The Axeman of New Orleans was an unidentified American serial killer who was active in and around New Orleans, Louisiana, between May 1918 and October 1919. The Axeman murdered 6 people and assaulted 6 more while they slept in New Orleans from 1918 to 1919 (maybe as early as 1910). The attacker was never identified, and the murders remain unsolved.
Background[]
As the killer's epithet implies, the victims usually were attacked with an axe, which often belonged to the victims themselves. In most cases, a panel on the backdoor of a home was removed by a chisel, which, along with the panel, was left on the floor near the door. The intruder then attacked one or more of the inhabitants with either an axe or a straight razor. The crimes were not motivated by robbery, and the perpetrator never removed items from his victims' homes.
The majority of the Axeman's victims were Italian immigrants or Italian-Americans, leading many to believe that the crimes were ethnically motivated. Many media outlets sensationalized this aspect of the crimes, even suggesting Mafia involvement despite lack of evidence. Some crime analysts have suggested that the killings were sexually motivated, and that the murderer was perhaps a sexual sadist specifically seeking female victims. Criminologists Colin and Damon Wilson hypothesize that the Axeman killed male victims only when they obstructed his attempts to murder women, supported by cases in which the woman of the household was murdered but not the man.
A less plausible theory is that the Axeman committed the murders in an attempt to promote jazz music, suggested by written correspondence attributed to the killer in which he stated that he would spare the lives of those who played jazz in their homes. On 13 March 1919, a letter purporting to be from the Axeman was published in newspapers, saying that he would kill again at fifteen minutes past midnight on the night of March 19 but would spare the occupants of any place where a jazz band was playing. That night all of the city's dance halls were filled to capacity, and professional and amateur bands played jazz at parties at hundreds of houses around town. There were no murders that night.
Suspects[]
According to scholar Richard Warner, the chief suspect in the crimes was Frank "Doc" Mumphrey (1875–1921), who used the alias Leon Joseph Monfre/Manfre. Mumphrey's Garden District jazz business, previously struggling, was noted by many in the community as seeming to do unusually good business once the city was compelled by threat of violence to hire jazz bands and play jazz records.
His Hatchet can be seen in Leon Prater's Trophy Collection and when Dexter throws it at Charley and Leon Prater