A NOTE ON THE TRUE EVENTS
New Orleans, Louisiana — 1918 to 1919
Between May 1918 and October 1919 a killer moved through the back streets of New Orleans. He was never identified. He was never caught. He was never given a name by anyone who could prove it.
The Axeman of New Orleans.
How he entered.
Every time, the same method. A chisel applied to the back door panel of his target's home — old Creole cottage construction, panels set in groove joinery, held by the frame rather than by hardware. The panel lifted clean and set against the wall. The door opened. He crossed the floor and climbed the stairs and used whatever axe he found beside the back door or in the kitchen because he never brought his own. When he was done he left it where it had fallen or replaced it where he had found it.
Who died.
Joseph Maggio. An Italian grocer. Attacked in his apartment on the corner of Upperline and Magnolia Streets on the night of May 23rd, 1918. His throat was cut with a straight razor and he was struck with an axe. He was found alive by his brothers but died minutes after being discovered. He was forty one years old.
Catherine Maggio. Joseph's wife. Attacked the same night in the same room. Her throat was cut so deeply that her head was nearly severed from her shoulders. She did not survive the night. She was thirty six years old.
Harriet Lowe. The companion of Louis Besumer, attacked on June 27th, 1918. She survived the initial attack but died on August 5th from her injuries. In her final days, delirious and failing, she accused Besumer of being a German spy and of attacking her himself. He was arrested. He was acquitted after a ten minute jury deliberation. The real attacker was never found.
Joseph Romano. An elderly grocer, attacked on August 10th, 1918. His two nieces heard the attack and ran to help him and caught a glimpse of the figure fleeing — dark, heavy set, wearing a dark suit and a slouched hat. Romano survived the initial attack but died two days later from his injuries.
Mary Cortimiglia. Two years old. Killed on March 10th, 1919, during an attack on her parents Charles and Rosie Cortimiglia. Both parents survived with severe skull fractures. In her grief and trauma Rosie Cortimiglia accused their neighbours — an elderly man named Iorlando Jordano and his teenage son Frank — of the attack. Both were innocent. Both were convicted. Rosie later recanted her accusation and they were released. She said God had punished her for the lie by taking her remaining children. She and Charles separated not long after.
Mike Pepitone. Attacked in August 1919 and beaten to death in his sleep. His widow later moved to Los Angeles and remarried. Her second husband disappeared. She told police a man named Joseph Mumfre had come to her and said he had killed her first husband. She shot Mumfre in the street. He died. She was convicted of murder and served a reduced sentence.
Who survived.
Anna Schneider. Eight months pregnant, she woke to find a dark figure standing over her bed. She was struck repeatedly about the head, her scalp cut open, the weapon believed to be a lamp from her bedside table. Her husband Ed found her when he came home late from work. She remembered nothing of the attack. She gave birth to a healthy baby two days later. She made a full recovery.
Louis Besumer. Survived the attack of June 1918. Survived the false accusation. Was acquitted. Was never attacked again.
Charles and Rosie Cortimiglia. Both survived their attack with severe skull fractures. Their daughter did not.
The Vires nieces — Pauline and Mary Bruno. In the real case they were Romano's nieces, not his daughters. They ran to help their uncle when they heard the attack and glimpsed the figure leaving. They were the only witnesses to provide a description. They survived.
The letter.
On March 13th, 1919, a letter was sent to the Times-Picayune newspaper and to several other city papers. It was signed by the killer. It said, in part:
I am not a human being, but a spirit and a demon from the hottest hell. I am in your city and shall remain there until I am caught... At 12:15 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 the people. Here are the conditions: Every person shall be spared in whose home a jazz band is in full swing.
Jazz parties were organised across the city within hours. Cafes and bars were packed. Families danced in their parlours. Nobody wanted to take the chance that the letter was not real.
He did not strike that night.
The letter was never proven to be genuine. It was never proven to be false. It remains, more than a century later, one of the most extraordinary documents in American criminal history.
The suspect.
Joseph Mumfre was a career criminal with a record of burglary and violence going back to at least 1907. He had been suspected in similar attacks in 1911 and released for lack of evidence. He was in prison in Mississippi from 1915 to 1917, which accounts for the gap in the attacks. He returned to New Orleans in late 1917.
He was never charged with the Axeman murders. The evidence was never sufficient. He was shot dead in Los Angeles in 1921 by Mike Pepitone's widow, who believed he had killed her husband. Whether he was the Axeman has never been proven.
His guilt remains a theory. The most credible theory. But a theory.
If you want to know more, look up the Axeman of New Orleans.