The Axeman of New Orleans

by Miriam C. Davis

  But he didn’t go to bed immediately. When his parents got into their bed, he went to kiss them both good night. And he asked his mother about a frightening dream that his girlfriend Josie had had, a dream that she was standing in front of a door surrounded by writhing, squirming snakes. Did it portend evil? he wanted to know. Events later that night would suggest that it did.

  The house was just settling down for the night when, about 11 PM, Iorlando heard his dogs barking furiously. Was someone trying to steal his chickens? He’d better look. His wife was tired after her long day, and they were his chickens anyway. He slowly and painfully got out of bed, fumbled with his spectacles, and hobbled out the kitchen door. He checked on the chickens and his little goat. Everything was in order. He looked around the yard. Nothing out of the ordinary. Reassured, he went back into the house and went to bed.

  He slunk down the alleyway separating the two houses, board fences on either side of him. Behind one fence, the dogs sensed a newcomer, someone who didn’t belong, and howled. The man wasn’t worried. Once he was in the backyard, the wooden fence surrounding it would protect him from view. No one would pay any attention to the barking of a few dogs. He slipped over the fence into the yard. A half-grown puppy—a black and tan mixed breed—looked up from where he slept and glared menacingly at the newcomer. The man ignored the dog; it was too small to worry about. Pulling up a chair he discovered in the backyard, he checked through the bedroom window that his prey was indeed there. Then he looked around and found the axe he needed. Picking it up and pulling out a screwdriver, he crouched in front of the kitchen door. With the blunt side of the axe head, he began—as quietly as he could—hammering the screwdriver tip into the side of one of the lower panels.

  Barking dogs woke City Councilman Manny Fink up at ten minutes to three. But once fully awake, he heard something else. Knocking. As if someone was rapping on a door. Then it stopped. A short pause. It started up again. Then it resumed—tap, tap, tap, tap. Careful not to wake his wife, Manny got out of bed, grabbed a lantern, and went out into his backyard. He held up the light, scanning the yard. Nothing. He went back inside and through to the front door, turning on the electric houselights as he did so. When he opened the front door and the light from the house spilled outside, the tapping abruptly stopped. Then a dog yelped. As if it had been kicked, Manny thought.

  The fiend saw a light flicker on from somewhere across the street. He paused, holding the axe poised in the air over the screwdriver. The small dog took courage and edged menacingly toward the intruder, snarling. The man stood up and aimed a kick at the little fellow, who yelped in pain and fright before retreating, whimpering, toward the far side of the yard.

  Manny walked out onto his front gallery and peered across Jefferson Street, first in one direction and then in the other. He could see the Cortimiglia place, about half a square down from him, the front of the property and the fence that surrounded it. Now he heard nothing except the normal nighttime summer sounds. Manny turned and went back into the house. After a few minutes, he heard it start up again—tap, tap, tap. What was it? Well, whatever it was, it wasn’t on his property. Manny shrugged and went back to bed.

  When the light switched off, the fiend waited a few minutes, until he felt it was safe to resume. Patiently, he chiseled at one side of the panel, and then the other, until he could pry it off and toss it to the side. Reaching through the small hole he had created in the door, he reached inside and up and unbolted the door. He paused and took off his boots. In his stocking feet, clutching the axe, he went inside.

  Sheriff Louis H. Marrero had a firm grip on Jefferson Parish. He presided over a Regular Democratic machine that had kept him in power for over twenty years and given him a reputation as boss of the “Free State of Jefferson.” Although he was a colonel only in the United Confederate Veterans, with his gray goatee and Panama hat, Marrero looked every inch the Confederate colonel, wealthy landowner, and powerful politician.

  The end of the Civil War had found the eighteen-year-old Marrero a penniless veteran, but marriage to the daughter of a prominent Louisiana sugar and cotton planter improved his fortunes considerably. He entered politics in Jefferson Parish in 1883. First elected sheriff in 1896, Marrero was now in his sixth term and ruled the Free State of Jefferson with an iron fist.

  He’d used his position to enrich himself considerably. His enemies accused him of corruption, extortion, embezzling tax money from the parish, and illegal gambling. That Marrero’s own son Louis Jr. was district attorney of the Twenty-Eighth Judicial District from 1904 until his death in 1916 usually made it easier for him to maneuver around the law. The Good Government League, an antimachine reform movement, attempted to push back against the Marrero regime. In 1912, they tried, unsuccessfully, to impeach the Marreros, father and son, accusing the sheriff of “nonfeasance, malfeasance, extortion in office . . . grave crimes and misdemeanors . . . corruption, favoritism, and oppression in office.” One day soon reformers would break the stranglehold the Marrero faction had on Jefferson Parish. Less than a year later, a wave of reform that swept over Louisiana would take Louis Marrero and other machine politicians with it. But in May 1919, that day had not yet come.

  Sheriff Marrero was out of town on Sunday morning when Hazel Johnson roused Charlie and Rosie Cortimiglia’s neighbors with her screams. By the time the Cortimiglias had been loaded into the wagon and sent off to the hospital, Gretna chief of police Peter Leson and Deputy Sheriff Charles Burgbacher had arrived to discover a house crowded with neighbors and curious onlookers.

  The first thing Leson did was throw the gawkers out of the house and post a guard to make sure no one else got in. There wasn’t much else he could do until the coroner arrived. No doubt meaning to be helpful, he and Manny Fink picked up the panel off the kitchen floor and nailed it back onto the door. The need to preserve the crime scene never occurred to them.

  When Frank returned from notifying Charlie Cortimiglia’s relatives in Amesville about midmorning, he put up his horse and buggy, went upstairs to put on the socks he’d abandoned in his hurry earlier that morning, went back outside, and stood on the banquette in front of the grocery looking over at the Cortimiglia place.

  Dr. Charles Gelbke, the mayor of Gretna, and City Councilman Manny Fink had been standing together in front of the Cortimiglia store, discussing the morning’s events. Seeing Frank standing on the street, they walked over. Do you mind if we look around your house? asked the mayor. Frank nodded. He understood that there had been a terrible crime and the authorities needed to investigate. Besides, he had nothing to hide. He took them in the house, led them through the kitchen and the little parlor in the front room, let them look into the bedrooms downstairs, and took them up the stairs to the room Frank shared with Louis. The mayor asked a few questions, which Frank answered as best he could. Then Dr. Gelbke asked to see the backyard. Where is your axe? he wanted to know. Frank retrieved it and handed it to the mayor, who peered at it closely. No blood, no hair. The mayor’s investigation found nothing incriminating. But it would do little to allay mounting suspicions against Frank and his family.

  All that afternoon people crowded in and out of the Jordano store. The only topic of conversation was the Cortimiglias—would they die? Who did it? Did it have anything to do with another middle-of-the-night break-in just up the river in the village of Amesville only two nights before? Someone had chiseled a lower panel off the door of a grocery belonging to Santo Vicari. The robber had entered the store and stolen some cash but not molested the sleeping family. Was the same night stalker responsible?

  Iorlando was as curious as anyone, and as grieved. But he was also worried that people suspected him. He was convinced that everyone was staring at him, pointing him out as the killer. The old man insisted to anyone who would listen that his differences with the Cortimiglias had been patched up, and they were friends again. But all the neighbors knew about the quarrel between the Jordanos and Cortimiglias, and everyone noticed that the J
ordanos had been among the first on the scene. Suspicion began to grow.

  When Jefferson Parish acting coroner J. R. Fernandez arrived at the scene, the little girl’s body had already been removed by the undertaker, but Dr. Fernandez got a good look at the site of the murder. Like the other Axeman crime scenes, the room had been ransacked, dressers emptied, and clothes and papers strewn all over the floor. Nothing had been taken. A search of the room revealed $129 in cash, a box of jewelry, and a loaded revolver. Clearly, Dr. Fernandez concluded, robbery had not been the motive.

  The police had found two axes on the premises; only one had blood and hair sticking to it.

  Fernandez managed that Sunday evening to swiftly impress five neighbors into service as a coroner’s jury, including Manny Fink, who’d been one of the first on the crime scene. Dr. Fernandez and his jury crossed the river to view the body at the undertaker’s about 7 PM, then returned to Gretna to examine the murder scene. They were shown two axes found on the Cortimiglias’ property. The jurors stared somberly at the dark hairs plastered in blood to one of the axes.

  Only a handful of witnesses were called to testify at the inquest. Lillie, Iorlando, and Frank were sworn in. They all said the same thing—they’d heard nothing untoward the night before, no hint of the horror taking place next door. They admitted that they’d had a falling out with Charlie Cortimiglia over possession of the property but insisted the quarrel had blown over. Frank testified that Mary’s mother had continued to allow the child to frequently play over at their store.

  Frank added one detail to his testimony, a detail that would come back to hurt him in an unexpected way. He was asked about the dream he’d mentioned to his mother. Frank was under oath, but he was also tired by the interrogation, drained from the distressing day, and harassed by probing questions. He didn’t want to talk about Josie in front of all these men. What difference did it make who’d had the dream? So he told the inquest that he was the one who’d had an unsettling dream—of snakes all around him, a vision that many of the newspapermen reporting on the case interpreted as an evil omen. It was an impulse he’d come to regret.

  Because the Cortimiglias couldn’t be interviewed that night, the jury suspended its investigation without returning a verdict. But Dr. Fernandez offered the opinion that “the murder was the deed of a maniac, and that revenge was the only motive that could be advanced if the crime had been committed by a mentally normal person.”

  Frank Mooney couldn’t have been shocked by the savage attack in Gretna. No doubt he’d been expecting something like it, and he was anxious to help the Jefferson Parish authorities. He didn’t view the crime scene for himself—no need to give offense to the Gretna powers—but on Monday, he sent Bertillon Operator Maurice O’Neil across the river to process the scene. The results were disappointing. The crowds that had stampeded in and out of the house before the arrival of the police had trampled any footprints left by the murderer into oblivion. The axe had been handled by countless people in the last thirty-six hours. O’Neil couldn’t find any fingerprints in the bedroom either.

  To Bertillon Operator O’Neil it was readily apparent that the New Orleans Axeman had struck again, an opinion shared by Frank Mooney. The superintendent ordered his men to help the Gretna authorities in any way they could to find the murderer and to remain on alert against the killer in New Orleans. He expressed his predictable confidence that the murderer would be brought to justice. But the Italian community remained on edge. In New Orleans, Rocco Tramontana reported that someone had tried to break into his mother’s grocery store at Peniston and Clara Streets during the night; the family’s axe was found in front of the house.

  While the investigation into the attacks began, Rosie’s relatives, alerted to the tragedy, were pouring in from the surrounding towns and plantations. At first, the doctors allowed no one to see the wounded couple and told the family that Charlie had little chance of surviving.

  Rosie regained a kind of hazy consciousness on Monday, and after Mary’s funeral, her father and stepmother were allowed to sit by her bedside, taking turns holding her hand and talking softly to her in Italian. Occasionally, Rosie would feebly murmur something in response. When, every so often, she whispered, “Mary, Mary,” her father would tell her to sleep, sleep and get better. No one was going to tell her Mary was dead until she was stronger.

  By Monday night doctors began to feel more optimistic about Rosie’s recovery. And by Tuesday morning even Charlie showed signs of improvement. He regained consciousness and appeared to recognize those clustered around his hospital cot. Perhaps, doctors Leidenheimer and Landry thought, he might survive after all.

  Chief Leson and Sheriff Marrero—now back in town and taking the lead in the investigation—waited impatiently to speak to the Cortimiglias. On Tuesday Dr. Leidenheimer was sufficiently reassured by Rosie’s and Charlie’s recovery that he gave in to the importunate police officers and deputy sheriffs who had been cluttering the halls of Charity and agreed that the couple could be questioned about their assault. He warned that they might not be able to remember anything. And he was right. Speaking in Italian, all Rosie did was ask, again, after her daughter. Charlie said that his head hurt, and he needed to get back to his store. Neither had anything to say about the Axeman.

  But Tuesday night, investigators were determined to question the victims again. For now they had a suspect.

  Charles Anderson was a black man and career burglar who was well known to the police in New Orleans and Gretna. He was, at the moment, Superintendent Mooney’s premier Axeman suspect. After the assault on the Cortimiglias, Mooney sent men looking for Anderson, and they caught up with him Tuesday morning, two days after the attack. Questioned about his recent whereabouts, the suspect was not entirely forthcoming, which, of course, made investigators even more suspicious. For several hours on Tuesday afternoon, Superintendent Mooney had Anderson in his office and subjected him to the full third degree. Mooney, Detective Marullo, and Chief Leson interrogated him nonstop, shooting question after question at him, not giving him time to think, trying to keep him off balance. They grilled him about all of the Axeman murders, accused him of being the killer, forced him to look at bloody photographs of Catherine and Joe Maggio, and demanded to know why he had targeted them. It was all designed to make a guilty man confess. Anderson, however, held his ground and continued to maintain his innocence, claiming that whenever something happened the police—unfairly, he insisted—picked him up. He had nothing to do with these murders. Some of the investigators began to believe he was telling the truth. To the eyes of trained detectives, the convicted burglar acted like an innocent man and didn’t give himself away with the nervousness guilty men usually exhibited.

  Finally, in desperation, Mooney loaded Anderson into a police car, drove to Charity Hospital, dragged him into Rosie Cortimiglia’s ward, and handcuffed him to her hospital cot. Was this the man who attacked you? Marullo asked in Italian, as Mooney and Leson looked on. Rosie mumbled incoherently.

  Doctors Leidenheimer and Landry were just walking out of Charlie’s room, discussing his condition, when Mooney, Leson, and Marullo showed up with Anderson. The unfortunate suspect was again handcuffed to the foot of the bed, displayed in front of the patient. Charlie looked quizzically up at the gentlemen surrounding his hospital cot. Detective Marullo asked Charlie if this was the man who had attacked him. Charlie shook his head—no.

  “Do you know who attacked you, Charlie?”

  No, he again indicated with a shake of his head.

  “Was it a white man?”

  Yes, Charlie nodded.

  Have you ever seen this man before? No response. Charlie stirred restlessly, clearly indicating that he’d had enough, and that was all they could get out of him.

  Disappointed, Mooney realized he had nothing much to hold Anderson on. So he took him back to New Orleans and charged him with that policemen’s consolation prize—being a dangerous and suspicious character.

  For the
next couple of days, it was much the same with the injured victims. Both seemed to be slowly getting better, to the point where each was asking about the other, but neither was able to give any clues about their attack. Dr. Landry showed particular attention to Rosie; he checked on her frequently, three or four times a day. As a medical man, he was quite interested in her case; his own questioning of her indicated that her mind seemed to be a total blank from the time she went to bed on Saturday night until she woke up in the hospital. “Who hit you?” he asked repeatedly. Her reply was consistent: “I don’t know.”

  Then suddenly on Friday, five days after the attack, Rosie identified her attackers and the killers of her baby daughter as seventeen-year-old Frank Jordano and sixty-eight-year-old Iorlando Jordano. Or so Leson and Marrero would later claim.

  In the course of their inquiries, Gretna authorities had followed up on the rumors that the Jordanos had threatened the Cortimiglias and discovered a feed store operator named Rube Mayronne who claimed that two weeks before the attack, Frank said to him, “That son-of-a-bitch Cortimiglia won’t be in his new store longer than two weeks.” The Jordanos went from possible suspects to prime suspects. Still, all the police had was circumstantial evidence. But now, they said, they had eyewitnesses.

  According to Sheriff Marrero and Chief Leson, when Leson went to see Rosie on Friday morning and asked for the hundredth time, “Who hit you?” Rosie finally had an answer: “Frank Jordano and the old man.” Remarkably, they said that Charlie had confirmed this identification. Over the course of the day, the couple was questioned again and again, and each time, Marrero and Leson claimed, they implicated the elderly Italian and his teenaged son.

  Sheriff Marrero, however, only made the identification of Frank public, and on Friday evening only Frank was arrested. Protesting his innocence, he was taken to the parish jail and held without bail.