Author: Miriam C. Davis
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 161374871X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 220
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Book Description
From 1910 to 1919, New Orleans suffered at the hands of its very own Jack the Ripper–style killer. The story has been the subject of websites, short stories, novels, a graphic novel, and most recently the FX television series American Horror Story. But the full story of gruesome murders, sympathetic victims, accused innocents, public panic, the New Orleans Mafia, and a mysterious killer has never been written. Until now. The Axeman repeatedly broke into the homes of Italian grocers in the dead of night, leaving his victims in a pool of blood. Iorlando Jordano, an innocent Italian grocer, and his teenaged son Frank were wrongly accused of one of those murders; corrupt officials convicted them with coerced testimony. Miriam C. Davis here expertly tells the story of the search for the Axeman and of the eventual exoneration of the innocent Jordanos. She proves that the person mostly widely suspected of being the Axeman was not the killer. She also shows what few have suspected—that the Axeman continued killing after leaving New Orleans in 1919. Only thirty years after Jack the Ripper stalked the streets of Whitechapel, the Axeman of New Orleans held an American city hostage. This book tells that story.
Author: Bill James
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476796270
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 480
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Book Description
An Edgar Award finalist for Best Fact Crime, this “impressive…open-eyed investigative inquiry wrapped within a cultural history of rural America” (The Wall Street Journal) shows legendary statistician and baseball writer Bill James applying his analytical acumen to crack an unsolved century-old mystery surrounding one of the deadliest serial killers in American history. Between 1898 and 1912, families across the country were bludgeoned in their sleep with the blunt side of an axe. Jewelry and valuables were left in plain sight, bodies were piled together, faces covered with cloth. Some of these cases, like the infamous Villasca, Iowa, murders, received national attention. But few people believed the crimes were related. And fewer still would realize that all of these families lived within walking distance to a train station. When celebrated baseball statistician and true crime expert Bill James first learned about these horrors, he began to investigate others that might fit the same pattern. Applying the same know-how he brings to his legendary baseball analysis, he empirically determined which crimes were committed by the same person. Then after sifting through thousands of local newspapers, court transcripts, and public records, he and his daughter Rachel made an astonishing discovery: they learned the true identity of this monstrous criminal. In turn, they uncovered one of the deadliest serial killers in America. Riveting and immersive, with writing as sharp as the cold side of an axe, The Man from the Train paints a vivid, psychologically perceptive portrait of America at the dawn of the twentieth century, when crime was regarded as a local problem, and opportunistic private detectives exploited a dysfunctional judicial system. James shows how these cultural factors enabled such an unspeakable series of crimes to occur, and his groundbreaking approach to true crime will convince skeptics, amaze aficionados, and change the way we view criminal history.
Author: Skip Hollandsworth
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
ISBN: 0805097686
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 512
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Book Description
A New York Times bestseller, The Midnight Assassin is a sweeping narrative history of a terrifying serial killer--America's first--who stalked Austin, Texas in 1885. In the late 1800s, the city of Austin, Texas was on the cusp of emerging from an isolated western outpost into a truly cosmopolitan metropolis. But beginning in December 1884, Austin was terrorized by someone equally as vicious and, in some ways, far more diabolical than London's infamous Jack the Ripper. For almost exactly one year, the Midnight Assassin crisscrossed the entire city, striking on moonlit nights, using axes, knives, and long steel rods to rip apart women from every race and class. At the time the concept of a serial killer was unthinkable, but the murders continued, the killer became more brazen, and the citizens' panic reached a fever pitch. Before it was all over, at least a dozen men would be arrested in connection with the murders, and the crimes would expose what a newspaper described as "the most extensive and profound scandal ever known in Austin." And yes, when Jack the Ripper began his attacks in 1888, London police investigators did wonder if the killer from Austin had crossed the ocean to terrorize their own city. With vivid historical detail and novelistic flair, Texas Monthly journalist Skip Hollandsworth brings this terrifying saga to life.
Author: Julie Smith
Publisher: Fawcett
ISBN: 0804107386
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 351
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Book Description
When the smiling King of Carnival is killed at Mardi Gras, policewoman Skip Langdon is on the case. She knows the upper-crust family of the victim and that it hides more than its share of glittering skeletons. But nothing could prepare her for the tangled web of clues and ancient secrets that would mean danger for her--and doom for the St. Amants.... "Smith is a gifted writer." THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD
Author: Peter Dove
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781722765224
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 256
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Book Description
New Orleans has always managed to create a mix of the mysterious and the macabre in our minds. As a city, it is different; its jazz, its location and openness to the elements, its cosmopolitan community. At the turn of the last century, the French influence was still strong. A quarter of the population spoke the Gallic language, and French newspapers were still popular. But these Northern Europeans were not the only significant immigrant group to reside there. In 1915, Atlantic storms blew into the vulnerable city, and floods threatened lives and buildings. But still the city stood, tall and firm, against all that nature could throw against it. Yet if it could withstand the onslaught of the natural world, the same was not necessarily true of the human one. Back in 1910, a particularly savage crime took place, a vicious, merciless assault with an axe There is something almost primordial about such an attack. On this occasion, the victim survived, and in a city where racial tensions were rife, where child labour still flourished, the confrontation went largely unnoticed by the wider community. Then, in the early summer of 1911, another incident took place and this time the assault proved fatal. Joe Davi was, in all probability, the first man to die at the hands of the Axeman of New Orleans.
Author: Michael Newton
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476605785
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 217
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Book Description
In 1946, years before the phrase "serial murder" was coined, a masked killer terrorized the town of Texarkana on the Texas-Arkansas border. Striking five times within a ten-week period, always at night, the prowler claimed six lives and left three other victims wounded. Survivors told police that their assailant was a man, but could supply little else. A local newspaper dubbed him the Phantom Killer, and it stuck. Other reporters called the faceless predator the "Moonlight Murderer," though the lunar cycle had nothing to do with the crimes. Texarkana's phantom was not America's first serial slayer; he certainly was not the worst, either in body count or sheer brutality. But he has left a crimson mark on history as one of those who got away. Like the elusive Axeman of New Orleans, Cleveland's Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run, and San Francisco's Zodiac Killer, the Phantom Killer left a haunting mystery behind. This is the definitive story of that mystery.
Author: Max Haines
Publisher: Barnes & Noble Publishing
ISBN: 9780760762585
Category : Murder
Languages : en
Pages : 344
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Book Description
50 Headline-grabbing murders from around the world.
Author: Wallace Edwards
Publisher: BookCaps Study Guides
ISBN:
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 79
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Book Description
★★★ Discover a serial killer you'll never forget! ★★★ Between 1918 to 1919 a serial killer ran rampant throughout New Orleans. His weapon of choice? The axe. He didn't spare women. Or children. Or even men. There was only one kind of person who could be sparred from the blade of his axe: the home of a person playing jazz music. At least eight people were brutally murdered. Who could have been responsible for this crime, and how was the Mafia connected? Did a corrupt police department intentionally leave this case unsolved? Come, if you dare, as Absolute Crime takes you on the hunt for one of the most brutal killers who ever lived.
Author: Michael Newton
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
ISBN: 1438119143
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 449
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Book Description
Over 800 entries examine the facts, evidence, and leading theories of a variety of unsolved murders, robberies, kidnappings, serial killings, disappearances, and other crimes.
Author: John Marlowe
Publisher: Arcturus Publishing
ISBN: 1784040932
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 227
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Book Description
Jeffrey Dahmer committing his first murder with a fear of being left alone, then went on luring young boys and keeping souvenirs of their skulls. Ted Bundy who appeared to be a generous and charming young man with a brilliant future started with a petty crime and worked his way up to the murder of young women. John Wayne Gacy was a pillar of the community, organizing themed block parties and entertaining as Pogo the Clown, but his early transgressions began to take on more and more sinister forms. A chilling but engrossing read, the fully illustrated The World's Most Evil Psychopaths provides a concise, yet detailed look at some of the most dangerous individuals who have ever lived. Starting with examples of the earliest recorded psychopaths, author John Marlowe presents a carefully chosen cross-section of history's most infamous criminals.
