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True Murder with Your 51 00:02:34.080 --> 00:02:51.639 host journalist and author Dan Zupanski good Evening, A reign 52 00:02:51.680 --> 00:02:55.199 of terror swept the streets of Birmingham in the nineteen twenties. 53 00:02:56.759 --> 00:03:02.520 Criminals armed with small axes attacked immigrant merchants and interracial couples, 54 00:03:02.759 --> 00:03:06.120 leaving dozens dead or injured over the course of four years. 55 00:03:07.159 --> 00:03:10.719 Desperate for answers, police accepted clues from a Ouiji board, 56 00:03:11.319 --> 00:03:16.520 while citizens clamored for gun permits for protection. The city's 57 00:03:16.520 --> 00:03:20.479 Italian immigrants formed their own association as protection against the 58 00:03:20.520 --> 00:03:25.319 Black Hand, an organized band of brutal criminals. Eventually, the 59 00:03:25.360 --> 00:03:28.800 police turned to a dangerous and untested truth serum to 60 00:03:28.879 --> 00:03:33.319 illicit confessions. Four black men and a teenaged girl were 61 00:03:33.439 --> 00:03:37.520 charged and tried, while copycat killers emerged from the woodwork. 62 00:03:38.599 --> 00:03:41.759 Journalist Jeremy Gray tackles one of the most curious and 63 00:03:41.840 --> 00:03:45.479 violent cases in Magic City history. The book they were 64 00:03:45.520 --> 00:03:50.159 featuring this evening is the infamous Birmingham Axe Murders, Prohibition 65 00:03:50.520 --> 00:03:54.520 Gangsters and Vigilante Justice with my special guest, journalist and 66 00:03:54.560 --> 00:03:56.120 author Jeremy W. 67 00:03:56.240 --> 00:03:59.360 Gray. Welcome to the program, and thank you very much 68 00:03:59.439 --> 00:04:02.039 for a greens this interview. Jeremy W. 69 00:04:02.159 --> 00:04:04.639 Gray, wonderful to be here, Thank you for having me. 70 00:04:05.639 --> 00:04:10.319 Thank you very much. Incredible story and thank you for 71 00:04:10.360 --> 00:04:15.199 bringing it to our audience. Attention. Now, you start this 72 00:04:15.319 --> 00:04:20.399 story in December fourteenth, nineteen nineteen, but there is a 73 00:04:20.519 --> 00:04:24.040 background that you a little bit later in the book. 74 00:04:24.040 --> 00:04:28.399 You talk about Birmingham itself at that time and also 75 00:04:29.519 --> 00:04:32.560 the makeup of the city in terms of African American 76 00:04:32.959 --> 00:04:37.439 population and Italian immigrants. So tell us just a little 77 00:04:37.439 --> 00:04:44.759 bit about first about Birmingham and the state of it 78 00:04:44.920 --> 00:04:48.160 and in the population, tell us a little bit about Birmingham, Alabama. 79 00:04:49.199 --> 00:04:56.759 Sure, Birmingham is a very young city. It's incorporated in 80 00:04:56.800 --> 00:05:00.560 eighteen seventy one, several years after the end of the 81 00:05:00.600 --> 00:05:06.439 Civil War. Birmingham, according to historian Wayne Flint, is the 82 00:05:06.480 --> 00:05:10.319 only city in America, even outside of Pittsburgh, where you 83 00:05:10.360 --> 00:05:12.920 have everything you need to make steel. And so it's 84 00:05:12.920 --> 00:05:16.319 the height of the Industrial Revolution. This is the place 85 00:05:16.360 --> 00:05:20.800 to be. So it just emerges out of nothing literally 86 00:05:22.319 --> 00:05:28.240 and by nineteen twenty the population has grown exponentially to 87 00:05:28.680 --> 00:05:36.319 one hundred and seventy eight thousand. It's attracted white farmers, sharecroppers, 88 00:05:36.959 --> 00:05:40.120 black shared croppers from the fields of Alabama. It's also 89 00:05:40.160 --> 00:05:43.480 attracted immigrants from all over the world. And so here 90 00:05:43.560 --> 00:05:48.279 in the middle of the South, which is predominantly for Protestant, 91 00:05:48.639 --> 00:05:52.720 you know, White Anglo Saxon Protestant and African American, you 92 00:05:52.839 --> 00:05:58.600 have this large cause of Politan growing community. And it's 93 00:05:58.639 --> 00:06:02.920 a hard lot. It's blue collar work, it's steel meal, 94 00:06:03.079 --> 00:06:11.079 it's coal mines, it's an arduous existence. And so along 95 00:06:11.120 --> 00:06:14.399 with that you have a lot of violence. And so 96 00:06:14.560 --> 00:06:16.720 if you have the city, it's growing extonationally, one of 97 00:06:16.720 --> 00:06:18.879 the fastest growing cities in the country. It's also one 98 00:06:18.879 --> 00:06:19.519 of the most violent. 99 00:06:22.480 --> 00:06:24.920 You talked about also, and as you do in the book, 100 00:06:25.040 --> 00:06:28.680 because of all of these things, confluence of events and 101 00:06:30.079 --> 00:06:33.680 groups that you talk about the Klan at that time, 102 00:06:33.759 --> 00:06:36.720 the Ku Klux Klan, So tell us about its presence 103 00:06:36.720 --> 00:06:39.920 there and it's importance you talk about later we talk 104 00:06:39.959 --> 00:06:42.959 about the police chief even being a member, a proud member. 105 00:06:43.360 --> 00:06:45.480 So tell us just about the influence of the Klan 106 00:06:45.600 --> 00:06:49.279 at that time. It's importance there. 107 00:06:49.480 --> 00:06:53.519 At that time. In the nineteen twenties, the Klan in 108 00:06:53.600 --> 00:06:59.519 several parts of America experience a resurgence after the silent 109 00:06:59.600 --> 00:07:04.879 movie The Birth of the Nation. You see claverns that 110 00:07:04.879 --> 00:07:08.680 that's the name for plan groups springing up oliver the Nation. 111 00:07:09.399 --> 00:07:13.079 In Birmingham there is the Robert E. Lee Claborn named after, 112 00:07:13.120 --> 00:07:16.399 of course, the same to Frederick General and it is 113 00:07:16.399 --> 00:07:19.120 said to be one of the largest in the nation. 114 00:07:20.040 --> 00:07:24.319 And Atlanta, Georgia, was probably the clan capital at that time, 115 00:07:24.560 --> 00:07:28.360 but Birmingham was a very close second. And it was said, 116 00:07:28.600 --> 00:07:35.040 according to multiple historical experts that pretty much every member 117 00:07:35.040 --> 00:07:37.319 of the Birmingham Police Department was a member of the clan, 118 00:07:38.439 --> 00:07:42.360 and including and also the sheriffs. The elected sheriff for 119 00:07:42.480 --> 00:07:48.399 the county was said to be a clan member, probably 120 00:07:48.439 --> 00:07:53.920 upwards of ten thousand members, and had very much regular power. 121 00:07:54.600 --> 00:07:57.120 A lot of what their focus was wasn't so much 122 00:07:57.120 --> 00:08:00.959 about racial things. It was about what they can center morality. 123 00:08:02.800 --> 00:08:07.879 One time someone mistreated their mother a property dispute, so 124 00:08:07.920 --> 00:08:11.600 they dragged them out of this house and whipped him. 125 00:08:11.759 --> 00:08:15.319 A Chinese restaurant had a gambling operations. They dragged those 126 00:08:15.319 --> 00:08:18.839 people out and whipped them. It wasn't really what you 127 00:08:18.839 --> 00:08:22.120 would think of as a traditional plan activity, but it 128 00:08:22.279 --> 00:08:26.560 was very prevalent during the time of the acts murders. 129 00:08:27.720 --> 00:08:30.639 Before we get into any of the details of those murders, 130 00:08:30.759 --> 00:08:33.200 you also I would like to get to get you 131 00:08:33.279 --> 00:08:37.559 to tell us about the state of the Italian population, 132 00:08:37.679 --> 00:08:41.799 the Italian immigrants, where they were originally from, and also 133 00:08:42.559 --> 00:08:47.720 the clan treatment of Italians and why. 134 00:08:48.080 --> 00:08:52.720 All Right, near as I can tell, a lot of 135 00:08:52.840 --> 00:08:58.039 the Italians made up the largest immigrant group in Jefferson County, 136 00:08:58.480 --> 00:09:03.000 the home county of Birmingham in the nineteen twenties. As 137 00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:05.000 near as I can tell, a lot of those came 138 00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:12.519 from Sicily, the southern part of Italy. Biasquiano. I forgive 139 00:09:12.559 --> 00:09:17.480 me if I've mispronounced that, which is a small rural community, 140 00:09:18.200 --> 00:09:19.879 and it just sort of became one of those things 141 00:09:19.879 --> 00:09:22.559 where while so and so went so, so and So's 142 00:09:22.600 --> 00:09:24.480 cousin is side, I'll go follow them, or so and 143 00:09:24.480 --> 00:09:28.720 So's brothers side, go follow them. They get to Alabama, 144 00:09:28.799 --> 00:09:33.320 they you know, as with so many immigrants, they come 145 00:09:33.519 --> 00:09:36.120 with hoping for the promise of better life for themselves 146 00:09:36.120 --> 00:09:39.639 and their family, and they find it, but they also 147 00:09:39.679 --> 00:09:45.200 find a discrimination. And since a lot of these Southern 148 00:09:45.200 --> 00:09:51.200 Italian folks they're darker skinned, they're treated basically the same 149 00:09:51.360 --> 00:09:54.559 as African Americans, which, of course, in nineteen twentis Alabamas 150 00:09:55.360 --> 00:10:01.639 is not so great. So you have congressmen Alabama probably 151 00:10:01.759 --> 00:10:09.360 publicly proclaiming that these immigrants are defiling in the white race, 152 00:10:09.600 --> 00:10:14.559 and you start seeing literacy test for voting and that 153 00:10:14.639 --> 00:10:18.519 sort of thing. And also because they're sort of a 154 00:10:18.519 --> 00:10:23.679 disenfranchised group, they don't really enjoyed police protection, so they're 155 00:10:23.799 --> 00:10:28.679 an easy group to target for robbery extortion, and then 156 00:10:29.600 --> 00:10:32.639 go to that they sort of band together and try 157 00:10:32.679 --> 00:10:35.679 to protect themselves, which leads to its own sets a 158 00:10:35.799 --> 00:10:37.039 set of problems. 159 00:10:38.759 --> 00:10:43.720 People know about this, but we could warrants mentioning again 160 00:10:43.879 --> 00:10:46.080 that these people had come from Sicily, and so they 161 00:10:46.159 --> 00:10:51.240 knew of people praying on them, namely the Black Hand. 162 00:10:51.519 --> 00:10:53.480 Tell us just a little bit about what they knew 163 00:10:53.559 --> 00:10:57.559 of the Black Hand from their experiences in life in Sicily. 164 00:10:59.000 --> 00:11:00.000 Tell us a little bit about that. 165 00:11:01.399 --> 00:11:03.600 You know, I really I don't know what they might 166 00:11:03.639 --> 00:11:07.039 have known or not known. I just know from looking 167 00:11:07.120 --> 00:11:14.960 back at it. Wherever Italian immigrants lived not to cast 168 00:11:14.960 --> 00:11:17.840 dis versions on any one group of people. You would 169 00:11:17.879 --> 00:11:21.480 see groups of these Black Hand organizations pop up to 170 00:11:21.559 --> 00:11:28.240 pray primarily on Italians. They're fellow countrymen. I tell people, 171 00:11:28.279 --> 00:11:30.519 my book's not so much Friday the Thirteenth as it 172 00:11:30.559 --> 00:11:34.039 is that God saw them Part two. It's a small 173 00:11:34.159 --> 00:11:37.919 you know, small time thug praying on their fellow countrymen 174 00:11:38.320 --> 00:11:42.960 because they know they don't have anywhere to turn. In 175 00:11:44.320 --> 00:11:48.320 Chicago in the nineteen twenties, the Black Hand used bombs. 176 00:11:48.360 --> 00:11:54.159 There were multiple bombings of that killed people. It was extortion. 177 00:11:54.320 --> 00:11:56.159 Hey pay up, but we're gonna blow up your business. 178 00:11:56.639 --> 00:11:59.360 And there was also a black Hand enforcer known as 179 00:11:59.360 --> 00:12:02.120 a shotgun and in Chicago who just walked down the 180 00:12:02.120 --> 00:12:04.799 street with a shotgun over his shoulder and he just 181 00:12:04.879 --> 00:12:08.039 ran the streets. In New York City, there was a 182 00:12:08.120 --> 00:12:13.120 barrel murders and that's really how organized crime first came 183 00:12:13.159 --> 00:12:18.840 to be known in the United States. There were barrels 184 00:12:18.879 --> 00:12:21.039 found on the side of the road in New York 185 00:12:21.080 --> 00:12:23.000 City and it starts thinking up and it's made open 186 00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:26.279 them and there'd be some you know, poor crime victim 187 00:12:26.279 --> 00:12:31.360 inside and it was an extortion racket. It wasn't really 188 00:12:31.440 --> 00:12:35.559 one national syndicate the way we might think of the 189 00:12:35.679 --> 00:12:39.200 larger scale mafia of the forties and fifties and sixties. 190 00:12:39.759 --> 00:12:44.120 It was just fans of thugs who like, hey, we 191 00:12:44.159 --> 00:12:48.840 can extort people. And in Birmingham, I think that took 192 00:12:48.919 --> 00:12:52.799 the form of shopping people up with access. 193 00:12:54.799 --> 00:12:59.159 Now before December twenty fourth, nineteen nineteen, which chronicles the 194 00:12:59.240 --> 00:13:04.120 beginning of these reportedly of these axe murders, you also 195 00:13:04.200 --> 00:13:08.200 chronicle about case two months before and the axe Man 196 00:13:08.240 --> 00:13:12.559 of New Orleans and a man named Mike peppatone again 197 00:13:12.600 --> 00:13:15.279 his skull was crushed while he's in bed October seventeenth, 198 00:13:15.360 --> 00:13:19.360 nineteen nineteen, and that marked the end of an ax 199 00:13:19.480 --> 00:13:23.360 murder spree. You say that injured a dozen people, mostly 200 00:13:23.399 --> 00:13:29.120 Italian merchants. Why did you include this crime two months 201 00:13:29.120 --> 00:13:32.639 before and then tell and then from there tell us 202 00:13:32.759 --> 00:13:35.639 what happened December twenty fourth, nineteen nineteen. 203 00:13:38.360 --> 00:13:39.960 And one of the first things I hear when I 204 00:13:40.120 --> 00:13:43.559 when I discussed this case of people, especially people who 205 00:13:43.600 --> 00:13:47.200 are very interested in true crime, Hey, there were there 206 00:13:47.200 --> 00:13:49.360 acx murders in New Orleans. Is it possibly related to that? 207 00:13:50.399 --> 00:13:54.320 I don't think so. But I think it is worth noting. 208 00:13:56.080 --> 00:13:59.720 You know, it's in today. It's a five hour car 209 00:14:00.039 --> 00:14:02.960 I do from Birmingham to New Orleans. There's a train 210 00:14:03.039 --> 00:14:06.399 line that has been running folks from New Orleans to 211 00:14:06.399 --> 00:14:13.080 Birmingham to New York for one hundred years now. So 212 00:14:13.120 --> 00:14:15.799 it's not beyond the realm of possibility that someone was 213 00:14:15.840 --> 00:14:18.759 committing murders in New Orleans and then decided to start 214 00:14:18.759 --> 00:14:23.080 committing those murders in Birmingham instead. The New Orleans murders 215 00:14:23.679 --> 00:14:27.559 are much different. They target Italian merchants. That's another reason. 216 00:14:28.480 --> 00:14:33.399 It's the same sort of class of people group of people. However, 217 00:14:33.480 --> 00:14:37.000 in those cases, the axe man chopped through the doors, 218 00:14:37.600 --> 00:14:40.840 killed the people in their sleep, killed kids. That's not 219 00:14:40.879 --> 00:14:43.559 what happened in Birmingham and Birmingham. The ax man and 220 00:14:43.600 --> 00:14:46.879 the merchant murders would come in and say, hey, I 221 00:14:46.879 --> 00:14:50.360 want some oranges, want some cigarettes. He would bend down 222 00:14:50.360 --> 00:14:52.440 to pick up the cigarettes, or you'd turn around to 223 00:14:52.440 --> 00:14:55.279 get the oranges and the axe man would chop you 224 00:14:56.360 --> 00:15:00.799 in the head. So it was very much different. You 225 00:15:00.840 --> 00:15:04.000 know the fact that eight weeks passed between the end 226 00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:06.360 of one crime spree and the other, the fact they 227 00:15:06.440 --> 00:15:10.480 both targeted Italian communities in the foul. I thought it 228 00:15:10.519 --> 00:15:13.919 was worth noting. I think there's probably three paragraphs in 229 00:15:13.960 --> 00:15:16.320 the entire book about New Orleans, but I think it 230 00:15:16.759 --> 00:15:19.000 would have been not to acknowledge it in some way. 231 00:15:19.240 --> 00:15:25.159 You talk about the first to murder, about John H. Belzer, 232 00:15:25.360 --> 00:15:27.600 and you say that in the general story was attacked 233 00:15:27.600 --> 00:15:30.519 as he turned his head to serve some customers, and 234 00:15:30.559 --> 00:15:32.919 he was attacked, and you say police had no leads 235 00:15:34.159 --> 00:15:36.159 in the attack. And then it vanished from memory for 236 00:15:36.200 --> 00:15:40.840 more than a year. But then March fifteenth, nineteen twenty one, C. C. 237 00:15:41.039 --> 00:15:44.360 Pipkins was attacked at his grocery store. Tell us about 238 00:15:44.399 --> 00:15:48.879 this attack and what witnesses claim to have seen or 239 00:15:48.919 --> 00:15:49.759 who they've seen. 240 00:15:51.480 --> 00:15:52.919 Oh, and that went up. 241 00:15:53.279 --> 00:15:53.840 There were. 242 00:15:57.759 --> 00:16:04.639 Money from the scene. You know, there was a I 243 00:16:04.879 --> 00:16:08.519 question whether the first murder is actually associated with any 244 00:16:08.559 --> 00:16:10.480 of these. I think it may have been an unsault 245 00:16:10.559 --> 00:16:14.240 case that was just linked to it. And then they 246 00:16:14.279 --> 00:16:20.360 resume in nineteen twenty one with the Pipkin's case. It 247 00:16:20.399 --> 00:16:22.679 doesn't give us a lot of attention. A man's assaulted 248 00:16:22.720 --> 00:16:28.480 in the store on March fifth, nineteen twenty one. Two 249 00:16:28.519 --> 00:16:31.960 men hit him in the head with an axe and 250 00:16:32.039 --> 00:16:37.960 two customers scare the culprits away, and then we have 251 00:16:38.039 --> 00:16:42.320 another series, another case just a few months later in 252 00:16:42.399 --> 00:16:46.360 July of nineteen twenty one, where a family in a 253 00:16:46.399 --> 00:16:49.639 grocery store, A man, a woman, and a teenage girl 254 00:16:49.639 --> 00:16:53.200 are attacked. A nail is pounded into a woman's head, 255 00:16:54.279 --> 00:16:57.639 everybody survives. A milkman comes around these the kids running 256 00:16:57.639 --> 00:17:04.119 in blood and work the authorities. So from there it 257 00:17:04.240 --> 00:17:08.160 just starts picking up incrementally. We start with this one 258 00:17:08.160 --> 00:17:11.319 man getting assaulted, and we have the family getting assaulted, 259 00:17:12.160 --> 00:17:16.640 and by the end of nineteen twenty one there were 260 00:17:16.680 --> 00:17:19.599 seven injured and four murdered. And it's by the end 261 00:17:19.640 --> 00:17:22.200 of nineteen twenty one people really get the idea that hey, 262 00:17:22.680 --> 00:17:23.880 there's something going on here. 263 00:17:25.319 --> 00:17:28.599 Do you talk about the police reaction, their theory as 264 00:17:28.640 --> 00:17:31.440 to who is responsible for these crimes and then the 265 00:17:32.519 --> 00:17:37.079 very very interesting response by the media, and you talk 266 00:17:37.119 --> 00:17:40.680 about a newspaper called The Age Herald in Birmingham. So 267 00:17:40.960 --> 00:17:43.559 first time was about the police theory and then the 268 00:17:43.599 --> 00:17:44.319 media response. 269 00:17:46.640 --> 00:17:52.039 Well, the police theories varied in case the case, and 270 00:17:52.160 --> 00:17:54.519 some there was you know, we said there were maybe 271 00:17:54.559 --> 00:17:59.599 were straight up robbery, and some they said that the 272 00:17:59.599 --> 00:18:03.680 resident has had a beef with one of their neighbors 273 00:18:03.799 --> 00:18:08.160 or someone they rented property to. Some they said a 274 00:18:08.200 --> 00:18:13.680 person was involved in bootlegging, our selling of selling goods, 275 00:18:14.359 --> 00:18:17.519 and someone some other group of people, perhaps he's black hand. 276 00:18:18.039 --> 00:18:22.400 Organized crime groups knew about that and were blackmailing them, 277 00:18:22.440 --> 00:18:25.039 and when the blackmail didn't work, they were killing them. 278 00:18:25.519 --> 00:18:27.200 And then in the midst of all that, we also 279 00:18:27.240 --> 00:18:31.319 have a second set of crimes where an African American 280 00:18:31.359 --> 00:18:34.240 woman and a white man would be found in an alleyway, 281 00:18:35.400 --> 00:18:43.480 perhaps engaged prostitution, perhaps someone selling alcohol illicitly, this being 282 00:18:43.519 --> 00:18:48.720 prohibition to another person or elan and the seal of 283 00:18:48.759 --> 00:18:53.680 illegal drugs and someone killing them, and the police are 284 00:18:53.680 --> 00:18:57.119 pretty quick to say. And also the African American newspaper, 285 00:18:57.200 --> 00:19:01.839 the prominent black weekly paper, the Verman Air Report, was 286 00:19:01.920 --> 00:19:05.200 quick to say that those were the group of kids 287 00:19:05.200 --> 00:19:13.079 who were trying to prevent white men from having relations 288 00:19:13.119 --> 00:19:17.240 with black women. And so the news was quick to 289 00:19:17.319 --> 00:19:21.039 jump on all that these interracial stuff that came up 290 00:19:21.039 --> 00:19:24.839 a little bit later. So the Age Herald in January 291 00:19:24.880 --> 00:19:27.119 of nineteen twenty two, and this is an age where 292 00:19:28.759 --> 00:19:36.000 we have three daily newspapers, multiple weekly papers and you know, 293 00:19:36.119 --> 00:19:42.319 just pre television radios and its infancy. It's an old 294 00:19:42.319 --> 00:19:47.880 fashioned newspaper war. And so with the axe murders increasing 295 00:19:47.920 --> 00:19:52.039 in intensity and frequency in late nineteen twenty one, by 296 00:19:52.279 --> 00:19:56.759 nineteen twenty two, they're all over it, the Age Herald 297 00:19:56.839 --> 00:20:02.759 comes up with a crudely drawn racist care nature, assuming 298 00:20:02.799 --> 00:20:05.519 this sub such as black, the murderers black, and they 299 00:20:05.519 --> 00:20:08.119 call him Henry the Hacker, and they give him just 300 00:20:08.200 --> 00:20:15.200 sort of the basic racist caricature drawing uh and there's 301 00:20:15.240 --> 00:20:18.839 just tons of a recals. They devote two straight days 302 00:20:19.160 --> 00:20:21.480 of coverage to this. And at the same time, the 303 00:20:21.519 --> 00:20:26.160 plans marching through the street people that are going to 304 00:20:26.240 --> 00:20:30.000 the courthouse to get gun permits. Merchants are saying, hey, 305 00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:32.200 we're going to form a group. We're going to hire people, 306 00:20:32.880 --> 00:20:38.960 the Italian immigrants, their formula protection organization where they're going 307 00:20:39.000 --> 00:20:43.599 to band together to chase out criminals that targets their 308 00:20:44.319 --> 00:20:49.759 the little countrymen. So the Age Herald really fans the flames. 309 00:20:49.759 --> 00:20:53.200 And I work for the Birmingham News the al al 310 00:20:53.240 --> 00:20:57.680 dot com. I've been there almost fifteen years, so were 311 00:20:57.720 --> 00:21:01.039 we were complicent in that too, But the Harold really 312 00:21:01.079 --> 00:21:02.640 stoked it for a while there. 313 00:21:06.039 --> 00:21:09.359 What did the police do with this is nineteen twenty two. 314 00:21:09.400 --> 00:21:14.599 What did police do with people though they suspected? How 315 00:21:14.599 --> 00:21:18.039 did they proceed with questioning and what were some of 316 00:21:18.039 --> 00:21:21.680 the things that they did to try to solve these cases? 317 00:21:21.720 --> 00:21:24.920 And was there any talk of any kind of link 318 00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:31.359 between any of these crimes despite again the racial overtones here, 319 00:21:31.480 --> 00:21:34.400 but also the immigrants that were killed in their shops 320 00:21:34.480 --> 00:21:37.119 or attacked in their shops. Tell us about any possible 321 00:21:37.200 --> 00:21:40.559 link that the police thought and how they proceeded. 322 00:21:43.119 --> 00:21:46.920 It began with sort of standard operating procedure of chasing 323 00:21:46.920 --> 00:21:52.039 down the leads in each one of these cases. It 324 00:21:52.200 --> 00:21:56.799 got more outlandish as time went on. In January of 325 00:21:56.880 --> 00:22:02.279 nineteen twenty two, someone mailed a to the Birmingham Police chief. 326 00:22:03.119 --> 00:22:05.480 He said that he and some friends had been playing 327 00:22:05.519 --> 00:22:08.720 with a wigi board, and the wigi board they'd asked 328 00:22:08.720 --> 00:22:11.359 the Wigi board who was committing the axe murders and 329 00:22:11.400 --> 00:22:15.000 it spelled out the name of a well known Birmingham criminal. 330 00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:18.680 The letter writer said he didn't know who this man was. 331 00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:21.200 They didn't share in the name of the newspaper. One 332 00:22:21.200 --> 00:22:25.240 of the h Harold articles that I mentioned earlier. The 333 00:22:25.279 --> 00:22:28.960 police sent out detectives looking for this man identified through 334 00:22:28.960 --> 00:22:35.680 the Ouiji board. What really ultimately broke the case, so 335 00:22:35.799 --> 00:22:39.720 to speak, was it when they rounded up the suspects 336 00:22:40.359 --> 00:22:43.039 and two of the murders, just two of them out 337 00:22:43.039 --> 00:22:49.200 about twenty They there beside the people's four men, one 338 00:22:49.559 --> 00:22:53.039 teenage girl, a nineteen year old woman, and they took 339 00:22:53.119 --> 00:22:55.839 them out of their jail sales late at night and 340 00:22:56.440 --> 00:22:59.319 led him to a doctor's office and they shot him 341 00:22:59.359 --> 00:23:06.079 up with a mixture of drugs morphine and stapalo mine. 342 00:23:06.640 --> 00:23:13.119 This was a drug cocktail used on women who were 343 00:23:13.160 --> 00:23:18.519 getting birth. A doctor in Texas, Robert House, in the 344 00:23:18.640 --> 00:23:23.640 early twenties, noticed that whenever women were injected with his drugs, 345 00:23:24.359 --> 00:23:26.920 their loose, their lips got really loose, you know, they 346 00:23:26.920 --> 00:23:31.799 would tell you anything. And so he thought maybe this 347 00:23:31.839 --> 00:23:37.000 would fall some crimes, and so he, you know, pouted 348 00:23:37.079 --> 00:23:41.559 it with some law enforcing agencies in Texas. Anybody would listen. 349 00:23:41.680 --> 00:23:44.279 He was going around selling it. I don't know that 350 00:23:44.319 --> 00:23:47.559 he was very involved in the Birmingham cases, but the 351 00:23:47.599 --> 00:23:52.000 doctors and the police and the prosecutors decided to give 352 00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:56.559 it a try, and it is crazy as that sounds. 353 00:23:56.640 --> 00:23:58.599 Dragging people out of their cells and shooting them up 354 00:23:58.599 --> 00:24:02.559 with drugs and then listening confessions. I mean is that 355 00:24:03.519 --> 00:24:07.960 it is literally torture in the eyes of the US Constitution. 356 00:24:08.799 --> 00:24:13.599 It was out lawed in nineteen sixty three in connection 357 00:24:13.640 --> 00:24:18.440 with a murder case in Cook County, Illinois, but the 358 00:24:18.480 --> 00:24:24.799 standard operating procedure for interrogating suspects in Birmingham, Alabama, or 359 00:24:24.839 --> 00:24:27.680 any other city in America in the nineteen twenties was 360 00:24:27.799 --> 00:24:30.519 just basically to beat someone until they told you what 361 00:24:30.680 --> 00:24:34.720 you wanted them to say. So it's kind of interesting 362 00:24:34.759 --> 00:24:38.440 that they this was a very scientific route. They thought, hey, 363 00:24:38.480 --> 00:24:41.039 we'll use these drugs and they'll tell us everything we 364 00:24:41.119 --> 00:24:47.240 want to know. And ultimately these five people are connected 365 00:24:47.240 --> 00:24:51.680 in one set of murders, a white man, John Robert Turner, 366 00:24:52.480 --> 00:25:00.160 and a woman, Lily Beal. But the police say, okay, 367 00:25:00.160 --> 00:25:03.720 well we got everybody, and they just were wrap it 368 00:25:03.759 --> 00:25:06.960 up with a neat even though it really makes no 369 00:25:07.440 --> 00:25:09.799 there's no way that all these people, and some of 370 00:25:09.839 --> 00:25:15.279 them were in prison when ers were committed. It just 371 00:25:15.440 --> 00:25:19.599 it's it's outlandish to think that these five people committed 372 00:25:20.519 --> 00:25:22.839 even more than one or two of these murders. It's 373 00:25:22.880 --> 00:25:23.240 even that. 374 00:25:26.160 --> 00:25:28.599 You talk about and we kind of skipped over it though, 375 00:25:28.720 --> 00:25:33.240 because of this increasing fear and stoked by the media, 376 00:25:33.319 --> 00:25:38.519 sensationalistic media that took liberty with facts and with the 377 00:25:38.640 --> 00:25:41.680 clan and with you know, you say, the police force 378 00:25:41.839 --> 00:25:46.160 being openly clan members and this pressure. You also talk 379 00:25:46.200 --> 00:25:49.240 about though, that there was a theory by police that 380 00:25:49.279 --> 00:25:53.319 there was this vigilante band of negroes that was responsible. 381 00:25:53.960 --> 00:25:57.359 So before when they talked about the Truth serum, that 382 00:25:57.440 --> 00:26:00.000 there were critics at the time of the Truth series 383 00:26:01.039 --> 00:26:05.759 and what it would mean, but also interestingly, the police 384 00:26:06.160 --> 00:26:10.160 and the media herald it, as you say, much more 385 00:26:10.200 --> 00:26:15.079 civil than the way they elicited confessions before that, and 386 00:26:15.160 --> 00:26:19.559 it was almost like the recent East Area rapist development 387 00:26:19.640 --> 00:26:22.759 where now everybody's going to be taking familiar DNA and 388 00:26:22.799 --> 00:26:26.599 doing testing on cold cases. It really was harald as 389 00:26:26.640 --> 00:26:31.480 an innovation that would just as important as fingerprinting and 390 00:26:31.599 --> 00:26:35.599 that every other police force would be interested in and 391 00:26:35.599 --> 00:26:38.759 in fact, very much like we'd see in modern day. 392 00:26:38.920 --> 00:26:44.799 Many police jurisdictions asked the advice of Birmingham Police detectives 393 00:26:44.880 --> 00:26:47.119 as to end the doctor, as to how to use 394 00:26:47.160 --> 00:26:51.319 this truth serum to elicit confessions and use it for investigations, 395 00:26:51.359 --> 00:26:53.640 didn't they sure? 396 00:26:53.720 --> 00:26:59.160 Sure they thought that it would be a method that 397 00:26:59.240 --> 00:27:04.039 would be replicated in police departments around the country. I 398 00:27:04.079 --> 00:27:07.240 don't see any evidence of that happening. I think there 399 00:27:07.240 --> 00:27:11.920 are cases sporadically here and there. The CIA several years 400 00:27:11.960 --> 00:27:14.519 ago released a report that they wrote in the nineteen 401 00:27:14.599 --> 00:27:19.000