Ep. 133 Axeman of New Orleans: How a Serial Killer Terrorizing New Orleans Acquired a Reputation as a Jazz Enthusiast

Welcome to Spooktober! It's my favorite month on History Fix because I get to bust out all of the spooky stories I've been saving. This week, we're talking about the notorious serial killer who operated in New Orleans in the nineteen teens known as the Axeman. The Axeman attacked strictly Italian grocers, breaking into their houses with stolen axes to bludgeon them to death. This guy has been embraced by popular culture, appearing on television shows like American Horror Story, not because of his brutal acts or the fact that we still have no idea who he was today. He's been embraced mostly because of a letter that was published in the local newspaper purporting that he loved jazz music and would spare anyone listening to jazz on a particular night in the spring of 1919. But who was the Axeman? And what does any of this have to do with jazz? Let's fix that.

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Sources:

• "The Axeman of New Orleans: The True Story" by Miriam Davis
• Country Roads Magazine "The Axeman of New Orleans"
• Smithsonian Magazine "The Axeman of New Orleans Preyed on Italian Immigrants"
• The Historic New Orleans Collection "The Mysterious Axeman's Jazz"
• Wikipedia "Axeman of New Orleans"

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