SERIAL KILLER: The Axeman of New Orleans Pt. 1

In 1918, a killer began slipping into New Orleans homes under cover of darkness, attacking sleeping victims with an axe and vanishing without a trace. The attacks targeted the city's Italian immigrant grocers, leaving a terrorized community wondering who would be next... and investigators scrambling to find a suspect they couldn't identify. As the body count rose, false arrests and coerced statements threatened to send innocent people to prison. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Serial Killers & Murderous Minds to never miss a case! Want all 2 parts of every case all at once? Join Crime House+ and get both parts of each case dropped together on Monday ad-free. Join at crimehouseplus.com http://crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Serial Killers & Murderous Minds is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios. 🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Murder True Crime Stories, Crime House 24/7, and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse https://www.instagram.com/crimehouse/TikTok: @Crimehouse https://www.tiktok.com/@crimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudios https://www.facebook.com/crimehousestudiosYouTube: @crimehousestudios https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Vanessa Richardson?

  Hi, everyone. Before today's episode, there's another show I want to tell you about. It's called What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum and Carter Roy. Every week, they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Plus, Connor's infectious energy that'll make you realize history is the most fascinating thing on earth. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen, or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.

• 0:36Speaker 01

  This is Crime House.

• 0:42Vanessa Richardson?

  Some of the scariest moments in life are the ones we never see coming. The things that happen without warning, when everything feels completely normal, right up until it isn't. That's exactly how the residents of New Orleans felt in 1918. While people slept, someone started slipping into their homes and attacking them before they even knew what was happening. What made it even more terrifying was that the killer didn't seem interested in money or valuables. Whoever was doing this appeared to be breaking in for one reason: to kill. For more than a year, no one knew who would be next, or when the murderer might strike again. They only knew the weapon he usually left behind, and

• 1:26Vanessa Richardson?

  the name that would come to define him: the Axeman of New Orleans.

• 1:45Vanessa Richardson?

  The human mind is powerful. It shapes how we think, feel, love, and hate. But sometimes it drives people to commit the unthinkable. This is Serial Killers and Murderous Minds, a Crime House original. I'm Vanessa Richardson.

• 1:59Tristin Engels?

  And I'm forensic psychologist Dr. Tristan Ingles. Every Monday and Thursday, we uncover the darkest minds in history, analyzing what makes a killer.

• 2:09Vanessa Richardson?

  Crime House exists because of listeners like you. Want even more? Join Crime House Plus and get both parts of every story dropped on the same Monday, completely ad-free. No waiting three days for part two, plus Crime House bonus episodes every month. To join, go to crimehouseplus.com. Or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap "Try Free" at the top of the Serial Killers and Murderous Minds page. Before we get started, be advised, this episode contains descriptions of extreme brutality and violence against children, so please listen with care. Today, we're diving into the brutal story of the Axeman of New Orleans, a killer who left an entire city wondering, who could be next? He slipped into people's homes

• 2:54Vanessa Richardson?

  in the middle of the night, attacked them with terrifying force, and managed to disappear before anyone could catch him. As the attacks continued, patterns started to emerge, and the killer's reputation became as frightening as the violence itself.

• 3:09Tristin Engels?

  As Vanessa goes through the story, I'll be talking about things like why some offenders leave behind recognizable signatures or repeated details that help investigators connect their crimes; how creating fear across an entire city can become part of the psychological reward for a killer; and the psychological challenges investigators faced when trying to identify a serial offender who could blend back into the community between attacks.

• 3:35Vanessa Richardson?

  And, as always, we'll be asking the question, what makes a killer?

• 3:45Vanessa Richardson?

  Before New Orleans became the lively place we know today, it was a city in the middle of enormous change. By the late 1910s, the city had one of the busiest ports in the country, and people were pouring in from all over. Music filled clubs and dance halls, jazz was just starting to take off, and it was earning a reputation as a place that never slowed down. But underneath all the excitement, there was plenty to worry about. World War I was raging overseas, and New Orleans played an important role in military training and shipping. Then came the pandemic known as the Spanish Flu, which swept through the city and made death a frighteningly common part of everyday life. But beyond

• 4:28Vanessa Richardson?

  those immediate crises, New Orleans remained a major destination for European immigrants looking to build new lives in America, especially Italians. A lot of them found work selling produce, importing food, running markets, or opening neighborhood grocery stores. In fact, Italians became so successful in the grocery business that they eventually operated nearly half of the local stores. Often, those businesses were directly connected to the owner's homes. But not everyone was happy about their success. Anti-Italian sentiment had been building in New Orleans for decades. Before the turn of the century, 11 Italian men were lynched by a mob who believed they'd murdered the city's police chief, even though

• 5:11Vanessa Richardson?

  none of them had been convicted of it. In the years that followed, Italians continued to be stereotyped as criminals. Whenever there was violence within the Italian community, outsiders were quick to blame the mafia or extortion schemes. And by the spring of 1918, that already vulnerable community was about to have something else to fear. In the early morning hours of May 23, 40-year-old Joseph Maggio and his 35-year-old wife Catherine were asleep inside the apartment connected to the grocery store they owned a few miles outside the French Quarter. At some point during the night, someone quietly slipped inside. The intruder made their way to the bedroom and attacked Joseph with an axe,

• 5:55Vanessa Richardson?

  fracturing his skull. Then they cut both Joseph and Catherine's throats with a razor. Once they believed the couple was dead, the killer left the weapon in plain sight, a detail that would soon become part of a disturbing pattern.

• 6:10Tristin Engels?

  Oh, this sounds eerily similar to the Velazca Axe murders, which we previously covered. And in that case, the killer also left the axe behind. Those murders occurred in 1912 in Velazca, Iowa. Joseph and Catherine Maggio were murdered six years later, obviously in 1918. But it's still a similar era, so there are some practical reasons for leaving the axe at the scene. The killer likely got to Joseph and Catherine's home on foot, especially if he was trying to approach without drawing attention to himself. So leaving the axe makes sense, because when he's leaving the scene, he won't be carrying it with him. That's difficult to do, and it's suspicious, and it's incredibly risky. But that also makes me wonder whether he actually brought it with him in the first

• 6:52Tristin Engels?

  place, because the same problem applies on the way there. Walking around a neighborhood carrying an axe is an exposure risk before you've even committed the crime. So in that sense, leaving a weapon he didn't own may actually be evidence of risk management. So he takes what he needs from the environment, he uses it, and he leaves it there, rather than carrying evidence away with him. But if the killer found the axe at Joseph and Catherine's home, which seems like he likely did, I think that potentially tells us something about his behavior. Maybe he's not planning out every detail in advance. He might be comfortable entering the environment, or entering for one thing, and something made

• 7:32Tristin Engels?

  him pivot, and he adapts once he's inside. We will have to see, really, as his pattern forms, and as you take us through the story.

• 7:40Vanessa Richardson?

  Do you think that leaving that axe might have been an early attempt to create a recognizable signature, or maybe send a message?

• 7:47Tristin Engels?

  So a signature is usually a behavior that represents the offender's personal psychological needs or desires beyond what's necessary to accomplish the crime itself. So it's possible that this is a signature, but it's really too early to tell definitively right now in the story, because I can't discern what psychological need or desire that they would be gaining from this yet. Is it ownership, recognition, symbolism? It's too early to tell. Right now, it just seems practical.

• 8:17Vanessa Richardson?

  Well, Joseph's brothers, Jake and Andrew, lived next door. At around 5:00 a.m., they heard groans coming from the couple's apartment. When they went inside to investigate, they found Catherine unresponsive and Joseph barely alive. By the time police arrived, both victims had died. As investigators looked over the scene, they realized just how brutal the attack had been. Catherine's injuries were so severe that she'd bled heavily and asphyxiated on her own blood. The police also started piecing together how the killer had gotten inside. When they examined a rear door, they noticed a panel had been chiseled out to create an opening just large enough for someone to reach through and unlock it from the inside.

• 9:00Vanessa Richardson?

  Items in the home had been tossed around, and a strong box had been forced open, and $50 were taken, but a jewelry box sitting nearby, holding far more than the cash, hadn't been touched at all. Then, in the bathroom, police found the blood-covered axe. Joseph's brothers confirmed it belonged to the couple and said it was normally kept outside in the yard.

• 9:22Tristin Engels?

  Oh, okay, so now we know the axe did belong to Joseph and Catherine and was normally kept outside in the yard. That makes me wonder also why he didn't bring a weapon of his own. I mean, he obviously had a razor, but why not like a knife, one he could easily carry and conceal? And I don't think that necessarily makes this an impulsive attack, judging by the way he got in. That's already planning and problem solving that's involved in that alone. So it's possible that the axe was simply opportunistic. He sees it outside, realizes he has access to a weapon, and he uses it. But again, maybe not bringing a weapon was part of the plan.

• 10:04Tristin Engels?

  Like, we talked about carrying a weapon to and from a crime creates risk, especially an axe. But if you can use something that already belongs to the victims, you arrive without a murder weapon and you leave without one, that way, if you're stopped or you're seen on either end, there's less connecting you to it. It's less risk. If that's deliberate on his part, it's actually the opposite of impulsive. It suggests he's actually thinking about risk, and he's thinking about detection.

• 10:33Vanessa Richardson?

  Psychologically, is there something especially violating about killing someone with an object taken from their own home?

• 10:40Tristin Engels?

  Yes, of course. I mean, just the mere act of breaking into someone's home is a violation on its own. But offenders who burglarize and invade homes actually often use weapons that they find inside the home of the residents on the homeowners. It's more often firearms than axes, of course, but it's not the late 1910s anymore where that research has been derived from. So of course, this is different in that he didn't burglarize the home at least, but it feels intrusive and almost intimate because they were a couple and they were asleep in their beds. And there could also be a psychological appeal in using something that's belonging to the victims against them, too. Because you're taking something from their own environment, and you're turning it against

• 11:25Tristin Engels?

  them, and then you're leaving it with them in the end. But again, I feel it's too soon to really assign meaning to that yet, for sure.

• 11:34Vanessa Richardson?

  The weapon wasn't the only thing about the scene that felt off to the police. Investigators also questioned how someone could have chiseled through the rear door in the middle of the night without waking anyone nearby. As they continued searching the property, police found another possible weapon outside, a razor stained with blood. It appeared consistent with the cuts across Joseph and Catherine's throats. Investigators spoke with people who knew the couple, and eventually, someone recognized the razor. Joseph's brother Andrew owned a barber shop, and one of his employees told the police that the weapon looked like the same type of razor they used in the shop. That connection was enough to turn suspicion toward Andrew. He was immediately arrested and questioned, but he denied having anything to do with

• 12:19Vanessa Richardson?

  the murders. Fingerprint analysis was still relatively new at the time, and there was no solid evidence proving Andrew had ever handled the razor. Police pressed him for a confession, but without one, they just didn't have enough to hold him. A few days later, Andrew was released. For the moment, the case went cold. Police believed it was an isolated incident, but they were wrong. Just over a month later, an attacker struck again. On June 27, 1918, Louis Bessemer and Harriet Lowe were asleep in a room connected to the grocery store they operated. Like the Maggios, Louis was part of New Orleans immigrant grocer community, but he was Polish.

• 13:03Vanessa Richardson?

  Sometime that night, someone chiseled their way inside. The attacker struck Louis in the head with an axe, then turned the weapon on Harriet, hitting her near her eye. The blows left them both unconscious for hours, and they wouldn't be discovered until the following morning, when a delivery driver arrived at their shop for a routine stop. The doors were still locked at 7:00 a.m., which struck him as odd. The store usually opened at 5:00. So he had a look around the property and found an open door. The driver went inside, discovered Louis and Harriet severely injured but alive, and contacted the police. Almost immediately, investigators noticed how similar this attack was to the Maggio murders.

• 13:47Vanessa Richardson?

  Once again, the axe used in the attack belonged to the victims and was found on the property, and there was no obvious sign that robbery had been the motive. As investigators searched for someone to blame, their attention turned to a former employee the couple had recently let go, a local man named Louis Ubicon. Police had zero physical evidence tying him to the attack, but they believed firing gave him a possible motive, and he was arrested.

• 14:14Tristin Engels?

  This is actually a very reasonable place for investigators to start. When someone's murdered, you look at the people around them: partners, family members, friends, coworkers, people that they've had conflicts with. Because statistically, we know the relationship between a homicide victim and their killer is much more often someone they knew than a complete stranger. So if you find out that someone had recently been fired or had a conflict with the victim or owed them money, was jealous of them, whatever it may be, that person is naturally going to get your attention because now you have something that looks like a motive. The problem is that motive is extremely persuasive. We like explanations that make behavior make sense.

• 14:56Tristin Engels?

  And once somebody gives us that coherent explanation, like he was angry because he was fired, so he came back and he killed them, then it's really easy to start formulating a theory and evaluating everything else through that theory. And that's what can cause confirmation bias in investigations. Evidence that fits the theory gets noticed, it gets remembered, but evidence that doesn't fit can start feeling less important, or it gets explained away. It was definitely a reasonable place to start, but would a disgruntled employee who was fired and who may be experiencing financial hardship really kill his former employer's wife, whom he has no grievance with? Maybe. Would he not steal from them if he felt vengeful for being terminated and having a financial

• 15:41Tristin Engels?

  hardship as a result? Maybe. If retaliation was the only motive. But what motive would he have for killing Joseph and Catherine? That's a very similar attack, and investigators have to be willing to ask whether the most obvious personal motive in this attack is explaining the other crime that's similar as well, if they are connected, or is it just giving them hope that it does?

• 16:04Vanessa Richardson?

  While the police couldn't find anything that actually connected Louis Ubicon to the attack, after repeated questioning, he was eventually released. But just days later, someone very close to the case would make a startling claim. They knew exactly who had done it.

• 16:22Speaker 03

  Hi, I'm Elise Myers. I'm a content creator and comedian. You might know me from TikTok. Why am I in your ears right now? Well, that's a great question. I would love to tell you. I have a new podcast called Funny 'Cause It's True. On my show, I'll be interviewing comedians, pop culture icons, and also just people I find really funny. We'll be talking about the awkward moments that keep you awake at night. Because if you don't laugh, you cry, right? Okay, Funny 'Cause It's True. Out now, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 16:59Vanessa Richardson?

  By the summer of 1918, New Orleans had seen two immigrant grocers brutally murdered, while another couple, Louis Bessemer and Harriet Lowe, had survived an attack carried out in a strikingly similar way. But despite the obvious overlap, the police weren't entirely sure the crimes were linked. Instead, they initially focused on whether someone close to Louis and Harriet could have been responsible. Investigators visited both of them in the hospital, hoping that despite their injuries, one of them might remember something about the attacker. Louis was on the mend, but Harriet was in far worse condition. Her injuries were so severe that she was left partially paralyzed. Still, investigators questioned them both.

• 17:42Vanessa Richardson?

  Louis didn't remember anything, but Harriet made a shocking accusation. She claimed the person who tried to kill her was Louis, her own partner. She didn't give a clear reason why he might want her dead, but her accusations didn't stop there. She went on to say he was also a German spy. Shortly after making the claim, Harriet passed away. But with World War I still raging, an accusation involving possible espionage was something the police weren't willing to ignore. After Harriet died, Louis recovered from his injuries, and when he was well enough to leave the hospital, he was charged with her murder.

• 18:22Tristin Engels?

  So there has to be some caution taken with the reliability of Harriet's accusation. She'd just survived a very severe assault to the head, and it left her partially paralyzed. There's a very high likelihood that she has a traumatic brain injury. Either way, after an injury like hers, memory can become fragmented, and there can be confusion about the sequence of events, the people involved, and the event itself. And pain, exhaustion, medications, and even the stress on her body and all that it's been through can also compromise memory, especially so soon after. And when memory is fragmented like that, we tend to try to make sense of the pieces that we do remember.

• 19:04Tristin Engels?

  So if Harriet remembers being with Louis when she went to bed, then she remembers being attacked but has no memory of seeing someone else enter the home or leave the home, then she may have just inferred that Louis was the person who attacked her. And to her, that can feel like a memory, even if part of it is actually just a reconstruction. And that's why, although it should also be looked into by investigators, because she was there, she's, you know, she's part of what happened, it should also be evaluated very cautiously as well.

• 19:38Vanessa Richardson?

  I'm curious, if a person initially says they don't remember something, then later provides more detail after repeated questioning, how cautiously should investigators treat that new information?

• 19:50Tristin Engels?

  This actually happens frequently, even when I do evaluations. There are people who tell me that they don't remember the offense that they are accused of, and then later in the evaluation, they start to show evidence of intact episodic memory or autobiographical memory overall. Obviously, this is very different than this situation, but in these cases, I would test for malingering because their memory impairment appears context-dependent. It's not global. But if this was Harriet or similar, I would want to know what questions they were asked, what information they were given. Did anyone suggest that Louis was a possibility? Or did she overhear any other theories? Did she even know that Louis was also badly injured?

• 20:35Tristin Engels?

  Memory contamination is a real phenomenon, and it's highly possible. But at the same time, if someone remembers things after days or weeks that they didn't previously, that could also be related to their stabilization after that period of time, or their mental status, or medication side effects wearing off, and more so than just contamination. And there can be a lot of other variables to consider as well, especially if it involves a complex medical case like hers.

• 21:06Vanessa Richardson?

  Once the police had Louis behind bars, the investigation into the attack essentially shut down. But his arrest didn't stop the violence. Less than two weeks after that attack, on the night of August 5, a woman named Mary Schneider was asleep at home while her husband worked a late shift for the Southern Pacific Railroad. Mary was eight months pregnant, and sometime that night, she woke up to a dark figure standing over her. The intruder attacked her, repeatedly striking Mary in the face and head with a lamp they'd found inside the home. When they believed she was dead, the attacker ransacked the house, stole some cash, and left Mary behind, barely alive.

• 21:49Vanessa Richardson?

  Later, a relative who lived next door came to check on Mary and found her clinging to life. An ambulance was called, and miraculously, both Mary and her baby survived. Shortly afterward, she gave birth to a healthy child. As investigators examined the scene, something caught their attention. They noticed the Schneider's own axe was missing from their shed, and a hatchet belonging to the couple had been dropped in a neighbor's yard. Neither had been used in the attack. Mary also wasn't Italian, and she didn't own a grocery store.

• 22:23Tristin Engels?

  So this seems like a deviation from the existing pattern we've seen. And that could mean that the offender is evolving. But it could also mean it's not the same offender. And that's the tricky thing when crimes become highly talked about in a community or even highly publicized, especially when they develop into a possible series of crimes. It gives other offenders a pattern that they can mimic, and that can happen for different reasons. A copycat tends to recreate aspects of another person's crimes, often because they identify with the offender, or they're fascinated by the crimes, or they want some of the attention or notoriety. But there are others who borrow from the offender that have no psychological investment whatsoever.

• 23:06Tristin Engels?

  They have their own criminal motivations, and they stage their crime scene to resemble the other offender's series of crimes because it's opportunistic. They think they can avoid detection and that they're trying to throw law enforcement off of them onto this other offender. And that can make things difficult because now investigators have to distinguish between the crimes committed by the same offender and crimes deliberately made to look like they were committed by the same offender. I don't envy being in that position. That can be very difficult.

• 23:39Vanessa Richardson?

  Despite the differences, the police couldn't ignore that someone had once again slipped into a New Orleans home at night and tried to kill the person sleeping inside. Investigators started questioning people who'd been in the area that night, and soon, they ran into a man named James Gleason, an ex-convict with a history of petty crimes. When officers approached him, James ran. The police found that behavior suspicious, and when they tracked James down, they arrested him in connection with Mary's attack. But once they questioned him, they couldn't find any evidence that tied him to the crime. James insisted he'd only run because he'd been arrested before and panicked when he saw the officers coming toward him.

• 24:21Vanessa Richardson?

  Eventually, he was released, and Mary's case went cold. But by then, three eerily similar attacks had happened in just a matter of months. The possibility that one person was behind them was getting harder to ignore, and local newspapers finally gave the unknown attacker a name: the Axeman. Just a few days after Mary's attack, the city was on edge all over again. Joseph Romano was an Italian immigrant who lived with his nieces, Pauline and Mary Bruno, in a home connected to the grocery store they operated. In the early morning hours of August 10, 1918, Pauline and Mary woke up to what sounded like a struggle coming from their uncle's room.

• 25:04Vanessa Richardson?

  When they went to investigate, they caught a glimpse of a heavyset man fleeing the property. Inside, the room had been tossed around, and a rear door stood open. Then they found their uncle. He was covered in blood, but still conscious enough to tell them to call the hospital. Joseph was rushed away for treatment, and investigators started searching the scene. Right away, they found something familiar, and something new. Instead of chiseling out a door panel, the attacker had climbed the back fence and crawled in through an open rear window using an axe he'd taken from the family's own shed. And this time, something was missing: Joseph's pocketbook, taken from a pair of trousers left on the kitchen floor.

• 25:48Vanessa Richardson?

  Joseph made his own way out to the ambulance, but he died at Charity Hospital less than two hours later, after telling the surgeon he never saw his attacker. That left investigators with only what his nieces had seen. They described the figure as male, heavyset, but surprisingly quick and light on his feet. So quick, one of them later said it almost looked like he had wings. Pauline added that the only reason she heard the attack at all was because she'd been sleeping poorly, unnerved by the string of nighttime attacks unfolding across the city.

• 26:21Tristin Engels?

  Pauline talking about how she'd been sleeping poorly because of what's been happening in the community really highlights the ripple effect of crime, especially when nobody knows who's responsible. There's a lot of uncertainty in that community right now. If you know where the danger is coming from, you can usually make some kind of safety plan around it. But here, people don't know who this person is, where he's going to strike next, or what they can actually do to protect themselves because he's still successfully harming people. And these attacks are happening inside people's homes at night while they're sleeping. Your home is normally the place where you feel the safest, and you lower your guard.

• 27:04Tristin Engels?

  You lock the door, you go to bed, and you assume that whatever dangers exist outside are staying there outside. But not when there is an axe-wielding offender on the loose and the police keep arresting the wrong people. That's when people tend to become more hypervigilant in the community. Their threat response is constantly on. They're scanning for an unpredictable danger that nobody knows where it's coming from. That can interfere with sleep. And every new attack, especially when it's been in your own home and you observed some characteristics of the attacker fleeing, can reinforce that fear even more.

• 27:42Vanessa Richardson?

  If the killer realizes that every new attack creates more headlines and rumors and panic, do you think that motivates them to keep going?

• 27:50Tristin Engels?

  Yes, absolutely. Some offenders get reinforcement from seeing how people react to their crimes, especially if it's being publicly reported. If they are an offender that gets gratification from power, fear, attention, or notoriety, then this is definitely something that they are likely to find rewarding because it can almost amplify the effects for them. Offenders who don't necessarily get psychological gratification from seeing people scrambling around them can get other benefits from the headlines. Like, it can give them confidence, or the belief that they've gotten away with their crimes as well. One way or another, this allows them to benefit in some capacity.

• 28:34Vanessa Richardson?

  Pauline was far from alone in her fears. After Joseph's death, New Orleans was in panic mode. Residents were terrified of becoming targets themselves, and pressure was mounting on police to finally identify whoever was behind the violence. But so far, only one of the attacks had even led to someone awaiting trial, and the evidence in that case was shaky at best. Every other suspect had either been released or cleared, leaving the police with no answers and the public with little reason to believe the danger had passed. And they were right.

• 29:14Tristin Engels?

  Swindled is a true crime podcast about greed. Hosted anonymously by a concerned citizen, Swindled tells true stories of white collar criminals, con artists, evil corporations, and the people who exploit the public for profit. From Nestle and Shaquita to SeaWorld and the entire meat industry, even Mother Teresa, no person, company, or institution is off limits. One recent episode that really stuck with me tells the story of a pleasant, small-town couple who are relentlessly harassed, intimidated, and terrorized after posting criticism of eBay online. It's one of those stories that's almost impossible to believe until you hear the details. And that's just one of more than 100 episodes that will leave you trusting nothing. Critics have called Swindled remarkable and enraging,

• 29:59Tristin Engels?

  horrifying and maddening, and meticulously researched. So if you're looking for true crime with a different kind of villain, and sadly, a much higher body count, listen to Swindled at swindled.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 30:17Vanessa Richardson?

  By August of 1918, six people had been attacked in New Orleans in less than three months, and most of the violence had centered on the city's immigrant grocers. That left New Orleans Italian community increasingly on edge, especially because there was no indication the violence was slowing down. And by this point, the police could no longer ignore the similarities between the crimes. The victims had all been attacked at night, inside their own homes, and in nearly every case, with an axe. The chief of police told a local newspaper they were looking for someone who could appear normal by day, but turn into a killer at night, someone with a Jekyll and Hyde personality. He believed whoever was responsible wasn't driven by robbery,

• 31:01Vanessa Richardson?

  but by something far simpler and more disturbing: a thirst for blood. For the people of New Orleans, that possibility was terrifying, and now they were all on alert. Reports of suspicious men poured into police from across the city, and so did reports of abandoned axes. Neighbors organized patrols, and Italian families reportedly took turns staying awake at night to keep watch. The Axeman had left an entire city afraid of the dark. And then, just as that fear reached a fever pitch, the attacks suddenly stopped. After Joseph Romano's murder, the police continued receiving reports of attempted burglaries and break-ins around the Italian community,

• 31:44Vanessa Richardson?

  but none of them ended in another violent attack.

• 31:48Tristin Engels?

  This could mean that they are in a cooling off or sleeper period. And there are several reasons why a serial offender has a cooling off period. Sometimes it's psychological. Whatever tension, or fantasy, or anger, or other psychological state was building up before the crime has temporarily subsided now that they've actually carried it out or acted on it. So they don't often have this immediate drive to offend again. Of course, there are always variables to that as well. And there are also practical explanations, too. They could be sick or injured and recovering from that. They could be incarcerated on an unrelated offense and just unable to re-offend for that reason. They could have temporarily lost their access to offending,

• 32:32Tristin Engels?

  whether it's through transportation, relocation, starting a new job, or a relationship. Or maybe they have someone staying with them, and that's creating accountability because they have less privacy or opportunity. There are a number of life changes that could temporarily disrupt their offending. That's why these cooling off periods or sleeper periods are not necessarily an indication that they're done, or that their motivation is gone. If anything, the opportunity isn't there, or the need is temporarily sated.

• 33:05Vanessa Richardson?

  Do you think a long break like that could actually make an offender more difficult to profile? Because investigators might start assuming the threat has passed.

• 33:13Tristin Engels?

  Yes, it definitely can. Because the longer the time passes, the harder it is to understand their behavior. Without any offending, there's no behavior. There's no pattern. There's no evidence to analyze. And we also don't know what this absence means either. What happened to cause it? Is something preventing them from offending, like we just discussed? Or do they have the ability to sustain control over their urges? That's all clinically significant information. But I think the worst part about it is it can give the impression to the community that the threat has passed. Everyone can become less vigilant over time, and that's beneficial to the offender if he's only stopped temporarily.

• 33:55Vanessa Richardson?

  Well, for the next seven months, the Axeman seemed to disappear. By March of 1919, people had finally started to breathe a little easier, hoping that whoever had been responsible for the killings was gone for good. But he wasn't. The Axeman had just taken his violence somewhere new. Charlie and Rosie Cortimelia owned a small grocery store in Gretna, a town directly across the Mississippi River from New Orleans. The couple lived in an apartment attached to the store with their two-year-old daughter, Mary, and had only opened the business there about two weeks earlier. In the early morning hours of March 9, Rosie was asleep in bed with Charlie and Mary when she suddenly woke up to chaos.

• 34:39Vanessa Richardson?

  Her husband was struggling with a large man dressed in dark clothing, and the man was holding an axe. After striking Charlie, the intruder came for Rosie. She grabbed Mary and begged him to spare them, but he didn't. He struck Rosie with the axe, then her daughter. For hours, no one knew what had happened. Later that morning, a young girl stopped by the family's store and found it still closed, which was unusual. Then she saw something disturbing. The rear door was open, and a panel had been chiseled out of it. The girl went inside, saw the horrific scene, and immediately ran, screaming. Her cries brought neighbors rushing over, and soon, the police were called.

• 35:23Vanessa Richardson?

  Inside, officers found Rosie, critically injured but still alive, clutching her two-year-old daughter, Mary, who'd already died. Charlie was nearby, clinging to life. Both adults were rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery, while investigators stayed behind to examine the scene. The home had been torn apart, but valuables and jewelry were untouched. The door had been chiseled through and unlocked. Then investigators went outside and found something strange. Two axes had been left behind. One was covered in mud. The other was stained with blood and hair. It forced police to consider that the killer may have had an accomplice.

• 36:06Tristin Engels?

  If this was, in fact, two offenders, and I'm not sure that this is enough proof of that, especially when the eyewitnesses have only seen one, then let's actually talk about the psychology of that, because it's very different from offending alone. Sometimes you have two people who share the same interests or fantasies, or even grievances, who essentially reinforce each other. And we've covered a couple of co-offenders before. But when you have two people with shared deviant interests, things tend to escalate when there is someone else validating, enabling, or reinforcing those behaviors. And the influence in these dynamics doesn't always necessarily stay equal. One tends to become more dominant or invested in the violence,

• 36:50Tristin Engels?

  and the other more suggestible or dependent, wanting to just go along with it over time. But there are practical aspects also to co-offending. They can divide up responsibilities. One watches for victims while the other enters the home, or restrains victims, for example. And this may be relevant here, as to why only a heavyset male has been seen wielding the axe. But I think more importantly, at least what I would be asking is, is this a crime where behaviorally, two people psychologically need each other to carry it out? Or do they need each other practically to carry it out? Or does it make more sense that it's just a one-offender crime?

• 37:32Tristin Engels?

  And I personally think it's the latter, at least so far, anyway.

• 37:36Vanessa Richardson?

  Do you think it's possible that that second axe didn't actually belong to a second person, but was just maybe left to throw investigators off?

• 37:43Tristin Engels?

  Oh, yeah, absolutely. That's entirely possible. It could be staging, but also that would mean they'd have to have brought it there, by walking it there. And also, how can they be so sure that the Cortimelias didn't own those axes? Only one was clearly used in the commission of the crime, and leaving that behind actually fits with the pattern and MO that we've seen. Then the other being covered in fresh mud could be from their own simple use around their own home, depending on how thick that mud was and how quickly it would dry. And conversely, the offender saw they had two axes, dragged the one to the house, but decided they didn't like it. It was too heavy, or too light, or too short, and returned it for the other. There are reasonable explanations for this.

• 38:27Tristin Engels?

  Seeing two axes left there does not make me think this was two people. It's not evidence of two people. It's not evidence it was staged, without confirming, at least in my opinion, that those axes are theirs. You know, if they were there first, then we need to know that, I would think.

• 38:47Vanessa Richardson?

  Well, finding two axes led investigators to wonder if there'd been two attackers. One could have been chiseling through the door while the other stood outside keeping watch. In their minds, that would explain why the intruder was willing to make so much noise getting inside, because someone else was there to warn them if anyone approached.

• 39:04Tristin Engels?

  But then wouldn't you see mud in the door?

• 39:07Vanessa Richardson?

  True, that's right. Well, police also found footprints all around the property, but before they could gather anything useful, neighbors had trampled the area, so that made it impossible to tell whether any of the prints actually belonged to the killer or killers. And that wasn't the only problem the police faced. This attack hadn't happened in New Orleans. It happened in Gretna, which meant a completely different police department was handling the investigation. And unlike the detectives in New Orleans, the investigators in Gretna didn't have months of experience looking at the Axeman's previous crime scenes. So instead of immediately treating the Cortimelia attack as part of the same series, police

• 39:47Vanessa Richardson?

  started asking family and friends whether Charlie and Rosie had any enemies. That's when they heard about the Giordano family. Investigators learned that Charlie and Rosie had previously rented and operated a grocery store owned by the Giordanos. The relationship soured when the Giordanos decided they wanted the property back. Once the lease ended, Charlie and Rosie had little choice but to leave, so they opened their own competing grocery store nearby just weeks before the attack. To the Gretna police, that looked like an obvious motive. They thought the Giordanos were angry over the falling out or worried that Charlie and Rosie's new store would cut into their business.

• 40:29Vanessa Richardson?

  From there, investigators zeroed in on that theory. They repeatedly visited Charlie in the hospital while he was recovering from a traumatic brain injury and asked whether the Giordano's teenage son Frank had attacked him, but Charlie consistently said no. That didn't stop them from pursuing the Giordanos, though. Five days after the attack, the police arrested 17-year-old Frank Giordano. Three days after that, they arrested his father, Yorlando. And to confirm their version of events, they turned to Rosie. After she was released from the hospital, the police brought her to the station instead of letting her go home. She was still recovering, frightened and confused, while officers questioned her about

• 41:13Vanessa Richardson?

  who'd attacked her and whether the Giordanos were responsible, but she repeatedly said it wasn't them. Rosie was told she couldn't leave until she identified her attacker. Not only that, but she was denied a lawyer, and because she couldn't read or write in English, a notary wrote her affidavit for her, one that said, yes, the Giordanos could have been responsible.

• 41:36Tristin Engels?

  I don't even know where to start outlining how terrible and unreliable this was, but let's start here. Rosie had just been released from the hospital after surviving an extremely violent attack and the loss of her two-year-old daughter, Mary. She's likely still dealing with pain, exhaustion, fear, the effects of trauma, grief, and potentially medication. And any one of those things can affect concentration, judgment, and tolerance for questioning, let alone coercive questioning. She said it was not the Giordanos, but she's being told that she can't leave until she identifies someone.

• 42:18Tristin Engels?

  Being exposed to prolonged questioning, especially in her state after such a trauma, when she is exhausted, distressed, and physically and emotionally recovering, makes it harder to resist suggestion and continuing correcting an otherwise aggressive interviewer who is not willing to take a different answer or no for an answer. That would be enough to make someone change their answer just to get relief. But she doesn't change her answer, so they pivot. They deny her right to an attorney and exploit her illiteracy instead, which frankly feels predatory, which is particularly egregious when you consider that she was quite literally

• 42:58Tristin Engels?

  a survivor of an ax-wielding predator just mere days before.

• 43:05Vanessa Richardson?

  The public had no idea what had gone into the Giordano's arrest, so to the people of Gretna, it seemed like the culprits may have been caught. But across the river in New Orleans, no one was breathing any easier at the news. Because whatever police in Gretna believed had happened to the Cortimelia family, the larger string of attacks wasn't over. In fact, the Axeman seemed more active than ever, and now he was ready to start playing games with the police. Thanks so much for listening.

• 43:49Vanessa Richardson?

  Come back next time for the conclusion of our deep dive on the Axeman of New Orleans.

• 43:54Tristin Engels?

  Serial Killers and Murderous Minds is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on all social media at Crime House. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow Serial Killers and Murderous Minds wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference.

• 44:16Vanessa Richardson?

  And to enhance your listening experience, join Crime House Plus and get both parts of every story dropped on the same Monday, completely ad-free. No waiting three days for part two, plus Crime House bonus episodes every month. To join, go to crimehouseplus.com, or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, just tap "Try Free" at the top of the Serial Killers and Murderous Minds page. Serial Killers and Murderous Minds is hosted by me, Vanessa Richardson, and forensic psychologist Dr. Tristin Engels, and is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. This episode was brought to life by the Serial Killers and Murderous Minds team: Max Cutler,

• 44:58Vanessa Richardson?

  Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Lori Marinelli, Natalie Pritzowski, Sarah Camp, Alyssa Fox, Mara De La Rosa, Claire Swartzlander, Marky Lee, and Carrie Murphy. Thank you for listening. If you're looking for your next podcast, check out What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum and Carter Roy. Every week, they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.