Speaker 1: Hey guys, it is Ryan. I'm not sure if you
Speaker 1: know this about me, but I'm a bit of a
Speaker 1: fun fanatic one.
Speaker 2: I can.
Speaker 1: I like to work, but I like fun too. It's
Speaker 1: a thing. And now the truth is out there, I
Speaker 1: can tell you about my favorite place to have fun,
Speaker 1: Chumba Casino. They have hundreds of social casino style games
Speaker 1: to choose from, with new games released each week. You
Speaker 1: can play for free anytime, anywhere, and each day brings
Speaker 1: a new chance to collect daily bonuses. So join me
Speaker 1: and the fun. Sign up now at Chumba Casino dot com.
Speaker 3: No, we'd necessary dallypod where everybody lost et terms conditions
Speaker 3: eighteen plus.
Speaker 4: Judy was boring Hello. Then Judy discovered Chumpbucasino dot com.
Speaker 4: It's my little escape. Now Judy's the life of the party.
Speaker 4: Oh baby mama is bringing home the bacon. WHOA, take
Speaker 4: it easy, Judy, jump the jumba life. That's for everybody.
Speaker 4: So go to Chumpacasino dot com and play over one
Speaker 4: hundred casino style games. Join today and play for free
Speaker 4: for your chance to redeem some serious prices. Jump Chumpacasino
Speaker 4: dot com. Nopead's necessary point. We're pingited to my eighteen
Speaker 4: plus terms and condition to plus.
Speaker 5: What's video You.
Speaker 6: Are now listening to True Murder The most shocking killers
Speaker 6: in true crime history and the authors that have written
Speaker 6: about them Geesey, Bundy, Dalhmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every week
Speaker 6: another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous
Speaker 6: killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host
Speaker 6: journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 7: Good Evening, an examination of the unsolved mystery of the
Speaker 7: Jack the Ripper style serial killer who terrified early twentieth
Speaker 7: century Atlanta, Georgia. As Atlanta finished rebuilding after the Civil War,
Speaker 7: a new horror arose from the ashes to roam the
Speaker 7: night streets. Beginning in nineteen eleven, a killer whose methods
Speaker 7: mimicked the fame Jack the Ripper, murdered at least twenty
Speaker 7: black women, from prostitutes to working class women and mothers.
Speaker 7: Each murder attributed to the killer occurred on a Saturday night,
Speaker 7: and for one terrifying spring in nineteen eleven, a fresh
Speaker 7: body turned up every Sunday morning, amid a stifling investigation.
Speaker 7: Slayings continued until nineteen fifteen. As many as six men
Speaker 7: were arrested for the crimes, but investigators never discovered the
Speaker 7: identity of the killer or killers, despite having several suspects
Speaker 7: in custody. Joined local historian Jeffrey Wells as he reveals
Speaker 7: the case of the Atlanta Ripper, unsolved to this day.
Speaker 7: The book they were featuring this evening is The Atlanta Ripper,
Speaker 7: The Unsolved Case of the Gate City's most infamous Murders,
Speaker 7: with my special guest, historian and author Jeffrey Wells. Welcome
Speaker 7: to the program, and thank you very much for this interview.
Speaker 7: Jeffrey Wells, glad to be here. Thank you so much.
Speaker 7: Tell us a little bit briefly about your background and
Speaker 7: how you came to be the author of this book.
Speaker 2: Well and I appreciate you asking. Born and raised in
Speaker 2: Georgia and educated in Georgia. And after I finished my
Speaker 2: master's degree, I got a teaching job in the Atlanta
Speaker 2: area where I was teaching mostly American history courses. And
Speaker 2: in one of the courses, we were talking about twentieth
Speaker 2: century American history and we were focusing a good bit
Speaker 2: on race relations in the progressive era, and I brought
Speaker 2: in Rebecca Ann Burns's book Rage in the Gate city, which,
Speaker 2: as you know, is about the nineteen oh six race riot,
Speaker 2: and I was making some of the race relations the
Speaker 2: problems we had in the nation in the early nineteen
Speaker 2: high it's more local looking at it through that lens,
Speaker 2: and so I talked about crime, a little bit about crime,
Speaker 2: and I shared with my students how much I enjoyed
Speaker 2: looking at the history of law enforcement and crime in
Speaker 2: the country. And after class one day, a young man said, Hey,
Speaker 2: I was perusing the internet and I found this, and
Speaker 2: I thought that you might enjoy it. And it happened
Speaker 2: to be Steve Fennessy's article in Creative Loafing magazine there
Speaker 2: in Atlanta about the Atlanta River murders, and we read
Speaker 2: it together very interested. I shared it with my class
Speaker 2: and showed them that, you know, even though it didn't
Speaker 2: spawn from the nineteen oh six race riot, that it
Speaker 2: was somewhat there were nuggets of wisdom in there and
Speaker 2: information about the race relations that existed in the city
Speaker 2: at that time. So I taught school for high school
Speaker 2: and then college for some years, then got into doing
Speaker 2: this kind of research, and then eventually the History Press
Speaker 2: asked me to publish it after they saw an article
Speaker 2: I posted on my own blog site entitled the Atlanta River.
Speaker 2: So that's kind of how the story was born.
Speaker 7: Now, let's talk about the race riots in nineteen oh
Speaker 7: six in Atlanta, And as you write in the book,
Speaker 7: tell us about the societal and cultural environment at that time,
Speaker 7: especially for blacks. But what also you write sets Atlanta
Speaker 7: apart at that time from other cities in Georgia.
Speaker 2: Sure well, and Atlanta's kind of unique. It's a railroad town.
Speaker 2: It was founded in the eighteen thirties. I believe it
Speaker 2: was eighteen thirty seven to be exact, where places like
Speaker 2: Macon and Savannah, Savannah being the first city in the
Speaker 2: port city, a big port city on the Savannah River,
Speaker 2: and then later Macon being founded around eighteen twenty three.
Speaker 2: It was a cotton destination. They would ship their cotton
Speaker 2: these rivers as cotton became king, well as Atlanta, which
Speaker 2: started out as terminus in Martha'sville. As Atlanta was founded,
Speaker 2: it blossomed into what we know as a railroad town.
Speaker 2: And there were lots of slaves in Savannah and Mecon
Speaker 2: and in various parts of Georgia. Atlanta began to be
Speaker 2: a destination eventually for slave holders and there were slaves
Speaker 2: in and around the city of Atlanta, but the commerce,
Speaker 2: they are mainly focused on the railroad because Atlanta, the
Speaker 2: Chattahoochee River runs through there, but it didn't service the
Speaker 2: city nearly the way that the Mougi River in Macon
Speaker 2: did and the Savannah River did in Savannah. So you've
Speaker 2: got some differences in the nature of the cities in Georgia.
Speaker 2: And then, of course Atlanta becomes a very big city
Speaker 2: in the twentieth and twenty first centuries. But by eight
Speaker 2: around the eighteen eighties, Atlanta began to grow. It began
Speaker 2: to be the hub of more of an economy that
Speaker 2: we would know as a regional economy. About nineteen hundred,
Speaker 2: you have about ninety thousand people in the city, and
Speaker 2: then well, actually you have about one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: thousand people. It eventually went from about ninety thousand before that,
Speaker 2: blossoming into a bigger metropolis of about one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty thousand between nineteen hundred and nineteen ten. Of that population,
Speaker 2: about a third were African American. Inside the African American
Speaker 2: community in Atlanta at that time, you have a burgeoning
Speaker 2: black elite leadership class and there was some tension between
Speaker 2: them and the black working class, which, as you know,
Speaker 2: Dan was also the black working class. Was the field,
Speaker 2: if you will, that the Atlanta Ripper, the Ripper murders happened.
Speaker 2: Then the black working class, of course, the women who
Speaker 2: were murdered were in that class. Well, there's tension between
Speaker 2: them and the black elite who sought to separate themselves
Speaker 2: a bit from the black working class. And then of
Speaker 2: course the pressures on the black community in Atlanta from
Speaker 2: the white community who sought to separate themselves and segregate
Speaker 2: the classes, keep them separate and oppressed in the black community.
Speaker 2: Those are all the struggles that black Atlanta's had to
Speaker 2: deal with that time, most specifically the black working class.
Speaker 7: Right now, we mentioned you mentioned how important the race
Speaker 7: riot was to just setting up the environment that was
Speaker 7: the Atlanta Ripper, that's the environment he found himself in
Speaker 7: and his victims as well. So let's talk about just
Speaker 7: briefly about this race riot and the effect of the
Speaker 7: race riot on the community itself. Again readying the community
Speaker 7: for the reign of terror of the Atlanta Ripper.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that does provide a backdrop and some context
Speaker 2: that actually emanates from the gubernatorial race in Georgia in
Speaker 2: nineteen oh six. You have Actually it's kind of a
Speaker 2: battle of the two major newspapers that are now one
Speaker 2: newspaper in Georgia, the Atlanta Journal Constitution. At that time
Speaker 2: they were two separate papers, the Atlanta Journal the Atlanta Constitution.
Speaker 2: The former publisher of the Atlanta Journal was Hoak Smith,
Speaker 2: and he ran for governor in nineteen oh six against
Speaker 2: Clark Howell, who was the editor of the Atlanta Constitution. Well,
Speaker 2: in that gubernatorial election race, relations and the burgeoning black community,
Speaker 2: the growth of the black community in Atlanta, and also
Speaker 2: the emergence of the black upper class, was very much
Speaker 2: front and center in that campaign. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 2: I would say that Clark Howell and Hoak Smith were
Speaker 2: trying to out racist one another, if you will, especially
Speaker 2: in twenty first century terms and terms like in their
Speaker 2: place stay on that side, and those were terms that
Speaker 2: were actually used in that race. Now, Tom Watson, who
Speaker 2: was a populist and ran for vice president as a
Speaker 2: populist in the eighteen late eighteen hundreds, endorsed one of
Speaker 2: those candidates, and that was Hoak Smith, who eventually went
Speaker 2: on to win that election. Clark Howell did not win.
Speaker 2: But the Ventriol and the language people think that presidential
Speaker 2: elections in the twenty first century can get bad. These
Speaker 2: gubernatorial elections in the Deep South at that time were
Speaker 2: really bad, and very much so in the case of
Speaker 2: the effect on African Americans and the African American communities.
Speaker 2: Then there were things that were said that demonized black men,
Speaker 2: made them look to the white community as if they
Speaker 2: were nothing, the predators, that black people could not be trusted,
Speaker 2: they were thieves and vagabonds, that they were less intelligent
Speaker 2: than the white community, so therefore they had to be
Speaker 2: managed and kept in their place, otherwise they would threaten
Speaker 2: the white community. So that's the backdrop of the race riot.
Speaker 2: And in September of that year, nineteen o six, the
Speaker 2: Atlanta newspapers vote that I just mentioned and a few
Speaker 2: others actually reported for possible assault. And the bad thing
Speaker 2: about this is is that over time and even in
Speaker 2: that time, they could never substantiate that the assaults actually
Speaker 2: took place. But what they said was that there were
Speaker 2: four black perpetrators who assaulted local white women and Mayor
Speaker 2: James G. Woodward was mayor of Atlanta at that time,
Speaker 2: and he had a mess on his hands because and
Speaker 2: these politicians in the middle of this gubernatorial campaign and
Speaker 2: all of this stuff that was going on in Atlanta
Speaker 2: whipped the community into a frenzy, and eventually black businesses
Speaker 2: were burned, White mobs took to the streets, Black people
Speaker 2: were trying to defend themselves, and it became basically a
Speaker 2: free for all in Atlanta for that time period, and
Speaker 2: the black leadership of Atlanta was crying out for help
Speaker 2: because number one, no one could ever proved that any
Speaker 2: of that happened and that it was that any any
Speaker 2: crimes were perpetrated, but there were certainly crimes being perpetrated
Speaker 2: against the black community as a result of all that hype.
Speaker 7: Right now, it's fascinating that at that time, in nineteen
Speaker 7: oh six, they wait community turned this around where whites
Speaker 7: feared blacks and the threat of blacks in that community.
Speaker 7: Nineteen oh nine, you talk about starting in April, a
Speaker 7: woman named Della Reed is found in a trash pile,
Speaker 7: a black woman, Della Reed, nineteen oh nine. And then
Speaker 7: March fifth, of Stella Baldwin is found with a concussion
Speaker 7: struck in the head. One month later, after that, Georgia
Speaker 7: Brown gunshot wound. Next day a woman named Mattie Smith gunshot,
Speaker 7: and the next month Lavigna Austin, and still in May,
Speaker 7: another woman named Sarah Dukes a gunshot, as well as
Speaker 7: Francis Lampkin, and near labor day Eliza Griggs, and then
Speaker 7: October Maggie Brooks. Now tell us about this what predates
Speaker 7: this in terms of Jack the Ripper, which was in
Speaker 7: eighteen eighty eight in London. What's the effect of Jack
Speaker 7: the Ripper and the story nineteen oh nine and then
Speaker 7: eventually the reporting and the term coined for this assailant,
Speaker 7: The Atlanta Ripper told us a little bit of the
Speaker 7: background of Jack the Ripper and his story and its
Speaker 7: effect on the community before nineteen oh nine.
Speaker 2: It's a good question, and you hit something very important there.
Speaker 2: The term ripper, and they called the press, but that
Speaker 2: was actually a term that was applied to these the
Speaker 2: murderer behind this, or the murderers. At that time, everybody
Speaker 2: kind of thought, it's just one murderer, so they called
Speaker 2: him the theend, and then eventually the Ripper. Then they
Speaker 2: began to use terms like ripper, like murder. The effect
Speaker 2: that Jack the Ripper phenomenon had on these on the
Speaker 2: publications at the time and the mindset of the community.
Speaker 2: As these stories rolled out of the major newspapers in
Speaker 2: Atlanta and around the state was it hung like a pall.
Speaker 2: And it was a dark cloud that hung over all
Speaker 2: of this because even though a lot of society at
Speaker 2: that time, particularly in the Deep South, was illiterate, people
Speaker 2: knew about Jack the Ripper. That has become a phenomenon,
Speaker 2: almost a cultural thing. Anytime you mentioned serial killer today,
Speaker 2: people will go to they'll talk about Jack the Ripper,
Speaker 2: even if they don't study the history of crime. And
Speaker 2: that's also Jason that day and age as well. And
Speaker 2: so the modus OFFHANDI that Jack the Ripper murders was
Speaker 2: slitting the throats, disemboweling, basically, if you will, mangling the
Speaker 2: bodies of the women. Certain things were removed from their bodies,
Speaker 2: body parts. It's almost as if the ripper himself in
Speaker 2: the West end of the Whitechapel district of London was
Speaker 2: taking a prize. And you do see some evidence of
Speaker 2: that here too with the Atlanta ri But that story
Speaker 2: began to kind of hang over these murders, and so
Speaker 2: naturally It just makes a lot of common sense to
Speaker 2: me that eventually journalists would call this ripper like murders,
Speaker 2: and then eventually the name the Atlanta Ripper. And of
Speaker 2: course the Atlanta Ripper prayed on young women, young African
Speaker 2: American women they called the mulatto women, and so the
Speaker 2: ripper in London prayed on white women. So there are
Speaker 2: some similarities in the murder in the murder spreees.
Speaker 7: Right, let's just pause for a moment for these.
Speaker 3: Lucky land casino asking people what's the weirdest place you've
Speaker 3: gotten lucky?
Speaker 4: Lucky? In line at the Delhi, I.
Speaker 5: Guess ahi, in my dentist's office more than once. Actually
Speaker 5: do I have to say?
Speaker 2: Yes? You do?
Speaker 5: In the car before my kid's PTA meeting?
Speaker 4: Really?
Speaker 1: Yes, excuse me?
Speaker 3: What's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky?
Speaker 4: I never win in tell?
Speaker 3: Well, there you have it. You could get lucky anywhere
Speaker 3: playing at land slots dot com play for free right now?
Speaker 1: Are you feeling lucky?
Speaker 3: No, We're just necessary for er long eighteen plus terms conditions,
Speaker 3: plus it's commercials.
Speaker 7: We talked about Jack the Ripper in its effect and
Speaker 7: the women that I had mentioned that were killed by month,
Speaker 7: and we mentioned that in the Incredible that we're attacked
Speaker 7: on sun Saturday and found on Sunday, and this spree
Speaker 7: begins with this once one per month, and then very
Speaker 7: many similarities to the condition that the women were found
Speaker 7: and some of the things that were done to these women,
Speaker 7: which included in this part of the Ripper description the
Speaker 7: slitting of their throats tell us, as you mentioned, the
Speaker 7: Constitution and the Journal were separate newspapers. What was the
Speaker 7: treatment initially from the two different newspapers in terms of
Speaker 7: what was happening in terms of black women being brutally
Speaker 7: killed in atlant.
Speaker 2: Well, as you can imagine, that particular story of those
Speaker 2: stories did not get a lot of press today. If
Speaker 2: that had happened in most any community in Georgia or
Speaker 2: around the country, especially a murder or a series of
Speaker 2: murders that gruesome, that would draw a lot of attention.
Speaker 2: It could also be described as, you know, fodder for
Speaker 2: sensationless writing, because it's there, there's such a lot of
Speaker 2: graphic details, and the murders themselves were quite a cob
Speaker 2: But unfortunately from nineteen o nine, you know, the early
Speaker 2: twentieth century in the Deep South, and I would argue
Speaker 2: the early twentieth century, in a lot of places in America,
Speaker 2: what was happening in the black community in the way
Speaker 2: of crime did not go as highlighted and heavily reported
Speaker 2: as say, if this had happened in the white community.
Speaker 2: The fact that these were also young women, and as
Speaker 2: I told you earlier, there's tension between the black leads
Speaker 2: and the black working class, and then there's a lot
Speaker 2: of tension between the two races period. The fact that
Speaker 2: these are black working these are dynastics. You know, for example,
Speaker 2: a lot of the women who were walking home or
Speaker 2: walking to their places of employment were walking to homes
Speaker 2: of white Atlanta's where they worked as domestic servants. There
Speaker 2: was a lot of tension in the black community between
Speaker 2: the upper class and the working class. So you know,
Speaker 2: those race riots also had painted black people, as you know,
Speaker 2: black men, particularly as predators. This plays into that narrative,
Speaker 2: if you know what I mean, in the white community,
Speaker 2: that had been spun for the white community and spun
Speaker 2: by the political leadership and even journalists at that time
Speaker 2: and corpuses at that time about the black community in
Speaker 2: Atlanta or the black community in general. So when you
Speaker 2: see the press treat these stories. They treat them very mildly.
Speaker 2: A lot of times it's just one column, it's not
Speaker 2: a very large Later on that does change, and that
Speaker 2: would be insufferable. Today, we would immediately have a public
Speaker 2: outcry if something like this happened in the community and
Speaker 2: it was not highlighted or the media did not focus
Speaker 2: on it. But they certainly did not do much with
Speaker 2: it in the early years of this phenomenon.
Speaker 7: Now, despite this every month attack and these numerous attacks,
Speaker 7: you write that nineteen ten, nineteen ten rolled into nineteen eleven,
Speaker 7: things got worse. So nineteen ten was certainly not as
Speaker 7: bad as nineteen oh nine, but certainly nineteen eleven things
Speaker 7: got worse, and you Rosea Trice. The thirty five year
Speaker 7: old is found dead seventy five years, seventy five yards
Speaker 7: from her home. This is a little different descriptions of
Speaker 7: what happens to these bodies. This body was dragged by
Speaker 7: the perpetrator after death. There's no weapon left the behind,
Speaker 7: but the left side of her head is crushed with
Speaker 7: a blunt instrument, stabbed in the jaw, and again her
Speaker 7: throat cut. In this particular case, they do arrest somebody
Speaker 7: for this murder, Who did they arrest and what happens
Speaker 7: as a result.
Speaker 2: Well, there were several people over the course of time
Speaker 2: that ended up being hauled in by the Atlanta Police Department.
Speaker 2: The strange thing here, Dan is no one and it
Speaker 2: almost seemed like they would have evidence that would point
Speaker 2: in the direction of these men possibly being the killer.
Speaker 2: And in some instances, I do believe that the killer.
Speaker 2: It could have been that that individual they hauled in
Speaker 2: did perpetrate the murder that he was hauled in for.
Speaker 2: But in any instances, you've got people like Henry Huff,
Speaker 2: who was you know, basically twenty seven years old, and
Speaker 2: did fit the description that that some of these women
Speaker 2: that two of the women gave, or fit the description
Speaker 2: that several of the women gave, and fit the description
Speaker 2: of those who saw a perpetrator running from what would
Speaker 2: eventually be identified as the scene of a murder. But
Speaker 2: there were there was eventually some question about whether or
Speaker 2: not Henry Huff had committed any murders. You know. Interestingly enough,
Speaker 2: there was a young woman who was killed, Sadie Holly,
Speaker 2: and Henry Huff himself was was with her the night
Speaker 2: that she died. You know, it's to be honest with you,
Speaker 2: it is so it would really be so difficult to
Speaker 2: try to PenPoint any one person or any of the
Speaker 2: people they hauled in, people that we we've just now
Speaker 2: found out about in some research that was conducted after
Speaker 2: my book was published. Recently a journalist has found uncovered
Speaker 2: where another individual was arrested, but he went almost unnoticed
Speaker 2: by He went unnoticed by me and other researchers until recently.
Speaker 2: It's it, you know, honestly, that's the hardest part of
Speaker 2: this whole story, man, it really is. We can tell
Speaker 2: I can tell you a lot about the murder victims themselves,
Speaker 2: but inside the story of the Atlanta Ripper, the men
Speaker 2: who are who are accused and eventually who are put
Speaker 2: on trial, there's almost nothing about them. Almost nothing.
Speaker 7: You write about the people that are accused. Todd Henderson,
Speaker 7: Henry Huff then later Leo Frank are accused, and various
Speaker 7: other people. But this is based on victims uh surviving,
Speaker 7: getting away and offering a description. And then we haven't
Speaker 7: talked about the point where even the constitution the newspaper
Speaker 7: agreed and gets on board that the term the Atlanta
Speaker 7: Ripper should be used and the murders previous from nineteen
Speaker 7: oh nine can be considered the work of the ripper,
Speaker 7: and they operate accordingly in the media in that way.
Speaker 7: So let's go let's go to that and discuss that.
Speaker 2: Sure. Well, one of the things that's well, for example,
Speaker 2: going back to like Todd Henderson, one of the things
Speaker 2: that's unique or not unique, but one of the things
Speaker 2: that's very telling about these murders is that a lot
Speaker 2: of these women, of course, were cut their throats were
Speaker 2: cut with a very sharp object, or they were bashed
Speaker 2: in the head with a very blunt object. Now going
Speaker 2: back to someone like Todd Henderson, Todd Henderson was married,
Speaker 2: and one of the things that really was like a
Speaker 2: missile right at his chair was when his wife basically
Speaker 2: testified and told police that he was lying because Todd
Speaker 2: Henderson said, I don't even own a razor or a
Speaker 2: pocket knife. I've never even had one in the last
Speaker 2: few years, I believe, he said. Well, his wife said, well, no,
Speaker 2: actually that's not true. He had a pocket knife. I
Speaker 2: just borrowed it and he did own a razor. Well,
Speaker 2: that goes back to the idea of these women. A
Speaker 2: lot of them were cut their throats were cut with
Speaker 2: a razor or knife, very sharp knife object, and you're
Speaker 2: going to see that also very similar to what you
Speaker 2: saw in London with the Jack the Ripper murders. Now,
Speaker 2: some of the early, some of the murders that were
Speaker 2: earlier than this, before Henderson, Todd Henderson, and Henry Huff,
Speaker 2: and even when Jim Connelly becomes somewhat of a suspect
Speaker 2: because of the Mary Fagan and the Leos Frank episode.
Speaker 2: Some of those women before and after that particular timeframe
Speaker 2: were shot. So you do have some women I believe
Speaker 2: one of the early and you have to remember there's
Speaker 2: so many of these victims it sometimes is very hard
Speaker 2: to keep up with them. But I believe one of
Speaker 2: your earliest victims was shot. And there was also some
Speaker 2: investigation that was done that kind of pointed fingers at
Speaker 2: the husband. But the basic gist here is that the
Speaker 2: brunt of these murders did not take place or they
Speaker 2: were not perpetrated with a shotgun or a pistol. They
Speaker 2: were perpetrated with a very sharp blunt object. And so
Speaker 2: you've got guys like Todd Henderson, Henry Huff and then
Speaker 2: later Jim Conley accused, and they would say things and
Speaker 2: then someone else would come in and say, no, he
Speaker 2: did on this, No, we have seen him with this.
Speaker 2: So that is what makes it difficult to assign or
Speaker 2: to complete a list of murder victims and attribute them
Speaker 2: to the Ripper phenomenon, much less an actual perpetrator himself.
Speaker 2: If that makes sense.
Speaker 7: Let's explain. I'll let you explain how it works that
Speaker 7: the police claim that this is the work of the
Speaker 7: Atlanta Ripper, and the papers declare further murders as not
Speaker 7: attributed to Huff or Henderson. Both of these people are
Speaker 7: in jail, and yet murders are still being attributed to
Speaker 7: the Atlanta Ripper. How do you reconcile? How do they
Speaker 7: reconcile that? Being these people investigated, being such great suspects,
Speaker 7: yet what they reported was different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting because I don't know in the annals
Speaker 2: of criminal history, especially in criminology, if the term copycat
Speaker 2: killer had been used yet, but this is possibly what
Speaker 2: we have here. I think it is absolutely one hundred
Speaker 2: percent provable that Henry Huff and Todd Henderson did not
Speaker 2: commit all of these murders, if committed any of them.
Speaker 2: And there's viable proof that at least you know Todd
Speaker 2: Henderson was involved. I think sayd he Holly might definitely
Speaker 2: have been killed by Todd Henderson, But I don't think
Speaker 2: either one of these gentlemen killed all of these women.
Speaker 2: So it brings up the question of the was the
Speaker 2: Atlanta ripper. Do we have something here in the way
Speaker 2: of a copycat killing or copycat killing? Now, as I
Speaker 2: mentioned before, some of those early murders we think were
Speaker 2: committed by angry husbands, but you also have this going
Speaker 2: on in the press. People are talking about it on
Speaker 2: the streets and in the black community. The ministers, the
Speaker 2: leadership in the black community, Henry Hugh Proctor, Alonzo Herndon,
Speaker 2: who was a black businessman and one of the members
Speaker 2: of the black elite in Atlanta, they were talking about it.
Speaker 2: And so your average African American denizen of the city
Speaker 2: of Atlanta knew what was going on. It was being
Speaker 2: talked about, and it greatly impacted their community. So with
Speaker 2: that being said, you could certainly have the potential for
Speaker 2: an angry husband or someone who had a vendetta against
Speaker 2: a young African American female to have committed a murder,
Speaker 2: and then it be blamed on the Atlanta Ripper. It
Speaker 2: would be a great place to hide, if that makes sense,
Speaker 2: because the talk on the street was not just about
Speaker 2: the murders, but the talk on the street was also
Speaker 2: how they were committed. And don't forget that the white
Speaker 2: leadership of Atlanta was also talking about this and pointing
Speaker 2: the fingers at the black community, say, see if we
Speaker 2: were right in the nineteen oh six race riots. They weren't,
Speaker 2: but they claimed they were. If they're willing to do
Speaker 2: if you've got black men who are going to do
Speaker 2: this to their own women on the streets, they'll do
Speaker 2: this to white women on the streets. So you couldn't
Speaker 2: possibly have an angry husband who hid under that cover.
Speaker 2: And this wasn't a real for murder. This was just
Speaker 2: a copycat.
Speaker 7: Now, how did the media reconcile this? And and when
Speaker 7: you talked about people discuss the details other than the
Speaker 7: throats slit, And then later we'll talk about some other
Speaker 7: unusual similarities with some of the other murders with the
Speaker 7: missing shoes, But officially, what was the how many of
Speaker 7: these women really were connected with the similar traits in
Speaker 7: the way they were actually murdered?
Speaker 2: There were there were more than a few, and the
Speaker 2: way the press tended to handle that is they continue
Speaker 2: to use terminology like ripper, like murder or you know,
Speaker 2: the Atlanta ripper or the Atlanta chimed. So they were
Speaker 2: continuing to feed the narrative, and if you read the material,
Speaker 2: it does lead you to believe that they kind of
Speaker 2: thought that there might have been one guy behind this
Speaker 2: earlier on. But then there's some press that emerges, some
Speaker 2: articles that emerge, especially after the capture and arrest and
Speaker 2: incarceration of people like Henry huss and Todd Henderson, that
Speaker 2: it was very possible. It looked like the press kind
Speaker 2: of was open to the possibility that there may be
Speaker 2: more than one. Now, what happens in Atlanta at that
Speaker 2: time is you also have some some people, some political
Speaker 2: leaders and some business leaders in the white community who
Speaker 2: take that and kind of push that forward and say, well,
Speaker 2: it may not be one. They're all susceptible to doing this,
Speaker 2: So what would make you think this would just be
Speaker 2: one person. What I didn't get the impression of Dan
Speaker 2: when I read a lot of these articles was that
Speaker 2: there was some strange phenomenon at work, or there was
Speaker 2: this mysterious serial killer who was you know, in a
Speaker 2: black hat and a black cape and all black and
Speaker 2: you know, had a bandit's mask on his face and
Speaker 2: was lurking around black neighborhoods just ready to stab any young,
Speaker 2: nice looking, attractive black woman who passed by in the
Speaker 2: back or you know, rip her throat open. I didn't
Speaker 2: get that impression from the press. They were, if you
Speaker 2: read it carefully, they were a bit mystified by this too,
Speaker 2: particularly after huss and Henderson were arrested, and then after
Speaker 2: Mary Fagan's episode, after the Leo's Frank Mary Fagan ordeal
Speaker 2: that begins, it begins to fade a good bit from
Speaker 2: public view.
Speaker 7: Right, Let's use this as an opportunity to stuff for
Speaker 7: a second. To hear from our sponsor, which is Fat
Speaker 7: Fit Fun. In My Wife Lisa's Fall Fat Fit Fun Box,
Speaker 7: Lisa was especially excited to try so rich vitamin he
Speaker 7: infused cuticle oil by NCLA in the fall. In the winter,
Speaker 7: Lisa says, her cuticles split and so another fantastic product
Speaker 7: discovery from Fat Fit Fun for her daily routine. Lisa
Speaker 7: loves having fat Fit Fun by is delivered so there's
Speaker 7: no need to leave home. To shop. The Fall Box
Speaker 7: can be customized in one hundred and eighty thousand different ways.
Speaker 7: Lisa has received fat fit fundboxes for almost three years
Speaker 7: now and is always very excited to get each new box.
Speaker 7: The Fall Box eight to ten full sized products and
Speaker 7: customizable individually. The products would retail for over five hundred
Speaker 7: but with coupon code Murder thirty nine dollars. Lisa recommends
Speaker 7: fab fit Fund to every one she encounters at work
Speaker 7: or out socially because of the incredible value of these unique,
Speaker 7: amazing items. It's time to customize your box for the
Speaker 7: full fall season. Sign up today to receive your first
Speaker 7: box and join a community of over one million women
Speaker 7: who are already obsessed. Use coupon code murder for ten
Speaker 7: dollars off your first box at fabfitfund dot com. Use
Speaker 7: coupon code murder for ten dollars off your first box
Speaker 7: at fab fitfun dot com. Now we talked about the
Speaker 7: incredible situation and quandary that the media is in essentially
Speaker 7: and the police are in essentially, and the black community
Speaker 7: is organized to be able to pressure the white community
Speaker 7: to be able to maybe hire black detectives. As you
Speaker 7: write to do something to offer a reward, offer a
Speaker 7: more significant reward to try to stem this panic and
Speaker 7: this this horror in the Black community especially and in
Speaker 7: the community of Atlanta itself. So what happens next in
Speaker 7: terms of this fight to be able to try to
Speaker 7: find the Atlanta ripper.
Speaker 2: Well, it it did take a turn in the sense
Speaker 2: that the black community at first was a little alarmed
Speaker 2: at the crime on the streets in Atlanta. And of
Speaker 2: course you can't have mentioned in the newspapers of a
Speaker 2: young black woman being murdered, you know, under the cover
Speaker 2: of darkness on the streets of Atlanta, trying to walk
Speaker 2: to or back home from work. And so that of
Speaker 2: course does capture the attention of the of the black community.
Speaker 2: But as these murders begin to, as I said before,
Speaker 2: turn up almost night or almost weekly, and you know
Speaker 2: the bloodbath you see in nineteen eleven, it's very difficult
Speaker 2: for the black community to ignore this. Now, where the
Speaker 2: outcry came from was traditional, and this has been very
Speaker 2: traditional in the black community, and you see it even today,
Speaker 2: was from the black pulpit. What eventually you see things
Speaker 2: like mass meetings at churches, you see business leaders begin
Speaker 2: to unite with spirit and religious leaders in the black community.
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, there was one really big
Speaker 2: meeting that was advertised in the local papers that took
Speaker 2: place at Wheat Street Baptist Church, and it took place
Speaker 2: in the afternoon. It wasn't it wasn't even a traditional
Speaker 2: Sunday morning service, it wasn't a nightly speech. They were
Speaker 2: very serious. They were out broadcasting and making a public
Speaker 2: statement in the middle of the day. And what they
Speaker 2: were doing was they were trying to bring attention not
Speaker 2: only to the problem you have. You know, Reverend Bryant,
Speaker 2: you have doctor P. C. Parks, Reverend Stenson, Henry Henry Rucker,
Speaker 2: who was a very prominent Republican and appointed to a
Speaker 2: high government position by I believe it was by President
Speaker 2: McKinley in Atlanta. Were all there, and they were crying
Speaker 2: out for the Atlanta Police Department to take this seriously.
Speaker 2: And they were They were basically asking not only the
Speaker 2: mayor of Atlanta, but also the Governor of Georgia at
Speaker 2: that time, to further these investigations. And they were asking
Speaker 2: for resources, you know, to at least begin to stop
Speaker 2: the murders on the streets. You know, at first, the
Speaker 2: temperament was not necessarily just to find out who was
Speaker 2: doing it, but it was let's do something to stop this.
Speaker 2: And as you mentioned earlier, yes, I did write about
Speaker 2: the pola from these black community leaders to hire a
Speaker 2: black detective on the Atlanta UH and and more black
Speaker 2: and black police officers on the Atlanta in the Atlanta
Speaker 2: Police Department. That's not something that would happen for a
Speaker 2: while a couple of more decades.
Speaker 7: What happens in terms of the trials for Huff and
Speaker 7: Henderson and for the listener, did murders attributable to the
Speaker 7: Atlanta Ripper stop, cease or completely disappear while these two
Speaker 7: were in custody.
Speaker 2: They didn't. There were more murder murders after Henderson and
Speaker 2: Huff were both in police custody. During all of that time,
Speaker 2: you do have splotches of clusters, if you will, around
Speaker 2: the city where these were. Crime was happening, and every
Speaker 2: once in a while these type of murders would would
Speaker 2: would pop up. As a matter of fact, one of
Speaker 2: the points I made in the book was that we
Speaker 2: go all the way into nineteen thirteen, nineteen fourteen, all
Speaker 2: the way in the nineteen fifties, and you have the
Speaker 2: newspapers in Atlanta who are reporting on Ripper like murders
Speaker 2: and still using the term the Atlanta Ripper even in
Speaker 2: those years. Than eventually you see newspapers in the metro
Speaker 2: Atlanta what today would be considered the metro Atlanta area
Speaker 2: up in Gainesville, Georgia, Hall County, which is today a
Speaker 2: good forty or fifty miles from the center of downtown
Speaker 2: or the city center. They're murders that crop up their
Speaker 2: murders in nineteen twelve. So the Atlanta papers actually still
Speaker 2: continue to report on Ripper like murders even after those
Speaker 2: men have been apprehended, which of course brings on its
Speaker 2: own discussion and its own talk. There could definitely be
Speaker 2: more than you know, our assumptions that there could have
Speaker 2: been more than one murder murder, there could have been
Speaker 2: more than one killer, and that these murders were not
Speaker 2: all accomplished by one individual. That's why I use the
Speaker 2: term potential copycat killers.
Speaker 7: At some point, very much like the Jack the Ripper
Speaker 7: murders and their escalation, these murders attributable to the Atlanta Ripper.
Speaker 7: There are cases and instances where mutilation is one upped
Speaker 7: from before and you write that the corpse was found
Speaker 7: beyond in a gruesome state. So there is some development
Speaker 7: in terms of disembalment and things compared to Jack the
Speaker 7: Ripper in the Atlanta Ripper murders, isn't.
Speaker 2: There There There are some instances of these attacks that
Speaker 2: resulted in body parts being moved. I believe I'd have
Speaker 2: to go back specifically to the book, but based just
Speaker 2: on my memory and notes, there was actually one of
Speaker 2: the young women who had a breast removed. And then
Speaker 2: you also mentioned a little earlier about shoes being removed,
Speaker 2: and you talked to criminologists and they will tell you
Speaker 2: that that is commensurate with and it jives a good
Speaker 2: bit with some of the theories about serial killers and
Speaker 2: these kinds of crimes that they do. You know, they
Speaker 2: always like there are a lot of them, like to
Speaker 2: take prizes, and we know that Jack the Ripper did that.
Speaker 2: We know that serial killers in the modern era have
Speaker 2: done that. And it looks like I would argue that
Speaker 2: maybe some of these murders were done There may have
Speaker 2: been copycats, but some of them were actually committed by
Speaker 2: the same guy. And it's very possible that when those
Speaker 2: kinds of things happened and you, you know, a prize
Speaker 2: if you will taken or a memento as sick as
Speaker 2: that sound taken from the scene and from the body
Speaker 2: of the victim, that maybe that is probably the work
Speaker 2: or at least that individual had committed one of the
Speaker 2: murders previous for it, I mean just and then some
Speaker 2: of them were just bad to begin with, but they
Speaker 2: didn't go as far as removal of a breast or
Speaker 2: something like that. But for example, there was about six
Speaker 2: miles from from the city of Atlanta, right not fought well,
Speaker 2: a couple of miles from the Chatthoochee River, a young
Speaker 2: woman had been murdered. And the thing that happened was
Speaker 2: he did this with two attacks. Her throat was slashed
Speaker 2: and also there was slashes and dash marks all over
Speaker 2: her body. And she had also been knocked in the
Speaker 2: head with some big blunt object and her head had
Speaker 2: been bashed in. Well, what you got to understand there
Speaker 2: is think about that any one of those things probably
Speaker 2: would have caused death. You know, slashing the throat, hitting
Speaker 2: someone picking up something large and heavy and bashing someone
Speaker 2: in the head with it, those are two things that
Speaker 2: are going to bring death. But not only was one
Speaker 2: of those done. Two were done. And on top of that,
Speaker 2: this young woman who only weighed was like I think,
Speaker 2: less than one hundred and twenty pounds, was around twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five years old. There were gashes and slash marks
Speaker 2: all over her body. That is sort of macabre and
Speaker 2: sickening of itself. And again that takes us back too,
Speaker 2: like Jack the Ripper who would not only remove body parts,
Speaker 2: but the matter of death was from gashing, bashing, and
Speaker 2: then later on the bodies would be mutilated. Because you know,
Speaker 2: we do have disemboweled bodies, we have the removal of
Speaker 2: body parts, very similar to what you see here.
Speaker 7: Right now, you write about August seventh, nineteen twelve.
Speaker 3: Lucky Land Casino, asking people, what's the weirdest place you've
Speaker 3: gotten lucky?
Speaker 4: Lucky? In line at the Delhi I guess.
Speaker 5: Ah, in my dentist's office more than once. Actually do I.
Speaker 1: Have to say?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 2: You do?
Speaker 5: In the car before my kid's PTA meeting.
Speaker 3: Really yes, excuse me, what's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky?
Speaker 3: I never win? And tell well, there you have it.
Speaker 3: You could get lucky anywhere. Playing at lucky landslots dot com.
Speaker 3: Play for free right now? Are you feeling lucky?
Speaker 4: No, we're just necessary for my long eighteen plus terms conditions.
Speaker 7: Plus see what's everybodys And there's lots of talk of copycats,
Speaker 7: or at least there's suspicion of that. And a person
Speaker 7: named Lawton Brown is arrested and he confesses to the
Speaker 7: murder of Eva Florence from November nineteen eleven murder? What
Speaker 7: is he being held on suspicion though at that same time,
Speaker 7: despite just fessing to the murder of Eva Florence.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's it's kind of interesting when you
Speaker 2: look at at you know, how they hauled him in
Speaker 2: and you know, they called him a modern bluebeard, and
Speaker 2: they claimed that he had twelve twelve wives and they
Speaker 2: were all his victims. And so sure, one of the
Speaker 2: things I think that was that went against Lawton Brown
Speaker 2: and that he might have been guilty of, was he
Speaker 2: looked a lot like what people described the Atlanta River
Speaker 2: to look like. First of all, he was an African
Speaker 2: American man, Okay. He was also described in the press
Speaker 2: as having eyes that dart about nervously, as though he
Speaker 2: were in what perpetual fear? Now, the interesting thing is
Speaker 2: is when finally when they bring him in, and you've
Speaker 2: got to understand your dan, what that tells us is
Speaker 2: that police brought him in partially because he looked guilty. Okay,
Speaker 2: he looked suspicious, you know. And also it's interesting because
Speaker 2: they described him as being well dressed. Now, there was
Speaker 2: some turmoil and tension between the wealthier black community in
Speaker 2: the white community because at that time it was considered
Speaker 2: you know, out of character and somewhat of a disgrace
Speaker 2: for a black man to be wealthy and well dressed
Speaker 2: and on the same level as a white man. That
Speaker 2: was absolutely, you know, something that you couldn't get out.
Speaker 2: You just couldn't wrap your mind around if you were
Speaker 2: a white man in that frame of mind in the
Speaker 2: nineteen early nineteen hundreds. And you're right, he did make
Speaker 2: a full confession. He claimed that he had killed a
Speaker 2: woman by the name of Eva Florence. You know, there's
Speaker 2: there's so many, so many things that were also brought
Speaker 2: up about that confession. I believe and that Lawton Brown
Speaker 2: is one of the potential murderers that I didn't focus
Speaker 2: on as much. And he's not one that just jumps
Speaker 2: right out at me, not like Henry Huff and Todd Henderson,
Speaker 2: but they went so far as to actually hire a
Speaker 2: medical professional, I think his name was doctor Martin in
Speaker 2: the book, who evaluated his mental acuity, because Lawton Brown
Speaker 2: began to make First of all, he was brought in
Speaker 2: because he looked suspicious, but then they tried to pen
Speaker 2: twelve of the murders on him, and he was making
Speaker 2: a lot of weird statements. He was he was very erratic.
Speaker 2: The confession. I think later on, I'll have to go
Speaker 2: back and check my notes, but I believe that the
Speaker 2: confession was even thrown out or was even challenged, because
Speaker 2: it was so strange. Now when doctor Martin, I believe
Speaker 2: that was his name, when he came in and evaluated
Speaker 2: Lawton Brown. One of the things in his report was
Speaker 2: that Auton Brown was a maniac and that he suffered
Speaker 2: And I don't mean that to be funny, but he
Speaker 2: suffered from mania, right. And also it was kind of
Speaker 2: funny because they begin to they begin to really really,
Speaker 2: you know, call as police would call it, stick it
Speaker 2: to him, and really press down on him and bear
Speaker 2: down on him. And they noticed that he almost had
Speaker 2: he had a better idea, and he knew almost as
Speaker 2: much about all of the murders in the Atlanta area
Speaker 2: than some of them did. Now, now that renews suspicion. Okay,
Speaker 2: a matter of fact, it got to a point where
Speaker 2: he could tell them where these murders happened, he could
Speaker 2: tell them their names, he could tell them, you know,
Speaker 2: how the women were killed. And strangely enough, if I'm
Speaker 2: not mistaken, he said something like he had been there
Speaker 2: and seen a couple of the murders happen, and then
Speaker 2: at that point he began to describe what was going
Speaker 2: on and how the murderer attacked and killed the victims.
Speaker 2: Now you and I probably see you're sitting there thinking
Speaker 2: the same thing I did when I first read that. Well,
Speaker 2: if he was there and saw these things, number one,
Speaker 2: why didn't he try to stop it? Number two? Why
Speaker 2: didn't he ever report it? Those are strange things. The
Speaker 2: other thing is is, remember now this is from what
Speaker 2: I can understand. I can't prove this, but what I
Speaker 2: can understand is that, you know, Lawton Brown was not
Speaker 2: a man who could read and write very well. I
Speaker 2: can't remember where I heard that, but I believe one
Speaker 2: of the articles mentions that he doesn't read and write
Speaker 2: very well, but he had an incredible memory, and it
Speaker 2: sounded like if you weren't the murder, he had an
Speaker 2: insatiable appetite for knowledge and details about the crime, spree
Speaker 2: about the killing. You know, he was probably the strangest.
Speaker 2: Now when you go back to Todd Henderson, who lied
Speaker 2: about not having about you know, I don't have a
Speaker 2: pocket knife and I don't on a razor. That's logical.
Speaker 2: I would do that if I were accused, you know,
Speaker 2: and if I did have one, I would probably probably
Speaker 2: lie and say I didn't. Unfortunately, his wife contradicted him.
Speaker 2: But this is beyond strange. So there's some evidence there
Speaker 2: that he knew more than I mean, he knew more
Speaker 2: than the average bear. And then there's some evidence there
Speaker 2: that he could have suffered, as doctor Martin said, from
Speaker 2: intense mania, that he that he had some mental issues.
Speaker 2: And that's what that's fawned from.
Speaker 7: Now, let's get to a case that basically pivots this
Speaker 7: investigation and distracts it somewhat. When you talk about the
Speaker 7: Mary Fagin, the murder of Mary Fagin, and then her
Speaker 7: boss is looked at at the factory where she works,
Speaker 7: Leo Frank and then somebody named Jim Conley. So what
Speaker 7: happens in this particular case here.
Speaker 2: Well, in nineteen thirteen, and I believe it was Confederate
Speaker 2: Memorial Day when it happened young Mary Fagan, who was
Speaker 2: somewhere around thirteen or fourteen years old. She had worked
Speaker 2: for the National Pencil factory in Atlanta, and I believe
Speaker 2: that was on Marietta Street, and she traveled on this
Speaker 2: particular day to go pick up her money, and she
Speaker 2: never made it out of the factory. And eventually her boss,
Speaker 2: Leo Frank, who was a Jewish man who came from
Speaker 2: New York. And you do have a lot of Jewish
Speaker 2: people that do come South at the turn of the
Speaker 2: century during the Industrial Age to capitalize on the opportunity
Speaker 2: of diversification of industry and attempt to diversify the economy
Speaker 2: in the South. And he was one of them. And
Speaker 2: on April twenty sixth someone inside that factory he raped
Speaker 2: and murdered Mary Fagan. There was another man who was
Speaker 2: in the factory and was also accused of being an accomplice,
Speaker 2: and his name was Jim Conley. He worked there and
Speaker 2: one person, actually or several people said that he may
Speaker 2: have definitely been involved with it or could have been
Speaker 2: the murderer himself, because he had bloodstains on his shirt
Speaker 2: and was seen washing them out. Strangely enough, Jim Conley,
Speaker 2: who was, by the way, a tall, slender African American man,
Speaker 2: he was questioned by police and actually confessed that he
Speaker 2: helped Leo Frank dispose of the body after Leo Frank
Speaker 2: murdered Mary Fagan. Now where all this goes is naturally
Speaker 2: you can put two and two together. Many people began
Speaker 2: to think that Jim Conley, tall slender African American man
Speaker 2: was you know, if he if he helped Leo Frank
Speaker 2: dispose of the body, than that meant that, you know,
Speaker 2: he had the murder, He had the murder or an
Speaker 2: inclination for violence and murder in him, and he could
Speaker 2: easily have been either the Atlanta riffer or one of
Speaker 2: the murderers behind these episodes. And so that's bantered around
Speaker 2: and thrown around a good bit. However, he's more associated
Speaker 2: with the Mary Fagan murder than the Atlanta Ripper murderers,
Speaker 2: and pretty much even the Pinkerton agents who were there
Speaker 2: and did an investigated they were helping to investigate the
Speaker 2: Mary Fagan murder even said, you know this, they didn't
Speaker 2: put any credence in that. They said, there's nothing there
Speaker 2: to prove that, and it's and it's highly unlikely. But
Speaker 2: he was fingered for that too. Now you've got to
Speaker 2: understand something. Then that also builds into the narrative that's
Speaker 2: been stun about black men. If he was there, according
Speaker 2: to some white people at the time, he probably was involved.
Speaker 2: And if he's confessed that he helped Leo Frank, who
Speaker 2: was a New York Jew in their words, that was
Speaker 2: just a shade short, if you will, of a black man.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's their language, not mine. They can't be
Speaker 2: trusted any more than the you know, the black guy
Speaker 2: can be trusted. If he helped him dispose of a body,
Speaker 2: then that just proves that these black men are predators
Speaker 2: and they're prom to violence, and they have some sort
Speaker 2: of genie inside of them that you know, pretty much
Speaker 2: pushes them to this what feeds into that narrative. But
Speaker 2: I think we can pretty much say Jim Connelly was
Speaker 2: just very much a lack of evidence that he was
Speaker 2: involved in any.
Speaker 7: Of these murders. Right now, you write that nineteen fourteen,
Speaker 7: while the city and the nation focused on Leo Frank
Speaker 7: looks like the Ripper struck again, but this time he
Speaker 7: contacted police through writing yeah you rate it appear as
Speaker 7: the killer or someone pretending to be attracted the police
Speaker 7: by way of firefighters. He left it at one of these, uh,
Speaker 7: pulled fire alarms at fireboxes? Right now, what is it?
Speaker 7: What is the gist of the note that he that
Speaker 7: he sends and how does he sign it? But what's
Speaker 7: the gist of it? Before we talk about how he
Speaker 7: signs it?
Speaker 2: Well? Yeah, before I before I go into that, does
Speaker 2: that not sound familiar leaving a note if you if
Speaker 2: you're tying these in, you know, and it gives the
Speaker 2: press when they see this, I mean, it just substantiates
Speaker 2: the use of the term, you know, the Atlanta Jack,
Speaker 2: the Ripper, the Atlanta Ripper, because as we know, the
Speaker 2: Ripper you know, used the from Hell monikers and eventually
Speaker 2: that spawned the movie with a couple of well known actors.
Speaker 2: But these you know, it was interesting because it was
Speaker 2: fire station House number two and there were these false
Speaker 2: alarms that went off and what they eventually feel figured
Speaker 2: out more than likely was going on with someone was
Speaker 2: pulling these fire alarms at fire alarm boxes that were
Speaker 2: placed around the city. Now, all of them on in
Speaker 2: that particular time frame, came from alarms there or were
Speaker 2: alarms on the south side of town. And they figured
Speaker 2: out that all three of the boxes were very close
Speaker 2: to one another. I have in my notes Washington Street,
Speaker 2: Jefferson Street, Whitehall Terrace, Richardson Street, Love Street. These these
Speaker 2: are all areas where where they found where these alarms
Speaker 2: were going off. And then they find, you know, a
Speaker 2: card and it is signed very interestingly.
Speaker 7: There was one more suspect. Well, there's a couple more suspects,
Speaker 7: but one more interesting suspect is Lewis Drake. And there's
Speaker 7: a murder of an a Drake. Why is this? Why
Speaker 7: was he considered a possible Atlanta ripper suspect?
Speaker 3: Mmm?
Speaker 2: You know, I well, I believe if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 2: and if I believe this was Anna Drake was the
Speaker 2: woman who was rushed over to Grady Hospital. Is that
Speaker 2: that's that's right? And she had been attacked, Yeah, she
Speaker 2: had been attacked from the back or or at least
Speaker 2: had been cut up from the back. And there were
Speaker 2: some there were some injuries to her appendages or you know,
Speaker 2: her arms and fingers. The thing that got Lewis Drake
Speaker 2: in trouble was he said something to her and I
Speaker 2: want to I want to tie this in with the
Speaker 2: card and with the press. He told her that he
Speaker 2: was going to pretend to be or act like Jack
Speaker 2: the Ripper. Well, that's how this guy signed the card
Speaker 2: that they and of course that's also what the press
Speaker 2: was using. Then of course he began to assault his wife,
Speaker 2: Anna Drake. And I also want to go back to
Speaker 2: where I said that some of these men or some
Speaker 2: of these murders were committed they did find out by
Speaker 2: men who were the husbands of the victims. And that's
Speaker 2: why it kind of feeds into the possibility that some
Speaker 2: of these murders were committed by angry husbands who were
Speaker 2: using this cloak, this covering of the Atlanta Jack the Ripper.
Speaker 2: And to be honest with you, it kind of looks
Speaker 2: like Lewis Drake was doing that too. Now, one thing
Speaker 2: to point out that's very important for your listeners is
Speaker 2: the Atlanta police might have used that terminology to describe
Speaker 2: what happened, but they did not consider Anna Drake's assault,
Speaker 2: her attack and Lewis Drake. The attack on her by
Speaker 2: Lewis Drake to be a Ripper murder.
Speaker 7: Right now, you say that this Spade hauling in some
Speaker 7: more people as well, Henry Harper and other people, But
Speaker 7: you say many of these are simply linked to their
Speaker 7: own murders themselves, of either their wives or of somebody
Speaker 7: that were associated with. The murders that are linked to
Speaker 7: the Atlanta Ripper. Go from nineteen oh nine, and you
Speaker 7: say to nineteen fifteen, But in terms of the press,
Speaker 7: there's still some attribution to the Atlanta Ripper up to
Speaker 7: nineteen twenty, isn't there.
Speaker 2: That's right, I believe if I'm not mistaken. The murder
Speaker 2: that I mentioned in Gainesville, Georgia that happened, and I'm
Speaker 2: pretty sure that every listener won't understand the geography of Georgia,
Speaker 2: but Gainesville is north of the city, it's northeast of
Speaker 2: the city of Good Ways. That one was as well.
Speaker 2: I won't even say that that one was as far
Speaker 2: away as you could get as far as the press
Speaker 2: tinting the murder or making it a Ripper like murder,
Speaker 2: because in nineteen eleven there was a murder in Waycross Georgia,
Speaker 2: which is down on the Florida Line near the Okeepanoki Swamp,
Speaker 2: that was ripper like, and the press said, while it
Speaker 2: was kind of unlikely that this was the same guy,
Speaker 2: that they still left the door open because they described
Speaker 2: the murder and it sounded a lot like what had
Speaker 2: been happening in Atlanta. But going on into the early
Speaker 2: nineteen twenties, I believe there was even an episode, maybe
Speaker 2: even as far away as nineteen twenty two, where the
Speaker 2: press reports on details of a murder that they then say,
Speaker 2: you know, could easily have been a ripper like murder.
Speaker 2: So yeah, absolutely, the press doesn't give up on that,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't always it's not always Metro Atlanta where
Speaker 2: they pinpoint that these murders could have had or that
Speaker 2: these ripper like murders took place.
Speaker 7: About in the end of the book about the theories,
Speaker 7: the prevalent theories. As time has gone on and Dorian's
Speaker 7: have re examined, like yourself examined these crimes to make
Speaker 7: sense of who might have possibly been the Atlanta Ripper
Speaker 7: or other possibilities as well, including that there was no
Speaker 7: such thing as the Atlanta Ripper whatsoever. Tell Us about
Speaker 7: the various theories briefly and what you thought of them.
Speaker 2: Well, let me first of all say before I do
Speaker 2: get to that, there was there was a talking about
Speaker 2: theories abound, and one of the theories that abounds was
Speaker 2: that there were multiple killers. And I'm just going to
Speaker 2: go ahead and tell you, and I think you probably
Speaker 2: assumed this interpreted this from the book and that chapter
Speaker 2: that I believed there were multiple killers. I don't believe
Speaker 2: there was just one Atlanta ripper. There's too many guys
Speaker 2: that were hauled in Lawton Brown, Henry pub Todd Henderson.
Speaker 2: I don't believe that Lewis Drake was part of the phenomenon.
Speaker 2: I just think he was somebody who spouted off at
Speaker 2: the mouth and used this that was going on at
Speaker 2: the time as cover, or was possibly just kind of
Speaker 2: a mean guy who was trying to scare his wife
Speaker 2: at the same time he was doing harm to her.
Speaker 2: But even as far away as you know, nineteen twenty four,
Speaker 2: they're claiming that there was a ripper like murder in
Speaker 2: the city. There was also another guy by the name
Speaker 2: of Claude Alexander who killed a woman, killed or was
Speaker 2: accused of killing a couple of women. And the strange
Speaker 2: thing about him, about Claude Alexander is he lived on
Speaker 2: Gara Baldy Street. Now I went to Geary Baldy Street
Speaker 2: and took some pictures for the book. But the interesting
Speaker 2: thing here is that that's where one of the first
Speaker 2: ninth or one of the earliest victims in nineteen eleven
Speaker 2: happened to live and or happened to be killed. So
Speaker 2: there you have someone else that kind of emerges out
Speaker 2: of the shadows that leads me to believe that there
Speaker 2: were multiple murders. I believe that a lot of this
Speaker 2: kind of comes it comes out of the all of
Speaker 2: this hysteria, It comes out of the chaos that's going
Speaker 2: on in Atlanta at this time. I believe that Black
Speaker 2: Atlanta is whipped into a frenzy out of fear because
Speaker 2: they don't know if they're being protected by the Atlanta
Speaker 2: Police Department and if any serious attentions being given to
Speaker 2: bring this murderer in and to stop these murders. And
Speaker 2: apparently there wasn't, and in their mind there wasn't because
Speaker 2: they continued, you know, to happen. There were men who
Speaker 2: were brought in that looked guilty, that weren't convicted. There
Speaker 2: were there were people who popped up who were suspects,
Speaker 2: but yet when you looked at it, they only they
Speaker 2: were only being accused of killing one or two of
Speaker 2: the victims. You know, there are husbands who have been
Speaker 2: who killed wives, Charles McNeill and Lucinda McNeil, Charlie Owens
Speaker 2: and Alice Owens, you know Lewis Drake and Anna Drake.
Speaker 2: I mean then you and then you, but you do
Speaker 2: have you have a victim, mlu Sharp, whose mother, Lena Sharp,
Speaker 2: was killed by the Atlanta Ripper. And then Sharp is
Speaker 2: actually able to she she's attacked by the Atlanta Ripper
Speaker 2: and lives to tell about it. So and she actually
Speaker 2: she she identified him. She she managed to get away
Speaker 2: from him, but he spoke to her and she was
Speaker 2: able to identify him. And later on I believe eventually
Speaker 2: ten points or fingers one of the suspects and says
Speaker 2: eventually says, I think that's the one. You know. So
Speaker 2: the description we had on the description that's on the
Speaker 2: street is tied back to what happened to Lena and
Speaker 2: Emalu Sharp, by the way, that's another and daughter there.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine the horror of being attacked by your
Speaker 2: mother's killer. She went out on the streets to try
Speaker 2: to find her mother because she was basically she's been missing,
Speaker 2: and they and they find out she's attacked and she's killed.
Speaker 2: And then later on EMAILU Sharp herself is killed. So
Speaker 2: we do know someone something was at work here. We
Speaker 2: do know that there was a tall African American man
Speaker 2: who did attack young African American women on the streets
Speaker 2: of Atlanta. Now Lena Sharp was a little older, Emilou
Speaker 2: was younger, so then there's another There's also other theories
Speaker 2: that this was not even a black man. There are
Speaker 2: those who believe that this was possibly concocted by the
Speaker 2: white community in Atlanta to stir up the black community
Speaker 2: to also continue to whip the white community into a frenzy,
Speaker 2: to continue to spend the narrative that black men were
Speaker 2: predators and that the only way to keep white women
Speaker 2: on the street was to keep black men or to
Speaker 2: keep the black community in its place and continue to
Speaker 2: push toward or to continue segregation and the basic idea
Speaker 2: of the Jim Crow South. Then, of course, of course
Speaker 2: you have the theory that Jim Conley was the Atlanta River. Again,
Speaker 2: there's very little bit. There's very little in the way
Speaker 2: of proof. You know, there was a detective by the
Speaker 2: name of W. J. Burns. You know, they just fell
Speaker 2: apart very quickly. Because another thing, too is Jim Conley
Speaker 2: was accused of participating in the murder of Mary Fagan,
Speaker 2: who was a thirteen year old white girl. The Atlanta
Speaker 2: Ripper killed young women in their twenties for the most
Speaker 2: part that they were black, and they were domestic servants,
Speaker 2: they were part of the black working class. Now some
Speaker 2: of them and we really I didn't even get into this,
Speaker 2: but some of them were actually accused of women. And
Speaker 2: this is kind of the blame the victim mentality that
Speaker 2: happens in a lot of instances. Some of them were
Speaker 2: accused of being ladies of the evening and you know
Speaker 2: what you would call call girls, or today we would
Speaker 2: call them sex workers. That wasn't true in every instance,
Speaker 2: and some of the people who made those accusations really
Speaker 2: had no right to make those accusations. And it even
Speaker 2: got all the way up to Reverend Henry Hugh Proctor
Speaker 2: who made some of those accusations, and some of the
Speaker 2: black ministers began to preach sermons and make public statements
Speaker 2: that chided young black women for even being on the streets,
Speaker 2: and they began to attack the black community for being
Speaker 2: in the dives and the saloons, which there were a
Speaker 2: lot of in Atlanta along Peter Street and some of
Speaker 2: the places in the Old Fourth Ward where these murders happened.
Speaker 2: So it got to be kind of a let's look
Speaker 2: inward and blame ourselves and what did we do wrong
Speaker 2: that contributed to this. But I just absolutely do not
Speaker 2: believe Jim Conley had anything to do with it. I
Speaker 2: don't know whether he had anything to do with Mary
Speaker 2: Fagin's murder or not. There's evidence to point that he did.
Speaker 2: There's evidence that points that Leo Frank was involved in
Speaker 2: some way, and then there's some credible evidence that he
Speaker 2: wasn't the murderer. It's a mess, it really is, and
Speaker 2: these historical cases are are so confounding. I don't believe
Speaker 2: truly that there was just one murderer. It's to me,
Speaker 2: it's almost impossible because Henry Huff, Todd Henderson, these guys
Speaker 2: were and others that had been apprehended were locked up,
Speaker 2: but the murders went on. I believe there were some
Speaker 2: initial murders that were attributed to one person, and I
Speaker 2: believe there were a series of copycat killings. And I
Speaker 2: believe there was also a lot of domestic abuse and
Speaker 2: violence that went all the way to the extreme under
Speaker 2: the cloak of the Atlanta Ripper phenomenon.
Speaker 7: Yes us right too that soon after, in a few years,
Speaker 7: the US would be in the throes of depression and
Speaker 7: this crime spree in Atlanta a distant memory. I want
Speaker 7: to thank you very much, Jeffrey Wells for coming on
Speaker 7: and talking about your The Atlanta Ripper, The Unsolved case
Speaker 7: of the Gate City's most infamous murders. For those that
Speaker 7: might want to find out more about this book is
Speaker 7: their website of Facebook page. How might they do that?
Speaker 2: Well, you can you can't actually go to the History
Speaker 2: Press website. They it's not featured because it's it's about
Speaker 2: ten years old. But you can search that out on
Speaker 2: their website and read more about it. You can also
Speaker 2: check out my blog spot page which is Georgiamisteries dot
Speaker 2: blogspot dot com and you can put in the search
Speaker 2: bar the Atlanta Ripper and there's a few articles about
Speaker 2: the Atlanta Ripper that are there, and of course. You know,
Speaker 2: if anybody out there wants to, you know, communicate with me.
Speaker 2: I get emails all the time about this and several
Speaker 2: other books I've written. Please feel free.
Speaker 7: Thank you so much, it's been a absolute pleasure. The
Speaker 7: Atlanta Ripper, The Unsolved Case of the Gate City's most
Speaker 7: infamous murders with Jeffrey Wells. Thank you very much. Jeffrey,
Speaker 7: you have a great evening. Good night.
Speaker 2: Thank you.