The Axeman Cometh
There is no city more Southern Gothic than New Orleans, and there are few tropes more Southern Gothic than murder, mayhem, and nefarious figures lurking down dark alleyways. The bloody tale of the Axeman has all of the above, with a little bit of jazz thrown in.
From the spring of 1918 to the fall of 1919, a menace stalked the night and terrorized the city, killing and maiming at will. His moniker was a result of his weapon of choice, which often belonged to the victims. The Axeman broke into the homes of sleeping occupants, brutally hacking away at them as they lay in their beds. Valuables were left untouched, showing that the attacks were driven purely by the desire to inflict violence, and not by profit.
The majority of the victims were either Italian-American or Italian immigrants, and there was (unfounded) speculation that the killings were related to the Mafia, Black Hand extortion, and/or traditional Sicilian vendettas.
To this day, the crimes remain unsolved.
May 23, 1918
Grocer Joe Maggio and his wife Catherine are attacked. Their throats are slit with a straight razor and they are bludgeoned with an axe. Joe initially survives the attack, but dies minutes after being discovered by his brothers Andrew and Jake. Catherine's throat is slit so deeply that she is almost decapitated, and she chokes on her own blood as she bleeds out.
Andrew Maggio, who owns a barber shop and the blade used in the murder, would become the main suspect. His employee, Esteban Torres, tells police that Andrew had removed the razor from the business, ostensibly to have it repaired, two days before the couple was killed. For his part, Andrew claims that he had not heard the attacks due to his intoxication. He also reports seeing a man lurking around the Maggio's apartment before the murders. Police later release him when they could not dispute his account.
June 27, 1918
Lewis Besumer and his mistress, Harriet Lowe are attacked in bed. They are both struck in the head with a hatchet that belongs to Besumer. They are discovered by John Zanca, who had arrived at the bakery to make a delivery.
Lewis Oubicon, a Black man who had recently worked in Besumer's store is arrested, despite there being no evidence that he is the perpetrator. The police justify his detention by claiming that he provided conflicting accounts of his whereabouts at the time of the attack.
In August of that year, Lowe changes her story on her deathbed, claiming that she suspects her attacker was actually Lewis Besumer. Lowe dies on August 5th, and Besumer is charged with murder. He is incarcerated for nine months before being acquitted by a jury which deliberates for just 10 minutes.
August 5th, 1918
Anna Schneider wakes up to find a man standing over her bed. He strikes her in the face repeatedly, lacerating her scalp and leaving her face covered in blood. She is discovered by her husband Edward, who had returned home from working late. Investigators conclude that she was attacked with a lamp that they found nearby. An ex-con named James Gleason is arrested, but released due to lack of evidence. Schneider, who was 8 months pregnant, gives birth to a healthy baby girl two days after the attack.
August 10th, 1918
Elderly grocer Joseph Romano is attacked. His two nieces, with whom he lives, hear the commotion and run into his bedroom. They find Romano with a grievous head injury and see his assailant fleeing the house. Romano is able to walk to the ambulance, but dies from severe head trauma two days later. The girls describe their uncle’s attacker to police as a dark-skinned, heavyset man in a dark suit and slouched hat.
March 10, 1919
After months of silence, the Axeman strikes again. This time, he attacks grocer Charles Cortimiglia, his wife Rosie, and their two-year-old daughter Mary, in the New Orleans suburb of Gretna. Rosie awakes to find her husband struggling with an axe-wielding intruder. After he is taken down, she clutches the child to her chest and begs for their lives, to no avail.
Their neighbor, Iorlando Giordano hears screams and rushes over to investigate, along with his son Frank. The two find Charles and Rosie both suffering from skull fractures, while Mary is dead from a blow to the back of the neck. The murder weapon is found on the family's back porch.
Rosie later claims that Iorlando and his son were the attackers, though Joseph denied his wife's claims as implausible. Though 69-year-old Iorlando was in poor health and Frank was too large to have entered through the home's back panel, the men were charged and convicted for the murder. Frank Giordano was sentenced to death by hanging, while his father was sentenced to life in prison. Both men were released in December 1920, after Rosie Cortimiglia admitted that she had been pressured by authorities to implicate the Giordanos.
The police had quickly decided the men were guilty, as they were business competitors of the Cortimiglias and had recently sued them over a dispute. Xenophobia also played a large part, because Italians were still seen as "not white" at the time. Among other things, Italian immigrants were willing to do menial and manual labor alongside Black people and other minorities, which larger white society saw as beneath them. For that, Italians were "no better than Negroes."
March 13, 1919
Three days after the Cortimiglia attack, a letter is published in the Times-Picayune. It is allegedly written by the Axeman and is addressed from Hell. It reads:
Hell, March 13, 1919
Esteemed Mortal:
They have never caught me and they never will. They have never seen me, for I am invisible, even as the ether that surrounds your earth. I am not a human being, but a spirit and a demon from the hottest hell. I am what you Orleanians and your foolish police call the Axeman.
When I see fit, I shall come and claim other victims. I alone know whom they shall be. I shall leave no clue except my bloody axe, besmeared with blood and brains of he whom I have sent below to keep me company.
If you wish you may tell the police to be careful not to rile me. Of course, I am a reasonable spirit. I take no offense at the way they have conducted their investigations in the past. In fact, they have been so utterly stupid as to not only amuse me, but His Satanic Majesty, Francis Josef, etc. But tell them to beware. Let them not try to discover what I am, for it were better that they were never born than to incur the wrath of the Axeman. I don't think there is any need of such a warning, for I feel sure the police will always dodge me, as they have in the past. They are wise and know how to keep away from all harm.
Undoubtedly, you Orleanians think of me as a most horrible murderer, which I am, but I could be much worse if I wanted to. If I wished, I could pay a visit to your city every night. At will I could slay thousands of your best citizens, for I am in close relationship with the Angel of Death.
Now, to be exact, at 12:15 (earthly time) on next Tuesday night, I am going to pass over New Orleans. In my infinite mercy, I am going to make a little proposition to you people. Here it is: I am very fond of jazz music, and I swear by all the devils in the nether regions that every person shall be spared in whose home a jazz band is in full swing at the time I have just mentioned. If everyone has a jazz band going, well, then, so much the better for you people. One thing is certain and that is that some of your people who do not jazz it out on that specific Tuesday night (if there be any) will get the axe.
Well, as I am cold and crave the warmth of my native Tartarus, and it is about time I leave your earthly home, I will cease my discourse. Hoping that thou wilt publish this, that it may go well with thee, I have been, am and will be the worst spirit that ever existed either in fact or realm of fantasy.
-The Axeman
On the night in question, clubs and music halls are in full swing, bands play at house parties all over town, and--as promised--there are no murders.
Some theories suggest that the letter was actually written by local jazz musician Joseph John Davilla, who released "The Mysterious Axman's Jazz (Don't Scare Me Papa)" shortly afterwards. Davilla claimed to have written it while waiting for the murderer to come calling, and the sheet music's cover features a cartoon family frantically playing jazz while watching their front door.
After the return of the Axeman, New Orleans is once again gripped with terror. Men with shotguns stand sentinel at night to guard their families, and reports of an ominous figure lurking in the shadows abound.
Superintendent of Police Frank Mooney refers to the killer as a "murderous degenerate who gloats over blood."
August 10, 1919
Grocer Steve Boca is attacked in his sleep, awakening to find a man standing over him. Boca runs to the home of his neighbor, Frank Genusa, before he loses consciousness from being struck in the head with an axe. After being treated for his injuries, he is unable to remember the attack.
September 2, 1919
The Axeman breaks into the house of pharmacist William Carson, who chases him away by firing several shots.
September 3, 1919
Sarah Laumann is found with a head injury and missing several teeth. She suffers a concussion, but recovers. A bloody axe is found on the front lawn of her apartment building.
October 27, 1919.
Mike Pepitone is found by his wife covered in blood and suffering from a head wound. She reports that she also witnessed a large axe-wielding man fleeing the house. Though Pepitone's murder is often attributed to the Axeman, according to Smithsonian Magazine, it was likely the result of an actual longstanding vendetta. Most narratives state that the killer disappeared from New Orleans after this, but newspapers and police records suggest that he continued his reign of terror into 1921, in other Louisiana cities.
December of 1920
Joseph Spero and his daughter are killed in Alexandria.
January 1921
Grocer Giovanni Orlando is murdered in DeRidder
April 1921
Frank Scalisi is killed in Lake Charles.
All three murders have the same modus operandi: An intruder breaks into the homes of an Italian grocer and their families, before killing them with their own axe.
After the spring of 1921, the Axeman finally did disappear from history.
Today, New Orleans' ephemeral boogeyman occupies a significant space in true crime circles. He's also popular with paranormal enthusiasts, who believe the Axeman's assertions that he was a demon from hell. Numerous books, podcasts, and documentaries covering his crimes are available and he is referenced in various songs. Though the Axeman is mentioned often in popular culture, his only physical portrayal came via the fittingly sinister Danny Huston (pictured above), in American Horror Story: Coven (2013).
If that last name sounds familiar, he is the half brother of the most incomparable Morticia Addams to date, Anjelica Huston.
Who was the Axeman?
There are countless ideas as to the identity of the Axeman, though none have been substantiated. A popular theory is that the murderer was Joseph Monfre, a man who was supposedly killed in Los Angeles in December of 1920 by the window of Mike Pepitone. Though many true crime novels contain this narrative, writer Mike Newton searched court, police, and public records in Los Angeles and New Orleans and found no record of such an incident or a man with that name.
Scholar Richard Warner asserts that the perpetrator was Frank "Doc" Mumphrey, who also went by Leon Joseph Monfre/Manfre. He ran a jazz club in the Garden District and Warner notes that many in the community noticed that Mumphrey's business began to do unusually well after the Axeman's affinity for the music style became known.
Whoever (or whatever) the Axeman of New Orleans really was, his shadow looms large over the city, eternally the inhabiting the dark corners, moonlit alleyways, and active imaginations of the Big Easy.
