The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America's First Serial Killer

by Hollandsworth, Skip

  The Austin Athletic Association’s rope-jumping contests were in the Austin Daily Capitol on July 11, 1884. The Austins’ baseball games were reported in the Austin Daily Statesman on June 22, 1884, and June 24, 1884. The chess tournaments were reported in Southwell’s “A Social and Literary History of Austin from 1881 to 1896,” and John L. Sullivan’s boxing exploits were reported in the Austin Daily Statesman on April 2, 1884. Mollie Bailey’s circus visit to Austin was noted in the San Antonio Express on November 11, 1884, and the boy tightrope walker’s trek was covered by the Austin Daily Statesman on December 7, 1884. The New Year’s Day calling parties are from the Austin Daily Statesman, December 1, 1885, and December 26, 1970; and the Galveston Daily News, January 2, 1885. The reference to Hartzfield can be found in Tracy’s “A Closer Look at O. Henry’s Rolling Stone,” p. 32. Governor Ireland’s open house and the governor’s activities for that day come from the Austin Daily Statesman of December 30, 1884, January 1, 1885, and January 2, 1885; the Austin Daily Sun of January 1, 1885; the Galveston Daily News of December 31, 1884; the San Antonio Daily Express of December 31, 1884; and from Gov. John Ireland’s “Inventory of Records, 1879–1887.”

  Information on the governor’s mansion comes from the National Register Information System’s National Register of Historic Places.

  Biographical information on Governor Ireland comes from Seale’s “John Ireland and His Times,” pp. 1–200; Smith’s “The Administration of Governor John Ireland, 1883–1887,” pp. 7–77; Daniell’s Types of Successful Men of Texas, pp. 239–441; Daniell’s Personnel of the Texas State Government, pp. 138–53; Wooten’s A Comprehensive History of Texas, 1685–1897, pp. 25–265; Jones’s Search for Maturity, pp. 46–8 and 56; Campbell’s Gone to Texas, pp. 303–4 and 318–31; and the Austin Daily Statesman, March 30, 1884, and June 27, 1884.

  Biographical information on William Swain is taken from Speer and Brown’s Encyclopedia of the New West, pp. 403–4; “Compt. Swain’s Administration,” in the Texas Review, pp. 466–75; Loughery’s Personnel of the Texas State Government for 1885, pp. 68–69; and Burke’s Texas Almanac and Immigrant’s Handbook for 1883, pp. 54–56. Newspaper accounts of Swain come from the Austin Daily Statesman, March 27, 1884, and July 6, 1884; the Austin Daily Sun, January 29, 1885; the Waco Day, January 2, 1885; the Waco Daily Examiner, March 5, 1885, March 26, 1885, and May 21, 1885; and the Fort Worth Gazette, October 2, 1884, and March 31, 1885.

  Afternoon train schedules come from the Austin Daily Statesman, November 16, 1884, January 1, 1885, and January 17, 1885, and from Morrison and Fourmy’s General Directory of the City of Austin, 1885–1886.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Inquests and justice of the peace responsibilities are from Holden’s “Law and Lawlessness on the Texas Frontier, 1875–1890,” pp. 188–203; and from Gammel’s Special Laws of the State of Texas, 1822–1897, pp. 12, 31, and 345.

  The testimony of the Mollie Smith inquest jury was covered from January 1 to January 10, 1885, by the Austin Daily Statesman, Fort Worth Gazette, Austin Daily Sun, Bastrop Advertiser, and Galveston Daily News.

  Mollie Smith’s burial was reported in the Cemetery Record for Oakwood Cemetery. The description of the cemetery comes from the Austin Daily Statesman on June 1, 1886.

  Dr. Humphrey’s speech at the University of Texas is from the Austin Daily Statesman on January 10, 1885. The Clara Morris play is from the Austin Daily Statesman on January 3, 1885, January 13, 1885, and January 20, 1885. The Cattleman’s Ball was reported in the Austin Daily Statesman on January 11, 1885, January 14, 1885, January 16, 1885, and January 18, 1885. Ida St. Claire was written about in the Austin Daily Statesman, February 27, 1885. Blanche Dumont was profiled in Humphrey’s “Prostitution and Public Policy in Austin, Texas, 1870–1915,” p. 484; Zelade’s Guy Town by Gaslight, pp. 68 and 138; Williamson’s Texas Pistoleers, p. 96; and Butler’s Daughters of Joy, Sisters of Misery, pp. 57–58. Guy Town prostitution is also mentioned in the Austin Daily Statesman, December 16, 1880, June 12, 1933, and January 10, 1926, and in Williamson’s Texas Pistoleers, p. 96.

  Brooks’s release is from the Austin Daily Statesman on January 26, 1885, and March 31, 1885. “Pastor Grant would serve his race better” is from the Galveston Daily News, January 4, 1885.

  “Onion sociable” is from the Bastrop Advertiser on February 21, 1885. The Austin Press Club concert was reported in the Austin Daily Statesman on January 25, 1885, and January 27, 1885. Louise Armaindo was reported in the Austin Daily Statesman on February 18, 1885, February 20, 1885, February 21, 1885, and February 22, 1885.

  The meetings of the state legislature and the vote for women clerks were reported in the Austin Daily Statesman for January 15, 1885, January 25, 1885, January 27, 1885, and January 28, 1885.

  Descriptions of the old State Lunatic Asylum are from the Austin Democratic Statesman on May 7, 1879, and December 9, 1879; and from the Austin Daily Statesman for July 20, 1880.

  More details of the asylum in earlier days can be found in Sitton’s Life at the Texas Lunatic Asylum, 1857–1997, pp. 2–5 and 10–30. Also in Brownson’s “From Curer to Custodian: A History of the Texas State Lunatic Asylum, 1857–1880,” pp. 1–7.

  The State Lunatic Asylum under Dr. Denton can be found in Sitton’s Life at the Texas Lunatic Asylum, 1857–1999, pp. 30–39. Further information is in Denton’s Report of the Superintendent of the Texas State Lunatic Asylum for 1884, pp. 1–13; Denton’s Report of the Superintendent of the Texas State Lunatic Asylum for 1885, pp. 1–11; and Denton’s Report of the Superintendent of the Texas State Lunatic Asylum for 1886, pp. 1–15. Descriptions of the State Lunatic Asylum under Dr. Denton are in the Galveston Daily News for September 4, 1885; the Austin Daily Capitol for April 17, 1884; the Austin Daily Sun for April 23, 1884; the San Antonio Daily Express for August 9, 1884, and October 7, 1884; and the Austin Daily Statesman for January 10, 1883, January 23, 1883, April 23, 1883, June 23, 1883, March 3, 1884, June 26, 1884, August 18, 1885, and November 27, 1885. More biographical information on Denton comes from Daniell’s Personnel of the Texas State Government for 1885, p. 72.

  The wedding at the State Lunatic Asylum was reported in the Austin Daily Statesman on February 12, 1885, and February 28, 1885; and in the Austin Daily Sun on February 12, 1885. Descriptions of Dr. Given appear in the Austin Daily Statesman on August 27, 1886, and August 28, 1886; and in the San Antonio Daily Express on August 28, 1886.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The “pitch of gaiety” is from the March 2, 1885, issue of the Waco Daily Express.

  Details of the cornerstone ceremony come from Lambert’s “Report of the Ceremonies of Laying the Corner Stone of the New Capitol of Texas”; Barkley’s History of Travis County and Austin: 1839–1899, p. 204; and reports from the Austin Daily Statesman and the Galveston Daily News on March 1, 1885, March 2, 1885, and March 3, 1885. The “harbor of big ships” line is from the Austin Daily Statesman on March 6, 1884. More on the state of the capitol’s construction comes from the Austin Daily Statesman on March 10, 1885.

  The attacks on the servant women were detailed by the Austin Daily Statesman, Austin Daily Sun, Galveston Daily News, Fort Worth Gazette, San Antonio Daily Express, and Waco Daily Express between March 10, 1885, and March 21, 1885. More details come from the “Record of Arrests, Oct. 21, 1879–May 31, 1885.” The Major Stewart speech on the Old South was reported in the Galveston Daily News, August 7, 1885.

  “Anticipated lively times” is from the Austin Daily Sun, January 10, 1885. The thief stealing “eatables” is from the Austin Daily Sun, January 18, 1885. The burglary at Mrs. Cope’s is from the Austin Daily Statesman on January 10, 1885, and January 18, 1885.

  Austin’s white citizens blaming the attacks on black men was reported by the Austin Daily Statesman on March 14, 1885, and March 20, 1885; the Austin Daily Sun of March 14, 1885; the Galveston Daily News on March 20, 1885; and the Fort Worth Gazette on March 22, 1885.

  Sources for Austin’s black population, homes,
and neighborhoods are Mears’s And Grace Will Lead Me Home, pp. 11, 26–28, and 64; Manaster’s “The Ethnic Geography of Austin, Texas: 1875–1910,” pp. 54–5, 70, and 89–91; and Humphrey’s Austin: An Illustrated History, p. 67.

  Austin’s black illiteracy: Mears’s And Grace Will Lead Me Home, p. 113. Descriptions of black male employment are from Rice’s The Negro in Texas, 1874–1900, pp. 13–14, 38–94, and 184–87. Among the sources for black servant women’s work are Hunter’s To ’Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors After the Civil War, p. 12; Jones’s Life on Waller Creek, p. 53; Winegarten’s Black Texas Women, pp. 151–53; Litwack’s Trouble in Mind, pp. 17–18; Sutherland’s Americans and Their Servants, p. 30; Smallwood’s Time of Hope, Time of Despair, p. 48; and the Austin Daily Statesman for February 7, 1970, and October 25, 1975.

  Black persecution in Austin during slavery: Wormser’s The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow, p. 11; Mears’s And Grace Will Lead Me, pp. 9 and 27; Texas Slave Narratives, p. 93; and Lack’s “Slavery and Vigilantism in Austin, Texas, 1840–1860,” pp. 1–20.

  Stories of Rev. Grant’s church come from the Austin Daily Statesman of February 18, 1884, June 17, 1884, and January 20, 1885. Stories about Tom Hill come from the Austin Daily Statesman on August 3, 1885, and October 3, 1886. The East Austin business district is identified in the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of Austin and Morrison and Fourmy’s General Directory of the City of Austin, 1885–1886. The business district is also described in Mears’s And Grace Will Lead Me Home, p. 158. On black schools: Manaster’s “The Ethnic Geography of Austin, Texas,” p. 92; and Barkley’s “History of Travis County and Austin,” p. 176; and the Austin Daily Statesman on June 27, 1885. Also, the Catalogue of the Tillotson Institute, 1884–1885, pp. 1–84; and Heintze’s Private Black Colleges in Texas, 1865–1954, pp. 26–28.

  Black entertainment in Austin is from Smallwood’s Time of Hope, Time of Despair, p. 119; Sweet and Knox’s On a Mexican Mustang, p. 110; Rice’s The Negro in Texas, 1874–1900, pp. 260–62; Southwell’s “A Social and Literary History of Austin from 1881 to 1896,” pp. 123–24; Enstam’s Women and the Creation of Urban Life, p. 188; and the Austin Daily Statesman, August 4, 1880, September 30, 1884, February 17, 1886, and June 19, 1976.

  Julia Pease’s black Christmas parties, the Austin Daily Statesman, December 6, 1969. Pressler’s Juneteenth celebration is from Manaster’s “The Ethnic Geography of Austin, Texas,” p. 93. Albert Carrington’s biography is from “Carrington Family” vertical files, Austin History Center, and the Austin Daily Statesman, December 9, 1884. Millett’s not allowing blacks at operas from Manry’s Curtain Call, p. 9.

  Generic white discrimination against blacks in the late 1880s is documented in Worsmer’s The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow, p. 7; Litwack’s Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow, pp. 91 and 247–65; and Dray’s At the Hands of Persons Unknown, pp. 94–103. Also from Manaster’s “The Ethnic Geography of Austin,” pp. 115–122; and the Austin Daily Statesman, September 13, 1883, November 27, 1884, and May 14, 1885. “Raucous” noises is from the Austin Daily Statesman, January 1, 1884, and the Galveston Daily News, January 4, 1885. Loitering on street corners is from the Austin Daily Statesman, February 21, 1883.

  Fear of black men not having experienced slavery, committing crimes, and “retrograding” comes from Waldrep’s The Many Faces of Judge Lynch, p. 100; Hale’s Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South, 1890–1940, pp. 73–74; Litwack’s Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow, pp. 2, 99, 178, 211, 302, and 408; Dray’s At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America, p. 147; and Vann’s Origins of the New South: 1877–1913, pp. 197–200, 210–16, and 302.

  “Idleness and drink” is from the Austin Daily Statesman, September 30, 1885.

  Grooms Lee’s history in law enforcement is from the Austin Daily Statesman on February 29, 1880, May 21, 1880, and December 12, 1883. Also see the Texas State Archives, listing of “Frontier Battalion of Texas Rangers,” December 23, 1874.

  Previous Austin marshals is from Barkley’s History of Travis County and Austin: 1839–1899, pp. 222–27. Ben Thompson’s biography is from Walton’s Life and Adventures of Ben Thompson: The Famous Texan, pp. 151–52 and 191–93; and Askins’s Texans, Guns & History, pp. 76–86. More stories on Thompson are from the Austin Daily Statesman on January 6, 1881, January 13, 1884, February 2, 1884, February 23, 1884, and March 12, 1884.

  Lee as a teetotaler is from the Dallas Daily Herald, December 14, 1883. Descriptions of Lee’s father are taken from Biographical Encyclopedia of Texas, pp. 226–27; and from Speer and Brown, Encyclopedia of the New West, pp. 418–19. Descriptions of Lee as marshal are from the author’s interview with Grooms Lee’s grandniece Lois Douglas in 2002; the Austin Daily Sun of January 17, 1885; and the Austin Daily Statesman of March 3, 1884, March 5, 1884, March 13, 1884, March 25, 1884, December 10, 1884, January 9, 1884, and January 16, 1884. Chenneville’s salary increase is from the Austin Daily Statesman on December 11, 1883.

  Information on the end of the outlaw era, John Wesley Hardin, and Belle Star was taken from Prassel’s The Great American Outlaw, pp. 26–142; Trachtman’s The Gunfighters, pp. 176–82; Jones’s Search for Maturity, pp. 8 and 14; Lewis’s The Mammoth Book of the West, pp. 334–35 and 479; and Hendricks’s The Bad Man of the West, pp. 70–85.

  Austin Police Department size is from the Austin Daily Statesman on May 1, 1884, October 5, 1884, May 15, 1884, June 6, 1885, and June 27, 1885. Also see Barkley’s History of Travis County, pp. 222–29; Biggerstaff’s “Austin Police Force, 1851–1962”; Sweet and Knox’s On a Mexican Mustang Through Texas, p. 653; and Schlesinger’s The Rise of the City, 1878–1898, pp. 259–60.

  Details about particular Austin officers come from the Austin Daily Statesman on March 26, 1884, and January 29, 1885. Details about the black officers are from the Austin Daily Statesman on July 3, 1884, and from White’s “A Pictorial History of Black Policemen Who Have Served in the Austin Police Department, 1871–1982,” pp. 1–12.

  March city aldermen meeting for “special policemen” was reported in the Austin Daily Statesman on March 21, 1885, March 22, 1885, and March 23, 1885. Mrs. Chenneville fires at prowler, the Austin Daily Statesman, April 8, 1885.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Details on the New Orleans Exposition come from “Guidebook Through the World’s Cotton and Industrial Centennial Exposition at New Orleans,” pp. 1–24; and Ezell’s The South Since 1865, pp. 331–32. Details on the Texas exhibit and on Ireland’s Texas Day speech come from the Austin Daily Statesman, New Orleans Daily Picayune, Dallas Daily Herald, Fort Worth Gazette, and Galveston Daily News from April 20, 1885, to April 28, 1885. Details on Ireland’s wife are from Seale’s “John Ireland and His Times,” pp. 156–57; and Farrell’s First Ladies of Texas: A History, p. 176.

  Details about Jefferson Davis’s post–Civil War life and beliefs come from Fleming’s “Jefferson Davis, the Negroes and the Negro Problem,” pp. 407–27.

  Details on Radam come from Walters’s Scientific Authority & Twentieth-Century America, p. 58; Radam’s self-published autobiography, William Radam’s Microbe Killer; and from the Austin Daily Statesman on August 28, 1887, August 28, 1888, November 7, 1888, April 2, 1889, and April 24, 1976.

  Robertson as author of the Industries of Austin, Texas catalogue is indicated in the “Publisher’s Note,” p. 1.

  Details of the servant women attacks and the arrests of suspects in late April and early May come from the Austin Daily Statesman, Dallas Daily Herald, Galveston Daily News, and San Antonio Daily Express, April 30, 1885, to May 5, 1885.

  Stories detailing Eliza’s murder come from the Austin Daily Statesman, Waco Daily Examiner, Fort Worth Gazette, Dallas Daily Herald, Galveston Daily News, San Antonio Daily Express, and St. Louis Post Dispatch of May 7 and 8, 1885. The story of William Shelley’s horse theft are reported in the January 4, 1884, and April 23, 1884, Austin Daily Statesman.

>   CHAPTER SEVEN

  Stories detailing the police investigation into Eliza’s murder and the arrest of Ike Plummer come from the same newspapers listed in the preceding note from May 8 to May 17, 1885. Further information is from the Fort Worth Gazette on November 15, 1885; the New York World on December 29, 1885, and January 1, 1886; and the National Police Gazette on July 30, 1887. Dr. Johnson’s Roman coin comes from the Austin Daily Statesman, February 23, 1885. O. Henry’s “Servant Girl Annihilators” comes from O. Henry’s Rolling Stones, p. 265.

  Black residents terrorized and black voodoo practices are from the Austin Daily Statesman on December 12, 1884, May 8, 1885, and May 9, 1885; the Galveston Daily News on May 9, 1885; the National Police Gazette on July 30, 1887; and the New York World on January 1, 1886. More on hoodoo from Dray’s At the Hands of Persons Unknown, p. 40; and from Meier and Rudwick’s From Plantation to Ghetto, pp. 79–80.

  Stories detailing Irene Cross’s murder are from the Austin Daily Statesman, Fort Worth Gazette, Dallas Daily Herald, Galveston Daily News, San Antonio Daily Express, and St. Louis Post Dispatch, May 23 through May 26, 1885. Also see the Fort Worth Gazette on November 15, 1885; the New York World on December 29, 1885, and January 1, 1886; and the National Police Gazette on July 30, 1887. Description of Scholz’s beer garden is from the Austin Daily Statesman, March 21, 1937.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Stories detailing the next day’s scene at the Weyermann home and the police investigation into Cross’s murder come from the same newspapers listed in the preceding note from May 23 to May 26, 1885.

  Descriptions of the men on the Avenue and their theories about the servant women killings come from the Austin Daily Statesman on May 9, 1885, May 10, 1885, May 11, 1885, and September 29, 1885; the Dallas Daily Herald on May 8, 1885, and May 14, 1885; the St. Louis Post Dispatch on May 7, 1885; and the Fort Worth Gazette on June 12, 1885, and November 18, 1885. (Although a couple of the theories were published weeks after the murder of Irene Cross, I am assuming that these theories were already being debated.)