The end of 1884 marked the beginning of a mysterious series of brutal killings that left the citizens of Austin, the capital city of Texas, bewildered and terrified. By the end of 1885, the so-called servant girl murders had claimed the lives of at least five black women and girls, one black man, and two white women, most all hacked to death with an ax or a hatchet. The murders produced a marvelous tale of rape, murder, revenge. prostitution, drunkenness, miscegenation, and official ineptitude. This book chronicles those murders and subsequent events. The intent is to give readers the same thorough sense of the crimes Austinites might have experienced through local, state, and national media. 432 pages, 8.5 x 11 inches; maps, photos, index. "Extremely thorough and meticulous . . . a valuable reference source for future researchers of Austin history." (J. R. Galloway, www.servantgirlmurders.com)
A New York Times bestseller, The Midnight Assassin is a sweeping narrative history of a terrifying serial killer--America's first--who stalked Austin, Texas in 1885. In the late 1800s, the city of Austin, Texas was on the cusp of emerging from an isolated western outpost into a truly cosmopolitan metropolis. But beginning in December 1884, Austin was terrorized by someone equally as vicious and, in some ways, far more diabolical than London's infamous Jack the Ripper. For almost exactly one year, the Midnight Assassin crisscrossed the entire city, striking on moonlit nights, using axes, knives, and long steel rods to rip apart women from every race and class. At the time the concept of a serial killer was unthinkable, but the murders continued, the killer became more brazen, and the citizens' panic reached a fever pitch. Before it was all over, at least a dozen men would be arrested in connection with the murders, and the crimes would expose what a newspaper described as "the most extensive and profound scandal ever known in Austin." And yes, when Jack the Ripper began his attacks in 1888, London police investigators did wonder if the killer from Austin had crossed the ocean to terrorize their own city. With vivid historical detail and novelistic flair, Texas Monthly journalist Skip Hollandsworth brings this terrifying saga to life.
A chilling crime tale based on actual events from more than one hundred years ago, follows a serial killer dubbed by O.Henry as "The Servant Girl Annihilator" who roamed the streets of Austin, Texas, along with a fascinating group of characters both real and fictional.
Beneath Austin's shiny veneer lies a dark past, filled with murder, lechery and deceit. Legislators, lawmen and lawyers killed, robbed and lied just as well and just as often as the drifters and grifters preying on newcomers. The nation's first known serial killer made his debut in Austin in the form of the Servant Girl Annihilator, who is still rumored to be Jack the Ripper. After the Willis brothers murdered their neighbors over rumored buried gold, a lynch mob hanged the boys from live oaks on present-day Sixth Street. Freshman representative Louis Franke died after he was robbed and beaten on the steps of the statehouse. Author Richard Zelade delivers a fascinating look at the seedier side of Austin history.
From the author of Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters comes an in-depth examination of sexual serial killers throughout human history, how they evolved, and why we are drawn to their horrifying crimes. Before the term was coined in 1981, there were no "serial killers." There were only "monsters"--killers society first understood as werewolves, vampires, ghouls and witches or, later, Hitchcockian psychos. In Sons of Cain--a book that fills the gap between dry academic studies and sensationalized true crime--investigative historian Peter Vronsky examines our understanding of serial killing from its prehistoric anthropological evolutionary dimensions in the pre-civilization era (c. 15,000 BC) to today. Delving further back into human history and deeper into the human psyche than Serial Killers--Vronsky's 2004 book, which has been called the definitive history of serial murder--he focuses strictly on sexual serial killers: thrill killers who engage in murder, rape, torture, cannibalism and necrophilia, as opposed to for-profit serial killers, including hit men, or "political" serial killers, like terrorists or genocidal murderers. These sexual serial killers differ from all other serial killers in their motives and their foundations. They are uniquely human and--as popular culture has demonstrated--uniquely fascinating.
Reason to be afraid - over 50 unsolved cases of serial murder Fact: murderers and serial killers do not always get caught. Behind every headline of a newsworthy conviction lie other cases of vicious murderers who got away, and who remain somewhere among us. Here in one giant volume are more than 50 of the most serious serial killings and other murder cases that continue to remain unsolved. The cases covered in this alarming book include: " Argentina's crazed highway killer, responsible for mutilating and killing at least five people since 1997, and dumping their bodies along remote highways " The Green River Killer, believed to be a middle-aged white man, who has claimed at least 49 lives to date in the Seattle-Tacoma area " South Africa's 'Phoenix Strangler', suspected of killing 20 women in the province of KwaZulu Natal. " The Twin Cities Killer - either one or several people responsible for a series of over 30 murders on the streets of Minneapolis and St. Paul, where the victims were mostly prostitutes " Costa Rica's elusive 'El Psicópata' (The Psychopath), thought to have murdered at least 19 people in this small quiet Central American country " 'The Monster of Florence', responsible for a series of 15 sexual slayings just outside Florence In each case it is not just the crimes that are horrifying and fascinating, but the response of local police and authorities to the lack of a conviction. Local authorities may fear to admit the continued existence of a serial killer at large; whilst police bodies face the temptation to 'tidy up' loose unsolved murders under the aegis of other admitted crimes.
AMERICA’S MOST COLD-BLOODED! In the horrifying annals of American crime, the infamous names of brutal killers such as Bundy, Dahmer, Gacy, and Berkowitz are writ large in the imaginations of a public both horrified and hypnotized by their monstrous, murderous acts. But for every celebrity psychopath who’s gotten ink for spilling blood, there’s a bevy of all-but-forgotten homicidal fiends studding the bloody margins of U.S. history. The law gave them their just desserts, but now the hugely acclaimed author of The Serial Killer Files and The Whole Death Catalog gives them their dark due in this absolutely riveting true-crime treasury. Among America’s most cold-blooded you’ll meet • Robert Irwin, “The Mad Sculptor”: He longed to use his carving skills on the woman he loved—but had to settle for making short work of her mother and sister instead. • Peter Robinson, “The Tell-Tale Heart Killer”: It took two days and four tries for him to finish off his victim, but no time at all for keen-eyed cops to spot the fatal flaw in his floor plan. • Anton Probst, “The Monster in the Shape of a Man”: The ax-murdering immigrant’s systematic slaughter of all eight members of a Pennsylvania farm family matched the savagery of the Manson murders a century later. • Edward H. Ruloff, “The Man of Two Lives”: A genuine Jekyll and Hyde, his brilliant scholarship disguised his bloodthirsty brutality, and his oversized brain gave new meaning to “mastermind.” Spurred by profit, passion, paranoia, or perverse pleasure, these killers—the Witch of Staten Island, the Smutty Nose Butcher, the Bluebeard of Quiet Dell, and many others—span three centuries and a host of harrowing murder methods. Dramatized in the pages of penny dreadfuls, sensationalized in tabloid headlines, and immortalized in “murder ballads” and classic fiction by Edgar Allan Poe and Theodore Dreiser, the demonic denizens of Psycho USA may be long gone to the gallows—but this insidiously irresistible slice of gothic Americana will ensure that they’ll no longer be forgotten.
Fans of Mindhunter and true crime podcasts will devour these chilling stories of serial killers from the American "Golden Age" (1950-2000). With books like Serial Killers, Female Serial Killers and Sons of Cain, Peter Vronsky has established himself as the foremost expert on the history of serial killers. In this first definitive history of the "Golden Age" of American serial murder, when the number and body count of serial killers exploded, Vronsky tells the stories of the most unusual and prominent serial killings from the 1950s to the early twenty-first century. From Ted Bundy to the Golden State Killer, our fascination with these classic serial killers seems to grow by the day. American Serial Killers gives true crime junkies what they crave, with both perennial favorites (Ed Kemper, Jeffrey Dahmer) and lesser-known cases (Melvin Rees, Harvey Glatman).
In the mid-1880s, 8 innocent people in Austin, TX were brutally murdered. The killer is still unknown. Cat Thompson finds the mystery of solving the murders fall into her lap. Cat can speak to the dead. Using this ability, she encounters spirits who help her put the pieces of the puzzle together. Her mission - give some peace to the innocent and identify the true Axeman. Injustice still exists. Innocent people charged with crimes they didn't commit. Innocent victims murdered through no fault of their own. Someone needs to stand up for the innocent. That someone is Cat Thompson! The one thing Cat came away with after being seriously injured while working as an embedded journalist in Iraq, was the ability to see and speak to the dead. Over fifteen years after being injured, she finally finds someone else with the same ability. Someone who can help her understand how best to use her ability. Then a murder mystery falls into her lap. In Austin, Texas, in 1884 and 1885, eight people were brutally murdered by a killer that was called The Axeman or The Servant Girl Annihilator. During this reign of terror, five African American women, one African American man, and two white women were savagely attacked and murdered. The crimes remained unsolved. That is until Cat meets a spirit who starts her on the path to unmask the murderer. Unofficially, the murders were attributed to a young African American man named Nathan Elgin. But the spirits of the victims are not at peace. They want someone to find and expose the true killer. Cat feels that responsibility lies with her. And she will get to the truth!
