but needless to say that
Speaker 5: he has the account wrong on many counts.
Speaker 2: As you say, yeah, I think andio Jada is, you know,
Speaker 2: working on his memory. And of course he's a crime reporter.
Speaker 2: He deals with all kinds of cases all the time.
Speaker 2: By this time, by the time Mumphrey's killed, the cases
Speaker 2: is several years old. I think he's doing it for memory,
Speaker 2: and he just misremembers, and I think that's how the
Speaker 2: story gets scrambled and talent writing years later. While I
Speaker 2: know he consult some newspapers. I also think that he's
Speaker 2: relying a lot on oral tradition because there would have
Speaker 2: been people still alive who were policemen at the time.
Speaker 2: So I think he's relying an oral As a historian,
Speaker 2: I never liked to rely on oral tradition if I
Speaker 2: have written written documents of what happened at the time,
Speaker 2: because people's memories are not really as reliable as we'd
Speaker 2: like them to be. And so I think that's what
Speaker 2: accounts for this version of talents, which turns out not
Speaker 2: to be talent. Did the best he could with the
Speaker 2: resources he had, and I'm glad he wrote his story
Speaker 2: because otherwise I don't think it would have survived, but
Speaker 2: it was interesting to sort of where the legend got
Speaker 2: a little bit scrambled.
Speaker 5: Let's get to because we don't have too much more time.
Speaker 5: But let's talk about the incredible case, the incredible trial
Speaker 5: of Frank Jordannell and his father, Ira Delano, and and
Speaker 5: how it came that their charges were eventually dismissed, and
Speaker 5: who were the characters involved in helping that occur. So
Speaker 5: tell us about the trial of the Jordano's.
Speaker 2: Okay, Frank and his father Orlando are convicted. Their tried
Speaker 2: just in May, I think, just a few months after
Speaker 2: their rest. They are convicted on not much more than
Speaker 2: Rosie's you know what we know to be coerced testimony,
Speaker 2: and in fact, on the stand, her story doesn't really
Speaker 2: make a whole lot of sense. Of course, she makes
Speaker 2: a very simp with thatic victim. The defense attorney has
Speaker 2: to be very, very careful, but you know, I just
Speaker 2: don't think that her story makes much sense. But at
Speaker 2: that time, I think she's absolutely convinced because everybody was
Speaker 2: telling her, you know, who else could have done it?
Speaker 2: The judge does not allow any evidence to be brought
Speaker 2: forward that there is somebody else out still attacking people,
Speaker 2: so he doesn't allow an alternative theory of the crime.
Speaker 2: They're convicted in seven year old Frank is sentenced to
Speaker 2: be hanged, and his father, who's like sixty eight sixty nine,
Speaker 2: his sick father, is sentenced to life in prison. But
Speaker 2: Jim Colton, who is convinced, you know that there is
Speaker 2: one attacker out there and that Giordano's could not be it.
Speaker 2: He goes up to Frank as Frank is sort of
Speaker 2: standing there shocked after the verdict, and he says, I
Speaker 2: will do everything I can to help you, Frank, something
Speaker 2: like I don't know. Nine months later, in February, Rosie
Speaker 2: walks into the offices of the Times Picking where there
Speaker 2: just happens to be a notary public and says, I
Speaker 2: wasn't telling the truth. I don't know who did it.
Speaker 2: The Giordanos are innocent. I think what happened in the
Speaker 2: aftermath of the trial after their daughter's murder, Rosie and
Speaker 2: Charlie's marriage fell apart, and Rosie moved back to New
Speaker 2: Orleans and got a job and was supporting herself and
Speaker 2: was sick for a while. Actually, but I think that
Speaker 2: Jim Colton tracked her down, you know, convinced her to
Speaker 2: come forward. And when she came forward, she said, you know,
Speaker 2: Saint Joseph came to me in a dream and said, Rosie,
Speaker 2: you have to tell the truth. And I think her
Speaker 2: conscience was bothering her because I think she realized what
Speaker 2: she got away from everybody in Gretna who's telling her,
Speaker 2: you know, they must have done it, because feelings against
Speaker 2: the Jordanas are running very high in Gretna. I think
Speaker 2: that allows her to sort of come to the realization that,
Speaker 2: you know, she had just been talked into being convinced
Speaker 2: that the Grdana's must have done it, that she really
Speaker 2: she didn't have any memory of the attack. And in fact,
Speaker 2: this is in February, and I think it's the next month.
Speaker 2: The case had been appealed to Louisiana State Supreme Court
Speaker 2: because the prosecution had done in several things that they
Speaker 2: shouldn't have done, including withholding potentially exculpatory evidence. So on
Speaker 2: several grounds, I mean, the State Supreme Court could not
Speaker 2: take her recanting of her testimony into account. They could only,
Speaker 2: you know, look at the legal rounds for reversing the verdict.
Speaker 2: But they did, and it takes several months because the
Speaker 2: prosecution doesn't want to give up, and at one point
Speaker 2: they even accuse Rosie of that they threaten her with
Speaker 2: perjury charges. But in the end, the Jordano's do go free.
Speaker 2: And I think, I think that there's a lot of
Speaker 2: circumstantial evidence that Jim Colton probably had a lot to
Speaker 2: do with Rosie.
Speaker 5: Coming forward, right, absolutely, So, I think.
Speaker 2: That the media in all sorts of ways plays a
Speaker 2: very important role as active participants in the creation of
Speaker 2: the Axe Men legend.
Speaker 5: Now you talk about Colton being instrumental in overturning the
Speaker 5: charges against the Jordano's, and it's an incredible story. You say,
Speaker 5: they go on to Jordano. Unfortunately, two months after Orlando's release,
Speaker 5: his daughter Lena dies in childbirth, and he died four
Speaker 5: years later. But Frank goes on to be a successful
Speaker 5: real estate guy and business guy and remarries and and
Speaker 5: and you talk about supervisor Mooney, but was out of
Speaker 5: the office by the time the jor Danos were exonerated,
Speaker 5: and he left the police force regarded as a failure.
Speaker 5: And he's the guy that really thought that there was
Speaker 5: a fiend. He did not think this was a black hand.
Speaker 5: He didn't think this was his robbery. He attributed this
Speaker 5: Axe Man before he knew was a serial killer. He
Speaker 5: had that idea that this was that kind of of person.
Speaker 5: Now you talk about the media and then you talk
Speaker 5: about the end of the Axe Man in New Orleans.
Speaker 5: Tell us what you think you believe happened involving Gretna.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, you know, I do believe that there was
Speaker 2: a particular killer who's going around targeting a Galian girl.
Speaker 2: I think that his last attack in the New Orleans
Speaker 2: area is the Quarter of Migley attack, and I think
Speaker 2: he goes on to attack elsewhere in Louisiana. I've traced
Speaker 2: several other attacks. In December of nineteen twenty, there's an
Speaker 2: attack in Alexandria, Louisiana on a couple named Sparrow, Joseph
Speaker 2: and Rosa Sparrow, who again, they're Italian grocer, a small
Speaker 2: corner grocery. They're attacked with an axe in the middle
Speaker 2: of the night. Joseph is killed and their small toddler
Speaker 2: daughter is also killed. About a year later, in January
Speaker 2: of nineteen twenty, well, I'm sorry. Several months later, in
Speaker 2: January of nineteen twenty one in De Ritter, Louisiana, which
Speaker 2: is farther to the west, Giovanni Orlando, who is an
Speaker 2: Italian grocer, is attacked with his family and he is
Speaker 2: killed in bed about two in the morning. And then
Speaker 2: in April in nineteen twenty one, in Lake Charles, Louisiana,
Speaker 2: which is also out towards west, a grocer named Frank
Speaker 2: Scalisi is killed in bed. So I do think that
Speaker 2: you have a series of attacks elsewhere in Louisiana that
Speaker 2: meet this m of the x man. So I think
Speaker 2: he left New Orleans, but he was. He kept attacking
Speaker 2: and killing for how much longer? I don't know. He
Speaker 2: just kind of disappears.
Speaker 5: Now, given your research an investigation into this, do you think,
Speaker 5: how do you characterize this killer? Of course, you taught
Speaker 5: discussed the black hand and the Sicilian mafioso that would
Speaker 5: prey on Italian grocers, and you talk about robbery not
Speaker 5: being the main motive whatsoever. As you do in the book,
Speaker 5: you speculate what type of criminal this was. Tell us
Speaker 5: who you think the ax Man of New Orleans was
Speaker 5: in terms of character.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, this is just the best gift we have.
Speaker 2: Eyewitness and identification that indicates that he is a white
Speaker 2: man of a working class background. Now at that time,
Speaker 2: of course, Louisiana and the rest of the South is
Speaker 2: rigidly segregated between black and white. But the Sicilians who
Speaker 2: come in are kind of they're neither black nor white.
Speaker 2: Many of them are very dark skinned because they're from
Speaker 2: the South. They are they're clearly not African American, but
Speaker 2: they're also not really considered white at first either, what
Speaker 2: we call sort of liminal, sort of borderline. But yet
Speaker 2: they're a rising social class. They come in as illiterate laborers,
Speaker 2: and they very quickly establish this sort of foothold for themselves,
Speaker 2: and many of them, you know, a rising socially. Many
Speaker 2: of them, a handful of them, become quite wealthy and
Speaker 2: prominent in New Orleans society. Many of them quickly becomes
Speaker 2: sort of middle class. I have my suspicion, in my hunch,
Speaker 2: and it's only a hunch, is that this is a
Speaker 2: white male who for who feels like he's a failure,
Speaker 2: that he is not getting what he is a white
Speaker 2: man is entitled to, that has some reason for resenting
Speaker 2: these Italians who are outstripping him. Socially possibly, I mean,
Speaker 2: he's a burglar. We have reason to believe that. Maybe
Speaker 2: is that the homicide detective suggested to me, maybe an
Speaker 2: Italian grocer testified against him and sent him to prison.
Speaker 2: We don't know. Maybe his family lost to grocery store,
Speaker 2: to the competition from Italians. You know, there are all
Speaker 2: kinds of reasons. But my suspicion is is that it's
Speaker 2: rooted in the kind of social terms at the time
Speaker 2: that the Italians were not considered quite white, but they're
Speaker 2: doing better than a lot of working class white people people. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I think I think there's an element of racial
Speaker 2: resentment here.
Speaker 5: You talked about too, that we just did not mention this,
Speaker 5: but the incredible panic, especially among the Italian grocers, but
Speaker 5: also among the community itself in New Orleans, when especially
Speaker 5: the media played up that this fiendish, bloodthirsty killer was
Speaker 5: on the run, was on the loose, the axe man
Speaker 5: in New Orleans. So what we didn't talk about is,
Speaker 5: and you do discuss in the book to great extent,
Speaker 5: is the panic that ensued because of this story and
Speaker 5: because of these murders.
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially after the Romano killing in I think it's
Speaker 2: and I should point out that there are several attacks
Speaker 2: that there's some talk about them related to the axe man,
Speaker 2: although I don't actually think they were axe man attacks,
Speaker 2: but they contributed the sense of panic, and after the
Speaker 2: Romano killing, I think it's inn October of nineteen eighteen,
Speaker 2: there really is a sense of panic because it's pretty
Speaker 2: clear that you have somebody going out there killing people,
Speaker 2: and particularly among Italian immigrants, obviously there's this sense of panic,
Speaker 2: and you have stories of fathers who are staying up
Speaker 2: all night with shotguns to guard their family, and of
Speaker 2: families that are banding together so some of them can
Speaker 2: stay up. But there really was this sense of panic,
Speaker 2: particularly obviously among the people who think they're the targets
Speaker 2: of this attacker, this real sense of fear.
Speaker 5: Yes, it's a very fascinating tale. And also two of
Speaker 5: all of the suspects that were rounded up, if you
Speaker 5: talked about the mentally ill person that was languishing in
Speaker 5: jail while the attacks were continuing, so they knew that
Speaker 5: person wasn't and so all of the people that they
Speaker 5: thought might might be responsible ended up that weren't, and
Speaker 5: so it just contributed to this panic and the police
Speaker 5: again a division between the police, where one police officer
Speaker 5: thinks it's one thing and part of the other police
Speaker 5: force doesn't. So the same kinds of things that go
Speaker 5: on in modern investigations sort of not a unified response necessarily,
Speaker 5: and disagreements over who the killer is and people responsible
Speaker 5: for it. So I want to thank you very much,
Speaker 5: Miriam for coming on and talking about the axe Man
Speaker 5: in New Orleans, The True Story. For those that might
Speaker 5: want to do you have a website or a Facebook
Speaker 5: page for this? How might people find out more information
Speaker 5: about this?
Speaker 2: Tell us go to www dot XMNA New Orleans dot
Speaker 2: com and there's also a Facebook page, The ax Man
Speaker 2: of New Orleans, The True Story.
Speaker 5: I want to thank you very much, Miriam. It's been fascinating.
Speaker 5: The ox Man in New Orleans, The True Story. Thank
Speaker 5: you very much. You have a great evening.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Oh you too, Thank you so much, Bye bye,
Speaker 2: good night,