The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (5 page)

grocer’s own ax before wounding Charles and his wife crimes to bolster this or that supposed solution in the and killing their infant daughter. From her hospital bed, case. Unfortunately, the initial report was so garbled Rose Cortimiglia accused two neighbors, Iorlando Jor-that it bore little resemblance to fact.

dano and his son Frank, of committing the crime.

Local records reveal that a victim named Cruti was Despite firm denials from Charles, both suspects were murdered at home in August 1910, followed one month jailed pending trial.

later by a vicious ax assault on Joseph and Conchetta Meanwhile, on March 14, the
Times-Picayune
pub-Rissetto. (Joseph survived his wounds and blamed the lished a letter signed by “The Axeman.” Describing crime on an unidentified burglar.) The only coroner’s himself as “a fell demon from the hottest hell,” the report on a Rosetti in 1911 involved Mary Rosetti, a author announced his intention of touring New Orleans black woman whose death was ascribed to dysentery.

on March 19—St. Joseph’s Night—and vowed to

Meanwhile, New Orleans journalists ignored the June bypass any home where jazz was playing at the time.

1911 ax attacks on a couple named Davi. (The wife sur-

“One thing is certain,” he declared, “and that is that vived in that case.) Anthony Sciambra and his wife some of those people who do not jazz it (if there be any) Johanna were murdered at home in May 1912, both will get the axe!” On the appointed night, already shot at close range and thus divorced entirely from the known for raucous celebration, New Orleans was even Ax Man crimes. Ironically, there were other unsolved noisier than usual. The din included numerous perfor-ax murders in Louisiana during 1911, claiming a total mances of “The Axman’s Jazz,” a song composed for of 16 lives, but the victims were all black and none were the occasion, and the evening passed without a new killed in New Orleans.

attack.

On June 28, 1918, a baker delivering bread to the The Jordano trial opened in Gretna on May 21,

grocery of Louis Besumer found a panel cut from the 1919. Charles Cortimiglia did his best for the defense, back door. He knocked, and Besumer emerged, blood but jurors believed his wife and convicted both defen-streaming from a head wound. Inside the apartment, dants of murder on May 26. Frank Jordano was sen-Besumer’s “wife”—Anna Lowe, a divorcée—lay criti-tenced to hang, while his elderly father received a term cally wounded. She lingered on for seven weeks, deliri-of life imprisonment. (Charles Cortimiglia divorced his ous, once calling Besumer a German spy and later wife after the trial, and Rose was arrested for prostitu-recanting. On August 5 she died, after naming Besumer tion in November 1919. She recanted her testimony on as her attacker, prompting his arrest on murder charges.

December 7, 1920, explaining to police that spite and (Nine months later, on May 1, 1919, a jury deliberated jealousy prompted her accusations. The Jordanos were all of 10 minutes before finding him innocent.) pardoned and released from custody.)

Returning late from work that same evening—

And still the raids continued. Grocer Steve Boca was August 5—Ed Schneider found his pregnant wife

wounded at home on August 27, 1919, his door chis-unconscious in their bed, her scalp laid open. She sureled through, the bloody ax discarded in his kitchen.

10

“AX Man of New Orleans”

On September 3 the Ax Man or an imitator entered as a suspect from the 1912 Sciambra attack). Author Sarah Laumann’s bedroom through an open window, Jay Robert Nash “solved” the case in his book
Blood-wounding her in bed and dropping his weapon on the letters and Badmen (1973), calling Mumfre a Mafia hit lawn outside. Eight weeks later, on October 27, grocer man who was allegedly pursuing a long vendetta Mike Pepitone was murdered at home; his wife

against “members of the Pepitone family.” The expla-glimpsed the killer but offered detectives no helpful nation fails when one recalls that only one of the Ax description. There the crime spree ended as it had Man’s 11 victims—and the last, at that—was a Pepi-begun, in mystery.

tone. Likewise, speculation on a Mafia extortion plot Author Robert Tallant proposed a solution to the Ax against Italian grocers ignores the fact that four victims Man riddle in 1953, in his book Murder in New were not Italian, and several were completely uncon-Orleans.
According to Tallant, a man named Joseph nected to the grocery business.

Mumfre was shot and killed in Los Angeles on Decem-Still, there is a more deadly flaw in the Tallant-Nash ber 2, 1920, while walking on a public street. Mumfre’s solution to the Ax Man mystery: the Joseph Mumfre assailant, a veiled woman dressed in black, was identi-murder in Los Angeles never happened!

fied as the widow of Mike Pepitone. At her murder trial, Ax Man researcher William Kingman has pursued

which resulted in a 10-year prison sentence, she named the Mumfre tale and received formal notice from Cali-Mumfre as her husband’s killer—and, by implication, as fornia’s State Registrar of Vital Statistics on September the Ax Man of New Orleans. Tallant reports that New 10, 2001, that no person named Joseph Mumfre died Orleans detectives checked Mumfre’s record and found anywhere in the Golden State between 1905 and 2000.

that he was serving time in jail for burglary during the The story of Mumfre’s murder in Los Angeles and Mrs.

Ax Man’s hiatus from August 1918 to March 1919.

Pepitone’s subsequent trial is, in short, a complete fabri-Other authors seized upon Tallant’s solution, report-cation. Robert Tallant is beyond interrogation on this ing that Joseph Mumfre was imprisoned between 1911

or any other subject, having died in New Orleans on and 1918, thus implying a connection to earlier New April 1, 1957. As for the Ax Man of New Orleans, his Orleans homicides (though he would still be excluded case remains a tantalizing mystery.

11

B

“BABY Farming”:
Infanticide for profit

even the United States has been exempt from lethal Each historical era spawns its own peculiar types of

“baby farming,” illustrated by the New York City case crime, from piracy and slave trading to the modern age of 14 infant murders reported in 1915. That case of “wilding” and computer “hackers.” The occupation remains unsolved, but other practitioners were brought known as “baby farming” was a product of the Victo-to book for their crimes in England and Canada, with rian era, when sex was equivalent to sin and illegitimate one case broken as recently as the late 1940s.

birth meant lifelong shame for mother and child alike.

In that repressive atmosphere, the “baby farmer”—usually a woman—was prepared to help an unwed mother

“BAD Seeds”:
“Natural-born” killers

through her time of trial . . . but only for a price.

The notion of inherited criminal traits is nothing new.

In most cases, the “farmer” provided room and

Indeed, the first scientific system of criminal identifica-board during a mother’s confinement, allowing embar-tion was crafted by French anthropologist Alphonse rassed families to tell the neighbors that their daughter Bertillion in 1879, based on a complex system of bodily had gone “to study abroad” or “stay with relatives.”

measurements, including those of the skull and facial Facilities ranged from humble country cottages to the features. While the Bertillion system was eventually dis-likes of LILA YOUNG’s spacious Ideal Maternity Home, credited, the belief in hereditary “criminal types” per-where hundreds of infants were born between 1925 and sisted in some quarters—and has lately garnered 1947. Unwed mothers went home with their reputa-support, albeit conditional, from the medical and psy-tions and consciences intact, secure in the knowledge chiatric professions.

that their babies would be placed in good homes The label of “bad seeds” derives from William

through black-market adoptions.

March’s 1954 novel of the same title, which told the It was a no-lose proposition for the “baby farmer,”

story of a homicidal eight-year-old, her violent tenden-paid by those who left a child and once again by those cies inherited from a murderous mother she never knew.

who came to pick one up. If certain laws were broken By 1954, of course, it was well known that many—if in the process, it was all the better reason for increas-not most—violent criminals emerged from homes where ing the adoption fees. Most unwed mothers and adop-CHILDHOOD TRAUMA and abuse were routine. At the tive parents doubtless viewed the “baby farmer’s”

same time, however, occasional aberrant cases (or those occupation as a valuable public service, never mind with incomplete histories of the offender) challenged prevailing law.

supporters of environmental causes in the “nature vs.

It was not uncommon, however, for “baby farmers”

nurture” argument.

to repeatedly use criminal negligence or deliberate mur-In the 1960s, some researchers ardently pursued the der as a shortcut to profit in the maternity game. Over

“XYY syndrome,” so called after individuals born with time there have been several headline cases, and not a surplus Y—or male—chromosome. An estimated

12

BAI Baoshan

100,000 males come so equipped in the United States Chemical imbalance may also affect human attitude annually, and it has been suggested that the extra dash and behavior, whether that imbalance results from of “maleness” makes them more aggressive, even vio-brain damage, glandular dysfunction, environmental lent, with a greater tendency toward criminal activity.

contaminants, or the deliberate ingestion of drugs and The theory got a boost in 1966, when random killer alcohol. Manic-depression, schizophrenia, and some Richard Speck was diagnosed—mistakenly, as it turned forms of psychosis are treatable with medication to out—as one such “supermale.” Eager researchers cited varying degrees, since they originate within the body, his stature and facial acne as sure-fire symptoms of rather than within the mind. Today, we know that such XYY syndrome, but genetic tests failed to bear out their conditions may also be hereditary, handed down suspicion. In the meantime, it was noted that XYY

through many generations of a single family—in which males comprise a larger percentage of the nation’s case, certain schizophrenic or psychotic killers may prison population than of the male population at large, indeed be the proverbial “bad seeds.”

but such figures are easily skewed. As authors Jack There are, of course, substantial risks involved in try-Levin and James Fox point out in
Mass Murder
(1985), ing to predict an individual’s adult behavior from spe-the XYY males who wind up in prison or mental insti-cific childhood symptoms, and it must be granted the tutions accused of violent crimes constitute a minuscule vast majority of children from “tainted” families—or segment of the overall group.

from abusive homes—do not go on to kill for sport. Pre-Another proponent of the “bad seed” theory, the late dictive theories are often based on tiny samplings, some-Joel Norris, cites 23 symptoms of genetic damage found times on a single case, and subjects chosen for review in a select listing of modern serial killers. The WARNING

have typically drawn much attention to themselves by SIGNS range from bulbous fingertips and curved fifth their bizarre behavior. In practice, some of the worst ser-fingers to crooked teeth and “electric-wire hair that ial killers—including the likes of CHARLES MANSON and won’t comb down.” Unfortunately, the list of “killer HENRY LUCAS—present histories of both severe abuse symptoms” is so broad, and ultimately vague, that it is and genetic, inherited dysfunction. Frequently the off-rendered next to useless.

spring of alcoholic, drug-abusing parents with criminal With various serial killers reporting convulsions or backgrounds, tortured and molested from infancy, such seizures from childhood, it is logical to ask if epilepsy human monsters may in fact be born
and
made.

plays a role—however minor—in cases of episodic vio-See also CROSS-DRESSING; MOTIVES; PARAPHILIA lence. Without indicting epileptics as a class, it is worth noting that electroencephalogram (EEG) tests reveal

“spiking” patterns of random, uncontrollable electrical
BAI Baoshan

discharges during seizure activity. Their source, the lim-Described in official dispatches as China’s most prolific bic brain, controls primitive emotions like fear and serial killer to date, with 15 known victims (compared rage, triggering the “fight-or-flight” response when we to 13 for LI WENXIAN), Bai Baoshan apparently com-are frightened or surprised. Some analysts now specu-mitted his first murder in the early 1980s, during a late that similar disorders may produce unpredictable poorly planned holdup. Convicted of murder and rob-violent outbursts in specific individuals.

bery in that case, he served 13 years in prison and Another target of modern research into episodic vio-emerged with a brooding desire for revenge against lence is the hypothalamus, sometimes described as the society at large.

brain’s “emotional voltage regulator.” Dr. Helen Morri-Bai’s payback rampage began in March 1996, when son, a Chicago psychiatrist whose interview subjects he attacked a police sentry in Beijing and stole a semi-include JOHN GACY, PETER SUTCLIFFE, and “Mad Biter”

automatic weapon, later used to kill one person and Richard Macek, cites damage to the hypothalamic wound six others (including four patrolmen). Authori-region of the brain as a potential cause of violent crime.

ties believe he also robbed and killed a Beijing cigarette The hypothalamus regulates hormone production, vendor before leaving town and traveling to the north-including the adrenal and thyroid glands, with corre-ern Chinese province of Hebei. There, Bai killed sponding influence on individual response to real or another policeman and stole his automatic rifle, moving perceived threats. In essence, Dr. Morrison contends on to Urümqi, the capital of Xinjiang province. In that damage to the hypothalamus may prevent an indi-Urümqi, authorities say Bai and two accomplices mur-vidual from growing toward emotional maturity. When dered 10 persons—including police officers, security threatened or insulted, even if the threat is mere illu-guards, and civilians—while stealing 1.5 million yuan sion, individuals with hypothalamic damage may (about $180,000). Unhappy with the prospect of shar-respond with childish tantrums . . . and the grown-up ing his loot, Bai killed one of his cohorts and kept all weapons of adults.