The Axeman of New Orleans

by Miriam C. Davis

  From witness descriptions (and with all the caveats that go with these), he appears to have been a white working-class male in his mid-to-late thirties when he began his attacks in 1910–1911. That he was familiar with burglary tools and had the confidence to break in armed with only an axe or cleaver when grocers routinely kept handguns next to their beds suggests that he was an old hand at breaking and entering. As with many sociopaths, he may well have had a history of other petty crimes.

  Likely uneducated, the Axeman was probably a laborer of some sort, who could move freely all over the city without attracting attention and easily enter a shop to scout the premises. He’d choose a familiar weapon. Perhaps he started with a butcher’s cleaver because he worked in the meat-packing industry. But leaving a murder scene with a bloody cleaver was risky, and having to steal a new instrument every time posed its own risks. Maybe he switched to axes because he knew he could reasonably expect to find one at any grocer’s residence. And an axe was not only a more convenient weapon, it was a more lethal one.

  Superficially, the killer would have seemed normal, except perhaps that he’d have a history of run-ins with the law. Anyone who got to know him well, however, would realize there was something slightly “off” about him. Chief Reynolds and Superintendent Mooney both thought he was a drug fiend of some sort; they were probably right. His early thefts might have been to support a morphine or cocaine habit. And he likely carried out his crimes under the influence of some drug, which would explain his odd behavior at the Crutti crime.

  Serial killers crave power and control. They need it to give them a sense of superiority, especially over the people they’re convinced have wronged them. It isn’t unusual for psychopathic killers to target a specific group of people who represent an injustice to be redressed, a humiliation to be avenged. An inadequate personality, the Axeman would have blamed the failures in his own life on his victims. The man was his primary target; sometimes a wife or child just happened to be there; they were collateral damage. The Axeman was a coward who could only face his victims as they slept. He was a predator who could only prey on the helpless.

  Why Italian grocers? Perhaps because these not-quite-white foreigners and small businessmen had the temerity to be more successful than he was. Maybe he resented their growing success as Italian corner groceries spread over the city. Could he have come from a family whose own business venture had failed? Alternatively, maybe he’d been caught and jailed for breaking into an Italian-owned grocery. Perhaps an Italian grocer had been instrumental in sending him to jail for an earlier crime. Or perhaps an Italian grocer had thrown him out of his store, publicly humiliating him.

  Whatever the reason, he hated them as a group, not as individuals; he was unlikely to have known any of his victims personally. But by standing over his sleeping prey in the night, holding an axe, he could feel God-like, with the power of life or death. Bringing down the axe, crushing the skull, seeing blood spray the walls, made the pitiless psychopath feel like he’d conquered his enemy and avenged his humiliation, real or imagined. Even when his victim was a blameless toddler, killing gave his life a purpose and a sense of success. The extensive press coverage of his crimes would have added to the Axeman’s sense of accomplishment; it would have been the only thing of note he would ever do.

  The mystery of the Axeman’s identity probably will never be solved, but in some ways it’s appropriate that he remains a faceless phantom. He was certainly a nobody, a loser, a nonentity with no sense of self who felt that he had no control over anything, not even his own life.

  He may not always remain unknown, however. His path led from New Orleans to Alexandria and then to western Louisiana. Perhaps he continued moving west on to Texas or beyond. Or turned north toward Shreveport, Louisiana. The killing wouldn’t have stopped. Perhaps in some obscure small-town newspaper there’s a story of an intruder caught fleeing an Italian grocery in the middle of the night after attacking the proprietor and his wife, or a tale of an Italian grocer who shot a man trying to crawl through his window with an axe. That would be the Axeman.

  The Axeman of New Orleans may yet be discovered.

  Acknowledgments

  This book could not have been written without the aid of many people to whom I am hugely indebted and immensely grateful.

  First, I must thank all of the archivists and librarians who made this project possible. At the top of this list is the staff of the Louisiana Division/City Archives at the New Orleans Public Library—Nancy Aloisio, Charlie Brown, Christina Bryant, Stephen Kuehling, Yvonne Loiselle, Maya Lopez, Greg Osborn, and Cheryl Picou. Special thanks are owed to Irene Wainwright, former head of the Louisiana Division, who patiently and courteously endured years of what must have seemed like endless requests for information.

  I also want to thank the staff of the Louisiana State Archives, particularly reference librarian John Fowler, who tracked down a thesis on the Axeman for me. Daniel Hammer of the Williams Research Center at the Historic New Orleans Collection provided me with a copy of “The Mysterious Axman’s Jazz.” Gratitude is due, too, to Tara Laver and the staff at Louisiana State University’s Special Collections; Florence Jumonville at the University of New Orleans’ Special Collections; Connie L. Phelps at the University of New Orleans’ Services Department; Ann Case at the Louisiana Research Collection at Tulane University; Michelle Riggs at the University Archives at LSU at Alexandria; and the staffs of McNeese State University’s Frazar Memorial Library, Auburn University’s Ralph Brown Draughon Library, and the library at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans.

  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints’ Family History Center greatly assisted my research, and I’m especially grateful to the local staff of the Family History Library who graciously helped me on Tuesday and Thursday mornings at the LDS Church on Carter Hill Road, Montgomery, Alabama.

  I also made use of records in parish and county courthouses. Thanks are due to Sha Carter and Kay Gilliland at the Criminal Records division of the Calcasieu Parish Clerk of Court’s office; Maria Hall at the Los Angeles Superior Court Archives and Records Center; and the staffs of the Ouachita Parish Clerk of Court’s office, the Marriage License and Passport Department, Jefferson Parish General Government Center, and the Old Records and Evidence Department, Jefferson Parish, Gretna.

  I wouldn’t have been able to complete this book without the interlibrary loan staff at Delta State University, Mississippi University for Women, and Auburn University at Montgomery. Diane Coleman was a cheerful colleague for many years. Gail Gunter continued to answer questions long after I left Mississippi. I appreciate DSU’s history program and former DSU provost Ann Lotven for allowing me to retain my ties to DSU for several years after I left.

  Harry Laver, John C. Rodrigue, Chuck Westmoreland, and Edith Ambrose answered questions about Southern history. Roger Lane offered guidance on homicide and homicide investigation in the early twentieth century. Kenneth Gravois from the Sugar Research Station at the LSU AgCenter was an indispensable resource on the sugarcane industry in Louisiana.

  Many other scholars, writers, and researchers answered questions and shared their findings with me, including Patricia Cohen, David Critchley, Mike Dash, Marianne Fisher-Giorlando, Anita Guerinni, Tom Hunt, Elizabeth Loftus, Michael Newton, Katherine Ramsland, Harold Schechter, and Richard Warner. Keven McQueen of Eastern Kentucky University, too, shared with me the fruits of his own research on the Axeman; I’m particularly indebted to him for his exceptional generosity. I also benefited from Doug Casey’s willingness to give me access to his years of research on early New Orleans criminal gangs. I’m grateful to Professor Elliot Leyton for taking the time to speak with me by phone.

  In the New Orleans Police Department, thanks are due to Lieutenant Gwendolyn M. Nolan, Captain H. M. Kouts, and NOPD historian Ruth Ashur.

  Dr. Carol Terry, chief medical examiner for Gwinnet County, Georgia, shared her expertise on death in all its forms. I’ll never forget (much as I will try) wh
at she told me about “biscuit brain.” I greatly profited from the expertise of profiler Ralph Stone, retired Georgia Bureau of Investigation special agent; Rick Chambers, former City of Atlanta homicide detective and now chief investigator at Chambers Consulting & Security; and Lieutenant Tina Miller, retired, Atlanta Police Department.

  Working on the Axeman brought home to me how many lawyers I know. While I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, it’s been very helpful in writing this book. For their assistance in answering numerous legal questions, I want to acknowledge and thank Polly Price, Robin Hutchinson, Jean Powers, and Ben Farrow.

  Several people read part or all of the manuscript. Thomas Easterling and Donnie Nobles read chapters. Michael Burger read numerous drafts of the manuscript. Adam Lynde read and gave perceptive comments under the most uncomfortable conditions. Kara Bryant brought an English teacher’s eye to my grammar. Corey-Jan Albert has twice now gone above and beyond the call of friendship by reading and editing a manuscript. My editor at Chicago Review Press, Yuval Taylor, improved the manuscript. Developmental editor Devon Freeny and copyeditor Mark Bast saved me from many embarrassing mistakes. All remaining errors, omissions, oversights, inaccuracies, misunderstandings, misinterpretations, and typos are solely my responsibility.

  A few miscellaneous thank-yous are in order: to Christal Varholdt for carrying out some freelance research, Blythe Camenson for reading my original proposal, Maureen Ogle for advice on agents and arcs, and my agent Eric Myers for taking me on.

  I’m especially obliged to Francine Loveless Cloud for talking to me about her grandmother, Josephine Orlando, her great-grandmother, Maria Conchetta Liggio Orlando, and her great-grandfather, Giovanni Orlando, three of the Axeman’s likely victims.

  I owe all the people listed here for helping bring this work to fruition. It’s entirely possible that I’ve overlooked or forgotten someone who helped in some way. If so, please forgive me. My memory is less reliable than my gratitude, which is always profound.

  And, finally, I want to note three very important individuals: my mother, Maxine Reynolds Davis, who rather belatedly I need to thank for her commitment to my education; Michael for supporting me (in more ways than one) while I wrote this book; and Cocktail, for his support and love, despite insisting on sitting on my lap when I was trying to write.

  Notes

  Preface

  I got hold of Robert Tallant’s Ready to Hang: An earlier version of Tallant’s story, apparently unknown to many who wrote about the Axeman, appeared in Gumbo Ya-Ya: A Collection of Louisiana Folk Tales, published in 1945. Tallant appears not to have known about another version of the Axeman in an article published by Kendall, “Blood on the Banquette.”

  may well have gotten much of his information: Tallant does seem to have consulted the Times-Picayune.

  Most of the available sources basically repeated: E.g., Everitt, Human Monsters, 76–78; Jeffers, With an Axe, 14–15; Lane and Greg, eds., Encyclopedia of Serial Killers, 35–38; Lester, “Axeman of New Orleans,” 67–75; Newton, Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes, 274–276; Ramsland, “All About the Axeman”; Reid, Mafia, 184–187; Schechter, Serial Killer Files, 145–146; and Wilson and Wilson, Killers Among Us, 167–171.

  In a list of male serial killers: Hickey, Serial Murderers, 131.

  crime writer Jay Robert Nash argued: Nash, Bloodletters and Badmen, 358.

  city records showed that no Italian grocers: Newton, Hunting Humans, 18. Newton revised this account in subsequent books, e.g., Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes (2004) and Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes, 2nd ed. (2009), but Hunting Humans is what I had when I first began reading about the Axeman.

  a sleeping Italian grocer named Joseph Davi: NOPD, Reports of Homicide, vol. 14 (1911), in New Orleans Public Library; Coroner’s Office, Record Book Journals, vol. 7 (1911), in New Orleans Public Library.

  1. Evil Descends

  It was a moonless night: According to the Naval Observatory (http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneYear.php, accessed August 31, 2015), the moon set just after midnight.

  “There will be no gorgeous pageants”: NOTP, March 4, 1919.

  “modest, even . . . somber Carnival”: NOTP, March 5, 1919.

  They also shared the streets: I don’t have any direct evidence that either Frank Jordano and his girlfriend or the murderer known as the Axeman of New Orleans were at Mardi Gras in 1919. But it doesn’t stretch the imagination to envisage the high-spirited young couple joining in the celebrations. And the killer? Well, he had to be somewhere; he was almost certainly in the city at the time.

  “Oh, Jesus! Oh, Jesus! Oh, Jesus!”: Direct quotations of dialogue in the immediate aftermath of the attack on the Cortimiglias are taken from the Jordano trial transcript.

  in the direction of Amesville: By 1914, the growing settlement of Amesville was officially renamed Marrero, although most people still called it by its older name.

  At thirty-nine: 1920 US Census, Ancestry.com.

  Only last year, a man: NOPD, Reports of Homicide, February 19, 1918, in New Orleans Public Library.

  “sent her back to the ward”: State v. Guagliardo and Guagliardo, 186, in Supreme Court of Louisiana Historical Archives.

  “I must see her!”: NOI, March 11, 1919.

  “one of the saddest funerals”: NODS, March 10, 1919.

  2. The Cleaver

  Details of the attack on August Crutti come from Daily News, August 13, 1910; NODP, August 14, 1910; NODS, August 13 and 14, 1910; NOTD, August 14 and 15, 1910; and NOI, August 13 and 14, 1910.

  For a description of the attack on the Rissettos and the subsequent police investigation, see Daily News, September 20–22, 1910; NOI, September 20, 21, and 23, 1910; NODP, September 20–24 and 27, 1910; NOB, September 21, 1910; and NOTD, September 21–22, 1920.

  For information on Conchetta and Joseph Rissetto’s family background and deaths, see New Orleans Marriage Records, Ancestry.com; 1920 US Census, Ancestry.com; NODP, November 25, 1910; NODS, November 25, 1912; and NOTP, May 29, 1940.

  Information on John T. Flannery comes from State v. Flannery, in New Orleans Public Library; NOI, August 29 and October 25, 1910; NOTD, August 29–30 and October 26, 1910; and NODP, August 29–30 and October 26, 1910.

  August and Harriet shared the small house: 1910 US Census, Ancestry.com.

  “drunk or crazy”: NODP, August 14, 1910.

  “some half-witted fellow”: Ibid.

  “well-known police character”: Daily News, August 13, 1910; NOTD, August 14, 1910.

  “insane and irresponsible”: Drs. Hummel and O’Hara to Hon. P. D. Chretien, State v. Flannery, in New Orleans Public Library. See also NODP, October 26, 1910; and NOTD, October 26, 1910.

  A man crept up: Like many Italian names, the Rissettos’ name is spelled a variety of ways in the newspapers, and I have standardized the spelling.

  With no children: The 1910 US Census (Ancestry.com) lists no one else living with the Rissettos.

  “slaughtering pen”: Daily News, September 20, 1910.

  “domestic strife”: Daily News, September 22, 1910.

  “of Italian descent”: NOI, September 20, 1910; NODP, September 21, 1910.

  “I am certain that burglars”: NOI, September 23, 1910.

  “a fiendish thirst for blood”: Daily News, September 21, 1910.

  “dime store novel flavor”: Daily News, September 21, 1910.

  “the trail is very warm”: NOI, September 23, 1910.

  “murder stamped on his countenance:” NODP, August 14, 1910.

  3. Dagoes, Sugarcane, and Muffulettas

  Iorlando Guagliardo left the barest record of his existence in official documents. I know his date of birth, where he came from, the year he emigrated, whom he married, and where he owned businesses. The account in this chapter is built around those known facts, but it also attempts to flesh out his life based on the typical experiences of Sicilian immigrants into Louisiana.

  For Italians in Louisiana, I have relied on Ada
ms, “Mafia Riots”; Baiamonte, “New Immigrants in the South” (MA thesis) and Immigrants in Rural America; Boneno, “Migrant to Millionaire” (PhD diss.); Edwards-Simpson, “Sicilian Immigration” (PhD diss.); Macaluso, Italian Immigrant Families; Magnaghi, “Louisiana’s Italian Immigrants”; Margavio, “Reaction of the Press”; Margavio and Molyneaux, “Residential Segregation of Italians”; Margavio and Salomone, Bread and Respect, “Passage, Settlement, and Occupational Characteristics,” and “Economic Advantages of Familism”; Maselli and Candeloro, Italians in New Orleans; Jean Ann Scarpaci, “Immigrants in the New South” and “Italian Immigrants” (PhD diss.); Clive Webb, “Lynching of Sicilian Immigrants”; “Our Italian Fellow-Citizens,” NODP, October 17, 1890; “Italian Colony,” NODP, October 18, 1890; “Italian Immigration,” NODP, August 12, 1904; and “Thirteen Hundred Italian Immigrants,” NODP, October 17, 1907.

  Details of nineteenth-century New Orleans from Cable, Lost New Orleans; Jewell, Jewell’s Crescent City Illustrated; and Thomas Ruys Smith, Southern Queen.

  For population in New Orleans, I have relied on Sublette, World That Made New Orleans; City of New Orleans, Population, Total and by Race, http://nutrias.org/facts/aq150_1981p.pdf; and University of Virginia Library, Historical Census Browser.

  For information on the sugarcane industry and the importation of foreign workers, see Berthoff, “Southern Attitudes”; Carter, Southern Legacy; Conrad and Lucas, White Gold; J. Vincenza Scarpaci, “Labor for Louisiana’s Sugar Cane”; Jean Ann Scarpaci, “Immigrants in the New South” and“Italian Immigrants” (PhD diss.); Schmitz, “Transformation of the Southern Cane Sugar Sector”; Shrugg, “Survival of the Plantation System”; Sitterson, Sugar Country; and Smalley, “Sugar Making in Louisiana.”