Chilling True Crime Stories - Volume 3 (eBook)

THE BLOODIEST AXE MURDERS

Between 1884 and 1885, a killer known as The Servant Girl Annihilator killed at least eight people in Austin, Texas. William Sydney Porter, better known as the short story writer O. Henry, was the person who coined the nickname of this killer. The Servant Girl Annihilator deployed an axe to kill six women, an eleven-year-old girl and one man. Several other people were injured in attacks. Six of the victims were black and the unfortunate victims of the killer were usually attacked in their beds (when they were obviously at their most vulnerable). The victims were often dragged outside and mutilated.

The crime scenes were exceptionally gruesome with seemingly gallons of blood surrounding later victims. One victim had her head cleaved in half. As you might imagine these murders created a panic in Austin and around 400 men were arrested and questioned over the murders. Vigilante posses began to patrol at night searching for the killer and huge rewards for the capture of the killer were offered. While the killer was never captured all of this combined activity did seemingly make The Servant Girl Annihilator cease his activities though and the murders came to a halt.

Although there were many eyewitness accounts of the killer (he was deemed to be white and quite short) no one was ever proven to have committed the murders. There is a theory (never proven of course) that The Servant Girl Annihilator was also Jack the Ripper and that three years after the Austin murders he moved to London and started killing again. There was a definitely a similar sort of MO when it came to the murders in both cases so one can see how these theories took root.

A cook from Malaysia named Maurice is often a suspect in this case because he worked in a hotel near where all but two of The Servant Girl Annihilator murders took place and then moved to London. As he was both in Austin and London at the time of the Annihilator and Ripper murders, this cook is often held up as evidence that both killers could have been one and the same. James Maybrick, a recurring Ripper suspect, was also in Austin at the time of The Servant Girl Annihilator murders so he too is often used in theories which seek to prove that the Annihilator was also the Ripper.

All of this though is unproven and open to doubt. Modern perspectives on this case have suggested the Annihilator could have been Nathan Elgin. Elgin was a cook who worked near where the Austin murders took place. He was missing a toe - a distinction which matched a footprint found near one of the murders. Elgin was killed by the police in 1886 when he was caught trying to assault a girl with a knife. All of this suggests that Elgin is a strong retrospective suspect but whether or not he was really The Servant Girl Annihilator is impossible to say with complete certainty.

The Hill Ax Murders of Ardenwald was a grisly case in 1911 where a family were killed in Ardenwald-Johnson Creek, Portland, Oregon. The victims were William Hill, his wife Ruth, and Ruth's two children from a previous marriage, Philip and Dorothy. The killer murdered this family with an axe but he was never caught and this most gruesome true crime case remains a mystery. The family lived in a rural cabin they had built for themselves. On the morning of the 9th of June a neighbour of the Hill family decided to go and check on them because William Hill had not left for work that day as he usually did. The neighbour saw Dorothy, one of the young children, dead on the floor when she spied through a window.

The police were called in and it soon became apparent that the whole family had been killed. William and his wife Ruth were found murdered in bed. They had both been struck with an axe. Philip, the eight year-old boy in the family, was also beaten to death with an axe. It was calculated by the police that Dorothy had been the last to die. Dorothy, who was four years-old, had also been sexually assaulted. There was some evidence too that Ruth had been sexually abused. This was certainly all evidence for the theory that the killer primarily had a sexual motivation for these murders. Ruth was raped after her death while Dorothy was raped prior to her murder and possibly after it too. This obviously indicated that the killer was a necrophile.

The injuries on the victims were horrendous. They had skull fractures and the faces of William and Ruth were destroyed beyond recognition. Philip was the only one of the four victims who received the blunt end of the axe. The others were all killed by the sharp end. Although there was evidence that some of Ruth's jewellery had been taken, a sum of money and a few other valuables were still the cabin when the bodies were discovered. This indicated that a financial motive for the robbery was secondary at best.

The cabin was very small with only two rooms. The killer hung clothes and clothes over the windows so that he could kill (and sexually abuse) the family in private. There was ample evidence that the killer had used the wash basin to clean himself up after these bloody murders. It is believed that the murders took place after midnight at around 12:45 a.m. This is because a neighbour told the police that his dogs started barking at something around this time. The police sent bloodhounds out to see if they could pick up a scent but nothing came of this. The police were equally frustrated when they questioned all the people that lived near the Hill family but failed to extract any sightings or details of suspicious strangers in the area in previous days (or indeed hours).

Many of the 'hobos' and transients in the immediate area fled for fear of being arrested in connection with these murders. Armed posses and vigilantes soon arrived in the area determined to track down this deranged axe murderer. The murders had understandably turned this community upside down and left everyone both shocked and angered. The main suspect in this case was Nathan Harvey. Harvey lived near the Hill cabin and had been on bad terms with William Hill because of a dispute over land rights.

Nathan Harvey was found to have a potentially dark past. Several years previously a teenage girl had been found murdered in a fruit field he owned. There were also a number of suspicious deaths within the Harvey family. The police gathered evidence that Harvey was something of a lech who often often made improper and crude sexual advances. They also got an eyewitness account that Harvey had been seen in the area the night of the murders. In the end though, Nathan Harvey was not charged with the axe murders and let free. One of the reasons for this (besides lack of evidence) was that Harvey's friends protested at his arrest and even put together a large petition which people signed to confirm their belief that Harvey couldn't possibly be a murderer.

Another suspect was a man named William Riggin. Riggin claimed that on the night in question he had robbed the Hill cabin with a Mexican man named Brown. Riggin claimed he had waited outside while Brown robbed (and unknown to him MURDERED the family). However, Riggin then changed his story and gave another version of what had happened. Riggin was basically a very unreliable narrator who had some obvious mental health problems. The police ultimately didn't believe any of his confessions. A couple of local vagrants who lived in the woods in the local area briefly came under suspicion in this case but in the end nothing came of this and there was no evidence against them. The Hill Ax Murders of Ardenwald was an unsolved mystery and remains so to this day. Given how long ago these murders occurred it appears that the identity of the killer might never be known.

The Axeman of New Orleans was an American serial killer active in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1918 and 1919. There were six people killed and six injured during his bloody spree of violence. The killer was never identified and seemed to target the local Italian community. The killer used an axe or razor to kill the victims. Sexual sadism was the most likely motive as the killer never seemed to rob the victims. Because the victims were Italian-Americans some sort of Mafia link was suspected but this was never proven. The identity of the killer remains a mystery.

There were some male victims but this is presumed to have been as a consequence of them being in the wrong place at the wrong (to put it mildly) when the axeman broke into a house. Those who are unconvinced by the Mafia theory think the axeman was simply a sexual sadist obsessed with killing. On March 13, 1919, a letter supposedly written by the Axeman was published in the newspaper. The letter read:

'They have never caught me and they never will. They have never seen me, for I am invisible, even as the ether that surrounds your earth. I am not a human being, but a spirit and a demon from the hottest hell. I am what you Orleanians and your foolish police call the Axeman. When I see fit, I shall come and claim other victims. I alone know whom they shall be. I shall leave no clue except my bloody axe, besmeared with blood and brains of he whom I have sent below to keep me company.

'If you wish you may tell the police to be careful not to rile me. Of course, I am a reasonable spirit. I take no offense at the way they have conducted their investigations in the past. In fact, they have been so utterly stupid as to not only amuse me, but His Satanic Majesty, Francis Josef, etc. But tell them to beware. Let them not try to discover what I am, for it were better that they were never born than to incur the wrath of the Axeman. I don't think there is any need...