# The Axeman of New Orleans PT 2

An episode of [Buried Bones - a historical true crime podcast with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1455668750), 22 Jul 2026, 1 h 01 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/976825e3-37d8-4387-a0cd-b24b002d91e5/13765c4d-4e54-4e2e-a0a4-b488011de4a2/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=3df02c7c-f75a-4bea-abe8-b24b002d91ff

In this concluding episode looking into the Cleaver cases and The Axeman of New Orleans, Paul and Kate compare evidence, forensics, and the victimology surrounding the litany of deaths. Join our Patreon! patreon.com/kateandpaul Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/4buCoMc See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:03] Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the
[0:06] Speaker 1: last twenty five years writing about true crime.
[0:09] Speaker 2: And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
[0:12] Speaker 2: worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
[0:16] Speaker 1: Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
[0:19] Speaker 1: compelling true crimes.
[0:21] Speaker 2: And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
[0:24] Speaker 2: new insights to old mysteries.
[0:26] Speaker 1: Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
[0:31] Speaker 1: cases through a twenty first century lens.
[0:34] Speaker 2: Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
[0:38] Speaker 1: This is buried bones.
[1:01] Speaker 2: Ay, Kate, how are you?
[1:02] Speaker 1: I'm fine? What do you think of this mess we're in?
[1:04] Speaker 1: I mean, just acces and meet cleavers and everything under
[1:08] Speaker 1: the sun. I can't keep track.
[1:10] Speaker 2: Yeah, well it is hard, you know, because there's a
[1:12] Speaker 2: lot of details. There's a lot of cases, and they're
[1:16] Speaker 2: spread out over eight years, you know, so trying to
[1:19] Speaker 2: keep them straight you almost have to set up, you know,
[1:21] Speaker 2: I can excel spreadsheet and check boxes of the various
[1:25] Speaker 2: characteristics each case has, so you can see which ones
[1:29] Speaker 2: fall into the same pattern and which ones are falling
[1:31] Speaker 2: outside that pattern.
[1:33] Speaker 1: Well, if you're just joining us, that was probably not
[1:37] Speaker 1: a good idea. You need to go back at least
[1:39] Speaker 1: one episode, maybe two to the Cleaver murders too. I mean,
[1:44] Speaker 1: you know where you're going back very far, and we're
[1:47] Speaker 1: now are we now going into the assumption that the
[1:51] Speaker 1: Cleaver and those attacks and murders that happened around nineteen
[1:55] Speaker 1: ten at least some of what we're talking about now
[1:59] Speaker 1: with the accident of No Orleans are connected. It's the
[2:01] Speaker 1: same guy. A few of these, you know, or more
[2:04] Speaker 1: than nineteen eighteen, nineteen nineteen are the same guy as
[2:08] Speaker 1: nineteen ten.
[2:09] Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's one case that i'm I would
[2:13] Speaker 2: characterize as having high confidence from the nineteen eighteen timeframe
[2:19] Speaker 2: going back.
[2:20] Speaker 1: I think that as Joseph and Catherine Maggio is what
[2:23] Speaker 1: you were thinking of.
[2:25] Speaker 2: No, it was the last case, you know where now
[2:29] Speaker 2: you have another Italian grocery store, mail being attacked, vendor
[2:34] Speaker 2: breaking into the house. You know, there's where it's like, Okay,
[2:37] Speaker 2: this is definitely got characteristics from cases that were six
[2:43] Speaker 2: years prior, and so that's the one where working the
[2:48] Speaker 2: case the newer cases you have to look back at
[2:52] Speaker 2: the older those older cases that where there's so much overlap.
[2:56] Speaker 2: We do have a few cases where I'm like they
[2:58] Speaker 2: could be related, but I don't have as much confidence.
[3:02] Speaker 2: And so that's just where now law enforcement, the investigators
[3:05] Speaker 2: have to kind of really focus their resources. And of
[3:08] Speaker 2: course they have an active public safety threat. They have
[3:12] Speaker 2: a serial offender potentially that has resurrected himself after six
[3:16] Speaker 2: years and he likely is going to kill more, and
[3:19] Speaker 2: so they have to focus in on these active cases,
[3:22] Speaker 2: but the cold cases from the Kleber series that they
[3:26] Speaker 2: may have a clue as to who your current offender is.
[3:30] Speaker 2: So you have to be able to parse out your
[3:32] Speaker 2: resources to kind of look at both angles to be
[3:39] Speaker 2: the most effective in your investigation.
[3:42] Speaker 1: Yeah, because I feel like we had some red herrings
[3:44] Speaker 1: in here. We had, you know, Lewis Bussemer who ultimately
[3:48] Speaker 1: kills his girlfriend. You've got EDG. Schneider, the Polish grocer,
[3:53] Speaker 1: no signs of forced entry. I mean, there's the mail
[3:56] Speaker 1: is not attacked. There's all kinds of stuff happening that
[3:58] Speaker 1: is not consistent. But then we have Joseph Romano, the
[4:02] Speaker 1: guy at the end who's the barber, and you know
[4:05] Speaker 1: he has died also, and so there's a very Now
[4:09] Speaker 1: what's interesting about Joseph Romano is the grocery store in
[4:12] Speaker 1: that case. Remember it's the two sisters. They're teenagers and
[4:16] Speaker 1: they run this little grocery store out of the front
[4:18] Speaker 1: of their apartment. And Joseph is their uncle, versus Joseph
[4:24] Speaker 1: and Catherine Maggio who have a grocery store also, and
[4:29] Speaker 1: they're both murdered. And that was the ominous chalk note.
[4:34] Speaker 1: So at some point we should circle back to that too,
[4:37] Speaker 1: once we hear more about these cases.
[4:39] Speaker 2: But that is also important, is that if that is
[4:41] Speaker 2: truly from the offender, he is pointing and saying I'm back.
[4:45] Speaker 2: He's put that taunt out there. Now, of course, there's
[4:48] Speaker 2: a possibility this could just be, you know, some crazy
[4:51] Speaker 2: out there who's deciding to mess around with the public
[4:55] Speaker 2: as well as law enforcement. But if it's truly from him,
[4:58] Speaker 2: that chalk message, he is wanting everybody to know I'm
[5:03] Speaker 2: back and I'm going to start killing again.
[5:05] Speaker 1: That chalk message, I believe was found that night slash,
[5:09] Speaker 1: that morning of when that attack happened, so it would
[5:13] Speaker 1: have been before anybody had heard about it or anything
[5:16] Speaker 1: like that.
[5:16] Speaker 2: Then that just increases the confidence that he is the one,
[5:19] Speaker 2: the killer, is the one that wrote that message.
[5:22] Speaker 1: Yeah, well, the police have their hands full because we
[5:26] Speaker 1: might have read herrings here, we might have real attacks here.
[5:29] Speaker 1: But the ax Man of New Orleans is a case
[5:32] Speaker 1: that I have heard about for years. I would say,
[5:35] Speaker 1: as far as like a case of history, probably the
[5:37] Speaker 1: most notorious case coming out of New Orleans, and a
[5:40] Speaker 1: really interesting case. But it is overwhelming, and so hopefully
[5:43] Speaker 1: you and I can dig through this. Dush your poor notepad.
[5:48] Speaker 1: I've never seen that many pages out of it before.
[5:50] Speaker 2: It is thinning out rapidly.
[5:53] Speaker 1: Okay, So let's go back. Now we're in nineteen nineteen,
[5:57] Speaker 1: so we're officially nine years and eight and a half,
[5:59] Speaker 1: nine years and from the Cleaver, and this is March
[6:04] Speaker 1: ninth of nineteen nineteen. Now this is where things start
[6:08] Speaker 1: to change a little bit. What I had said to
[6:11] Speaker 1: you before was when Joseph Romano in the last episode died,
[6:16] Speaker 1: it was August tenth, nineteen eighteen. Now we're at March,
[6:22] Speaker 1: so that is what four to seven months something like that, Okay,
[6:26] Speaker 1: but we're across the river when this happens.
[6:29] Speaker 2: Coming up is that the Mississippi that goes out of
[6:32] Speaker 2: very Orleans, very good pool.
[6:33] Speaker 1: Yeah, you're absolved of any other mistakes you makes. You
[6:37] Speaker 1: know that, now spell it right.
[6:41] Speaker 2: Okay, So offenders do travel, Okay, they can travel great
[6:45] Speaker 2: distances and crimes. Six miles just because it's in a
[6:49] Speaker 2: different part of the city. Is that is not a
[6:52] Speaker 2: data point that you can use to know, eliminate or
[6:56] Speaker 2: even include. You know, it is part of the series.
[6:58] Speaker 1: Okay, this isn't which I've never been to before. Across
[7:02] Speaker 1: the river, like I said, about six miles away. And
[7:06] Speaker 1: you've got two women who are going into a grocery
[7:10] Speaker 1: store in re Retna, and it's an Italian grocery store
[7:14] Speaker 1: owned by the Quartimulas. And they go in. It's very
[7:19] Speaker 1: quiet and that they walk into the living quarters because
[7:25] Speaker 1: just nobody's answering, and they see that the house has
[7:29] Speaker 1: been rantacked. Okay, so they're closing. Papers littered across the floor,
[7:33] Speaker 1: nothing has been stolen. There's a one hundred and twenty
[7:36] Speaker 1: nine dollars which is twenty five hundred dollars today laying out.
[7:40] Speaker 1: There's jewelry, there's a loaded revolver. Everybody has revolvers in
[7:44] Speaker 1: New Orleans. In this time period or in Louisiana, probably smartly.
[7:48] Speaker 1: So it's loaded and it's untouched. It's in clear view,
[7:51] Speaker 1: so nobody's stealing that. There is blood around the bedroom.
[7:56] Speaker 1: When they finally enter the bedroom, there are blood pools
[7:59] Speaker 1: on the floor. And here's the couple. So this is Vincenzo.
[8:05] Speaker 1: He goes by Charlie and his wife Rosy, and their
[8:09] Speaker 1: bodies are draped over a blood soaked bed. One of
[8:14] Speaker 1: them will survive, the other one won't. Charlie's lower body
[8:17] Speaker 1: is on the floor, his torso is slumped over the bed,
[8:22] Speaker 1: and there are two severe wounds on the back of
[8:24] Speaker 1: his head. Skull fractures, his brain is exposed and swollen.
[8:30] Speaker 1: It pushes through the bone like mud through the slats
[8:34] Speaker 1: of a chicken crate. You only get that, I think
[8:39] Speaker 1: for Texas. Rosie suffers from several slices on the left
[8:43] Speaker 1: side of her head and on her left ear. Her
[8:46] Speaker 1: skull is fractured and depressed. Bone pushes into her brain.
[8:50] Speaker 1: Two pieces of skull lie on the couple's pillow. And
[8:53] Speaker 1: here's the most important point. They have a two year
[8:56] Speaker 1: old toddler named Mary, and she is dead and lying
[9:01] Speaker 1: between them. The back of her neck had been hacked
[9:04] Speaker 1: with an axe. So that's new.
[9:07] Speaker 2: Do you know did the couple normally sleep with their child?
[9:10] Speaker 1: I believe so.
[9:11] Speaker 2: Okay, So he's attacking all three victims in one location
[9:17] Speaker 2: inside the house, Charlie with his torso up on the
[9:21] Speaker 2: bed and his legs off the bed, and he's got
[9:25] Speaker 2: blows to the back of his head. I'm envisioning, because
[9:30] Speaker 2: I have, believe it or not, a series of cases
[9:35] Speaker 2: nineteen seventies nineteen eighties. I actually did a TV show
[9:38] Speaker 2: on this, the series of cases in which men were
[9:42] Speaker 2: specifically targeted in hotel rooms, and in one case, the
[9:47] Speaker 2: man was obviously put into a kneeling position next to
[9:51] Speaker 2: the bed and then hatcheted to death. And so I'm
[9:54] Speaker 2: envisioning kind of a similar thing happening to Charlie. Now
[9:57] Speaker 2: it's possible maybe he's sleeping and he's being hatcheted, and
[10:00] Speaker 2: now the offender is moving his body in order to
[10:03] Speaker 2: get access to the other victims. But I'm also wondering
[10:08] Speaker 2: was Charlie executed.
[10:10] Speaker 1: Well, let me give you some more information. One of
[10:13] Speaker 1: the women alerts the neighbor. He's a sixty five year old,
[10:17] Speaker 1: he's a grocer also named Orlando Giordano, good name. When
[10:24] Speaker 1: this guy arrives, the couple still alive, but they're going
[10:28] Speaker 1: in and out of consciousness, and after he wipes the
[10:31] Speaker 1: blood off of their faces, he races to find a doctor.
[10:35] Speaker 1: In the meantime, there's a crowd that's gathered. People notice
[10:39] Speaker 1: that a panel on the back door has been chiseled out.
[10:44] Speaker 1: They find an axe under the house and blood and
[10:48] Speaker 1: hair stick to the blade. Okay, so this is kind
[10:55] Speaker 1: of an odd part, and I don't know if this
[10:57] Speaker 1: is Gretna and the way things are handled there, But
[11:00] Speaker 1: there is a guy named Manny. He calls the police.
[11:03] Speaker 1: The charity hospital does not send an ambulance to Gretna.
[11:08] Speaker 1: So the crowd decides to take down the bathroom door
[11:10] Speaker 1: and use it as a stretcher, and using this axe
[11:15] Speaker 1: with the blood on it, they dislodge the door from
[11:17] Speaker 1: its hinges, so they take the murder with them.
[11:19] Speaker 2: I okay, yeah, you know, it's obviously it's less than ideal,
[11:25] Speaker 2: but you know, this is where preservation of life takes priority,
[11:31] Speaker 2: and so they're just doing what they think is right.
[11:34] Speaker 2: And I couldn't I couldn't fault them for that, even
[11:36] Speaker 2: though you probably could have found something m H different
[11:40] Speaker 2: to use, but that's fine.
[11:42] Speaker 1: Rosy and Charlie get to the hospital and a doctor
[11:46] Speaker 1: performs an operation on Rosie to relieve the pressure caused
[11:49] Speaker 1: by the skull fracture. He thinks they're both gonna die
[11:53] Speaker 1: Rosy and Charlie. They don't, okay, So Charlie regains consciousness
[11:58] Speaker 1: and the police ask a pretice specific question. They say,
[12:02] Speaker 1: do you think that this burglar, this guy named Charles Anderson,
[12:06] Speaker 1: is the attacker and this is a career burglar in Gretna.
[12:11] Speaker 1: He said no, because Charlie says, the guy who attacked
[12:15] Speaker 1: us was white and Charles is black, And so they're
[12:19] Speaker 1: kind of already throwing out, you know, it sounds like
[12:22] Speaker 1: they're trying to railroad some people. They are hoping that
[12:25] Speaker 1: Rosie will gain consciousness and give some more information too,
[12:28] Speaker 1: but she hasn't, so they have to move on quickly
[12:32] Speaker 1: because back in New Orleans, about less than two weeks later,
[12:38] Speaker 1: there is a letter sent to The Times Picky youn newspaper,
[12:42] Speaker 1: and it is allegedly from the X Men from Hell.
[12:47] Speaker 1: In it, the writer threatens to continue terrorizing the people
[12:50] Speaker 1: of New Orleans unless they start to listen to jazz music.
[12:55] Speaker 1: I love jazz, but I mean that's a weird pick.
[12:58] Speaker 2: Okay, this.
[13:01] Speaker 1: So now listen to this. There's a guy named Joseph
[13:04] Speaker 1: John Davila who wrote a song called the X Man's
[13:09] Speaker 1: Jazz Don't Scare Me Papa, And they think that they
[13:12] Speaker 1: wrote this letter to drum up interest in his song.
[13:16] Speaker 1: Might not be the case either, but this is a
[13:18] Speaker 1: part of the legacy that's lived on to the serial
[13:21] Speaker 1: killer who loved jazz.
[13:24] Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and it's also what kind of confidence can
[13:28] Speaker 2: you have that the actual killer wrote this letter? Yeah,
[13:32] Speaker 2: you know, this is where Okay, what are the details
[13:35] Speaker 2: providing the letter where he's proving he's the killer that
[13:38] Speaker 2: It doesn't sound like he's giving any details on that front.
[13:40] Speaker 2: So it's a thread. Yeah. Yeah. And so this is
[13:44] Speaker 2: you know, potentially, you know, just to somebody who's wanting
[13:47] Speaker 2: to insert themselves into the investigation. You know, of course
[13:50] Speaker 2: we would go after it, you know, with fingerprint processing,
[13:53] Speaker 2: intented writing, you know, can we source any aspects of
[13:56] Speaker 2: the paper or the ink, you know, anything that would
[13:58] Speaker 2: give us a clue. But the reality is is, right now,
[14:02] Speaker 2: I can't put any weight at this letter is even
[14:05] Speaker 2: is from the killer.
[14:06] Speaker 1: Okay, Well, Rosie wakes up and she has a pretty
[14:11] Speaker 1: specific accusation and it's not against you know, this man
[14:15] Speaker 1: Charles Anderson or her husband. She says that she believes
[14:22] Speaker 1: that it was their neighbor. So you remember I told
[14:25] Speaker 1: you about the guy Orlando. He's the grocer next door.
[14:30] Speaker 1: So she's in the hospital for five days. She wakes
[14:33] Speaker 1: up and she says that she and the family have
[14:37] Speaker 1: been attacked by the neighbor you know who is you
[14:39] Speaker 1: Orlando the grocer. He's the one that came and called
[14:43] Speaker 1: the police initially. He has an eighteen year old son
[14:46] Speaker 1: named Frank. Rosie says they broke into the grocery store
[14:49] Speaker 1: around three o'clock that morning, and she knows this for sure.
[14:55] Speaker 1: Now Charlie, the husband said she's lying. They are not
[14:58] Speaker 1: the ones who did this, and the police don't really
[15:01] Speaker 1: believe it either. They say that you Orlando is an
[15:05] Speaker 1: older guy. They don't think he would have the strength
[15:08] Speaker 1: to commit a brutal assault. We both know that that
[15:11] Speaker 1: would not be the case. His son was there and
[15:14] Speaker 1: he's eighteen. He's six foot tall and weighs two seventy five.
[15:17] Speaker 1: He could have done it, but they say he's so
[15:20] Speaker 1: big that he wouldn't have been able to fit through
[15:22] Speaker 1: the hole in the panel of the back door. Of course,
[15:26] Speaker 1: the first thing I thought of was the dad went
[15:28] Speaker 1: in and then unlocked the door. I think they think
[15:30] Speaker 1: that you Orlando is so frail that he wouldn't have
[15:34] Speaker 1: made it through. There's nobody available to make it through
[15:36] Speaker 1: this door.
[15:37] Speaker 2: You know, my concerns about Rosy's statement she suffered major
[15:42] Speaker 2: traumatic brain injury. There are like I've got a victim
[15:46] Speaker 2: who survived, but she was bludgeoned to know, basically to death,
[15:51] Speaker 2: but she happened to survive. She has absolutely no recollection
[15:55] Speaker 2: of who attacked her, what happened to her. And so
[15:59] Speaker 2: you know, with Rosie, who's you know, she's unconscious for
[16:02] Speaker 2: such a long period of time, with the brain swelling,
[16:05] Speaker 2: you know, the fracture, you know, these acts injuries to
[16:09] Speaker 2: her head. It's like, I don't think she's necessarily lying.
[16:15] Speaker 2: She just may be her brain just may not be,
[16:18] Speaker 2: you know, remembering things right.
[16:20] Speaker 1: But you know, I mean, these two people, if that's
[16:22] Speaker 1: the case, could be completely real roaded by this woman's memory.
[16:27] Speaker 1: She knows both of them, so she can positively identify them,
[16:30] Speaker 1: you know, and so there I, as with many investigations
[16:35] Speaker 1: that happened in the nineteen hundreds, you're going off of
[16:38] Speaker 1: witness statements and that's it.
[16:40] Speaker 2: So you know, that's that's the tough thing. And then
[16:43] Speaker 2: you know what would be the motive of Orlando and
[16:47] Speaker 2: his son. You know, again there's some some boxes being
[16:50] Speaker 2: checked in this case, you know.
[16:52] Speaker 1: With chisel door, your door.
[16:56] Speaker 2: This is also another Italian grocery store. If the male
[17:01] Speaker 2: is actually being executed, you know, that's interesting. Now this
[17:05] Speaker 2: offender is just you know, killing everybody in this bed.
[17:09] Speaker 2: The fact that the toddler was killed, even though that's
[17:11] Speaker 2: different than the previous cases, that really doesn't give me
[17:15] Speaker 2: pause about whether or not this is the same guy.
[17:17] Speaker 2: There's enough overlap here. This is also going back to
[17:20] Speaker 2: the case that we just talked about that's as similar,
[17:26] Speaker 2: and that's with the two boys, right and then as
[17:29] Speaker 2: well as the Cleaver cases. Yeah.
[17:31] Speaker 1: Absolutely. And also I was thinking when they were saying
[17:34] Speaker 1: the two year old girl, if she's lying in between them,
[17:37] Speaker 1: she's crying and he's just trying to unfortunately dispatch her
[17:41] Speaker 1: to stop the crying. I don't think it's part of
[17:42] Speaker 1: his fantasy or whatever. I mean, I know it's not fantasy,
[17:46] Speaker 1: but his drive to kill people nothing stolen.
[17:49] Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, but there is you know, now, with
[17:52] Speaker 2: what I think is a sufficient pattern over the course
[17:55] Speaker 2: of years, this offender does have an internal compulsion to
[17:58] Speaker 2: commit this type of crime. And there may be not
[18:02] Speaker 2: necessarily a sexual fantasy associated with this, but this is
[18:05] Speaker 2: something that he is feeling he needs to do. He's
[18:09] Speaker 2: rants acting. He's throwing clothes and other items around the house,
[18:15] Speaker 2: but not taking anything. You know, this is kind of
[18:18] Speaker 2: a weird thing that some of these offenders will do
[18:21] Speaker 2: in many ways, it's sort of like a fetish burglary
[18:24] Speaker 2: where now, you know, guys will go into women's undergarment
[18:28] Speaker 2: drawers and just start tossing stuff all over the house,
[18:30] Speaker 2: you know, laying things out on the bed. This guy
[18:33] Speaker 2: doesn't appear to be focused on female undergarments. What he's
[18:36] Speaker 2: doing is the same action, though it's not just focused
[18:38] Speaker 2: on the female. He's focused on the possessions of the victims,
[18:43] Speaker 2: and it's just kind of ransacting the house. And so
[18:46] Speaker 2: he's got an odd behavior that seems to be showing
[18:50] Speaker 2: up several times. Now. I also think it's important that Charlie.
[18:56] Speaker 2: He's struck a couple of times in the back of
[18:58] Speaker 2: the head, but you don't have the offender continuing to
[19:03] Speaker 2: strike Charlie over and over and over again to ensure
[19:06] Speaker 2: he's dead. He's thinking, well, I've hit him sufficiently with
[19:09] Speaker 2: an axe, he's got to be dead. And Charlie ends
[19:11] Speaker 2: up surviving the same thing with Rosie. So this offender
[19:14] Speaker 2: is not doing this overkill style of crime.
[19:21] Speaker 1: These timelines are so intertwined that it's hard to know
[19:25] Speaker 1: what to pull out and kind of wrap up. But
[19:28] Speaker 1: I want to wrap up Charlie and Rosie's story here,
[19:31] Speaker 1: even though it stretches out, I would have to say
[19:34] Speaker 1: quite a bit. So with their story, she accused Orlando
[19:41] Speaker 1: and the Sun. You know, Charlie had said she's lying,
[19:44] Speaker 1: that's not what happened. And Orlando and his son ended
[19:48] Speaker 1: up getting arrested and indicted. And this is totally based
[19:53] Speaker 1: on Rosie's accusations. So they are indicted on May fifth.
[19:57] Speaker 1: The trial is on the nineteenth five day trial, there's
[20:01] Speaker 1: a forty five minute deliberation. Both are found guilty. Oh well, Frank,
[20:06] Speaker 1: the eighteen year old is sentenced to death by hanging,
[20:09] Speaker 1: and Orlando is sentenced to life in prison, all based
[20:13] Speaker 1: on Rosie, who might be lying or might be suffering
[20:16] Speaker 1: from such a bad head trauma that she simply doesn't remember.
[20:19] Speaker 2: Sure, and I predict that there's going to be another
[20:23] Speaker 2: case after the arrest of Orlando and Frank.
[20:26] Speaker 1: There are and a little bit of a revelation because
[20:30] Speaker 1: there are other attacks. I'll tell you about them a
[20:32] Speaker 1: little bit. Nobody trusts the New Orleans Police department anymore,
[20:36] Speaker 1: and they look at the people in New Orleans, and
[20:39] Speaker 1: the media look at Orlando and his son and say,
[20:42] Speaker 1: are these the actual the right people? The right men.
[20:46] Speaker 1: So a year later, Charlie and Rosie's business falls apart
[20:51] Speaker 1: and she ends up having to turn to sex work
[20:54] Speaker 1: because Charlie divorces her. And then in nineteen twenty, she
[21:01] Speaker 1: admits that she accused them on purpose because they were
[21:05] Speaker 1: a rival to them. They were, you know, grocery store,
[21:08] Speaker 1: another grocery store. Oh wow, I think you're right. You
[21:12] Speaker 1: still can't take out the component of the brain injury
[21:16] Speaker 1: part of this, but she saw an opportunity and she
[21:19] Speaker 1: took it with with having brain surgery. And I mean,
[21:24] Speaker 1: I mean that's unreal to me.
[21:26] Speaker 2: You know, time has passed. You know, is it possible
[21:29] Speaker 2: that you know, her brain has healed up enough where
[21:32] Speaker 2: now she's going, Oh, I shouldn't have said that, or
[21:35] Speaker 2: you know, I didn't mean to say that, you know,
[21:37] Speaker 2: something may have been happening with her brain. But yeah,
[21:42] Speaker 2: that I mean, on one hand, she's I mean, she's
[21:46] Speaker 2: been brutally attacked, and I imagine that there was some
[21:50] Speaker 2: loss of function, you know, both mentally as well as
[21:54] Speaker 2: maybe physically as a result of this type of attack.
[21:56] Speaker 2: So absolute terrific experience for her. But man, who accused
[22:01] Speaker 2: two innocent people? Who are I mean, the eighteen year
[22:03] Speaker 2: old is sentenced to death? Yeah, come on, yeah, So
[22:08] Speaker 2: that's I'm just, I guess happy to hear that she
[22:13] Speaker 2: came clean. And now, as I'm predicting is that there's
[22:20] Speaker 2: probably more similar crimes that occurred after Rosie and Charlie
[22:28] Speaker 2: were attacked.
[22:29] Speaker 1: Yes, except now I'm going to take a little detour
[22:32] Speaker 1: to clean up one more final story. Okay, that was
[22:36] Speaker 1: sort of a ruse for us, a little red herring,
[22:38] Speaker 1: which is the story of you know, Lewis Bessemer and
[22:43] Speaker 1: his girlfriend who ends up dying. So he's the creepy
[22:46] Speaker 1: Polish guy that the police say, is he a spy
[22:49] Speaker 1: or not? What's happening with him? So he goes on trial.
[22:53] Speaker 1: He was in jail for nine months awaiting trial, and
[22:56] Speaker 1: he is on trial for killing Harriet, the girlfriend. So
[23:01] Speaker 1: this is a two day trial. And this is what's interesting.
[23:04] Speaker 1: I think the prosecution is really homing in on you know,
[23:09] Speaker 1: Lewis has really targeted Harriet. It's domestic violence. But what
[23:14] Speaker 1: the defense does is says, doesn't it make more sense
[23:18] Speaker 1: that Harriet was the victim of the axe man? And
[23:23] Speaker 1: can't you see that since you threw Lewis into jail
[23:27] Speaker 1: that the axe man has continued to attack people here Goo,
[23:31] Speaker 1: Lewis is not the one who attacked his girlfriend. It
[23:34] Speaker 1: was the axe man, and you can't tie him to
[23:37] Speaker 1: being the axe man. They also say Harriet first blamed
[23:42] Speaker 1: a man of mixed race, and you know, she had
[23:46] Speaker 1: brain damage, she was having all kinds of health issues
[23:49] Speaker 1: and so she made a mistake and there is a
[23:52] Speaker 1: ten minute deliberation and he has acquitted. Wow.
[23:57] Speaker 2: So well, I think the defense did their job.
[23:59] Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, a good job, right, And.
[24:02] Speaker 2: You know if I'm if I'm right, and that Lewis
[24:06] Speaker 2: staged this to make it look like, you know, these
[24:10] Speaker 2: this axe man that everybody in the press is reading about. Uh,
[24:14] Speaker 2: then he pulled it off. That's where you know today
[24:19] Speaker 2: that there's probably still a question as to whether Lewis
[24:24] Speaker 2: was a true victim or Lewis was an abuser that
[24:27] Speaker 2: took advantage of the types of crimes that were being
[24:29] Speaker 2: committed to stage it because he wanted to get rid
[24:31] Speaker 2: of Harriot.
[24:32] Speaker 1: So he has a gash made by a hatchet that
[24:36] Speaker 1: splits the area just above his right eyebrow. But that's it.
[24:42] Speaker 1: She's the one who's got the major injuries, right. So,
[24:46] Speaker 1: and we talked about you said that he would hit himself.
[24:49] Speaker 1: So yeah, I think Lewis got.
[24:51] Speaker 2: Away with murder here, No, I think so.
[24:53] Speaker 1: I mean, that's incredible. I think that's the last sort
[24:57] Speaker 1: of weird thing that hasn't been tied up. I haven't
[25:00] Speaker 1: heard anything else about Ed Schneider and his wife, who
[25:03] Speaker 1: gave birth later on to a healthy daughter, you know.
[25:06] Speaker 1: And I know that we have some real squishy cases here,
[25:09] Speaker 1: but I'm just trying to wrap everything up so we
[25:11] Speaker 1: can kind of not be distracted because a lot of
[25:13] Speaker 1: these are distractions, and they were for the police and
[25:14] Speaker 1: that's the problem. Yeah, okay, So we think now that
[25:19] Speaker 1: we've taken Orlando and Frank out of this and they
[25:24] Speaker 1: were released, they are not the ones who attacked Rosie
[25:30] Speaker 1: and Charlie, but somebody did. And it sounds to you
[25:34] Speaker 1: like the mo of the axe man, even though it's
[25:38] Speaker 1: across the river. Yes, okay, good, not good for them,
[25:42] Speaker 1: but good. Okay. So now we're going to talk about
[25:46] Speaker 1: another incident that happened, except maybe not. So this is
[25:52] Speaker 1: I know, so this is a little confusing, So you
[25:54] Speaker 1: have to hang with me on this. There is a
[25:56] Speaker 1: case less than three months later. It's in August. There's
[26:01] Speaker 1: a guy named Frank Genosa and he says he woke
[26:06] Speaker 1: up to someone furiously pounding on his door. It's his neighbor.
[26:10] Speaker 1: His neighbor's name is Steve Boca, and he's standing outside.
[26:14] Speaker 1: There's blood pouring from his cracked open head. He passes out,
[26:20] Speaker 1: and then when the police examines Steve's house, they find
[26:24] Speaker 1: a panel that's missing from the back door, and there's
[26:28] Speaker 1: axe is discarded in the kitchen. And so you know,
[26:33] Speaker 1: he is not an Italian grosser. But this is a
[26:38] Speaker 1: story that's been passed around so often and is also
[26:41] Speaker 1: on the internet that when you finally have an author
[26:44] Speaker 1: like Miriam Davis take a look at it, she said it.
[26:47] Speaker 1: I think it's all fake. She said. There is not
[26:51] Speaker 1: one New Orleans newspaper carrying an account of this happening.
[26:56] Speaker 1: They cannot find even a Steve or a Stephen or
[26:59] Speaker 1: any one Boca with that last name is not even
[27:02] Speaker 1: listed in the New Orleans City directory.
[27:06] Speaker 2: So okay, So where then, how is this case known?
[27:10] Speaker 1: It's floated around as rumors, and then I think certainly
[27:13] Speaker 1: it's on the internet, and it's just been part of
[27:17] Speaker 1: a fake case, you know. Not even what she's saying
[27:21] Speaker 1: is there is no record of these people at all
[27:24] Speaker 1: that she could find. But she's saying, I think this
[27:27] Speaker 1: was just part of people ginning up more interest in
[27:30] Speaker 1: the x Men case because it's so legendary.
[27:33] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, I have to I think trust
[27:38] Speaker 2: you know, the author's diligence in terms of trying to
[27:41] Speaker 2: track this down. I mean, there's plenty of cases that
[27:44] Speaker 2: never get any type of press, right, you know, And
[27:48] Speaker 2: so that's where you know, what did was did law
[27:51] Speaker 2: enforcement respond? Is it was there a logbook that would
[27:55] Speaker 2: possibly you know, show this you know, he basically in
[28:00] Speaker 2: Ady w or that's all with the deadly weapon, yeah,
[28:03] Speaker 2: you know, but it may not have been something that
[28:06] Speaker 2: law enforcement really you know, put a ton of effort
[28:11] Speaker 2: into and may not have even related it to you know,
[28:14] Speaker 2: the axe man murder.
[28:16] Speaker 1: Yeah, and he could have been a railway worker.
[28:18] Speaker 2: It.
[28:18] Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't mean this guy didn't exist. It
[28:20] Speaker 1: just means she couldn't find him living in New Orleans.
[28:24] Speaker 1: And it's such a vague story and I hesitated to
[28:27] Speaker 1: even include it, except that I think it's important that
[28:31] Speaker 1: this story has been included in some accounts. And it
[28:35] Speaker 1: just adds to it. I mean, this is a long
[28:38] Speaker 1: list of things that people say, you have this wild man,
[28:43] Speaker 1: you know, killing people over a decade long period, and
[28:47] Speaker 1: it's just part it just adds to the lure of it,
[28:50] Speaker 1: you know, like with Jack the Ripper they talk about
[28:52] Speaker 1: the canonical victims versus victims that people think happened but
[28:56] Speaker 1: you know, were murdered before and after, and what connects
[28:59] Speaker 1: them and all of that, and it just this is
[29:02] Speaker 1: Jack the Ripper for the South as far as I'm concerned.
[29:05] Speaker 2: Yep. And you know, so it's this is more lore
[29:08] Speaker 2: than anything.
[29:08] Speaker 1: I think, So I mean as of now, and I
[29:11] Speaker 1: think she has sort of the definitive book on this case.
[29:14] Speaker 1: But I thought that was interesting. Okay, we do have
[29:18] Speaker 1: what sounds like a real victim here. So this is
[29:21] Speaker 1: September third of nineteen nineteen. The case against Charlie and
[29:29] Speaker 1: Rosie happened in March.
[29:33] Speaker 2: Six months later, yes.
[29:34] Speaker 1: Six months later, around three thirty in the morning, There's
[29:38] Speaker 1: a nineteen year old named Sarah Lowman and she wakes
[29:41] Speaker 1: up to a man of medium builds standing over her bed.
[29:45] Speaker 1: So this is specific. She says, he's about twenty six
[29:48] Speaker 1: years old and has a dark complexion. He's wearing a cap,
[29:52] Speaker 1: a dark coat, a striped shirt, and dark pants. He
[29:57] Speaker 1: hits her with a blunt object behind her right ear,
[30:00] Speaker 1: and then he runs out on his way. He steals
[30:02] Speaker 1: an axe from the backyard shed, and then the next
[30:06] Speaker 1: day they find an axe in the backyard of a
[30:11] Speaker 1: nearby school. They are not sure then in Norah do
[30:15] Speaker 1: I think, I would say Miriam Davis is not sure
[30:18] Speaker 1: now that she was a victim of the axe man.
[30:20] Speaker 1: They don't know what this blunt object is. He steals
[30:22] Speaker 1: an axe. I mean, who knows what any of that
[30:25] Speaker 1: is about?
[30:27] Speaker 2: Yeah, this is just too sparse.
[30:28] Speaker 1: Yeah, it is.
[30:29] Speaker 2: You can't really draw any conclusions to this.
[30:32] Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean that's part of this, right. I
[30:34] Speaker 1: mean you when you were dealing with the Golden State
[30:37] Speaker 1: killer case, just like with any major case, you're getting people,
[30:41] Speaker 1: you're getting incidents, and you're getting people, and it just
[30:43] Speaker 1: gums everything up. And so the New Orleans they already
[30:46] Speaker 1: have a lot of problems to begin with, there's a
[30:48] Speaker 1: lot of crime, but now they're going to keep coming distracted.
[30:51] Speaker 1: But this is just another case that goes in as ah,
[30:53] Speaker 1: maybe who.
[30:54] Speaker 2: Knows, you know, why is this offender not doing what
[30:57] Speaker 2: he did in the other cases. If it's the axe man,
[31:00] Speaker 2: he just hitting her on the head and running out
[31:01] Speaker 2: right away. So I can't put any weight on that
[31:05] Speaker 2: at all.
[31:06] Speaker 1: In twenty six years old, I mean that just sounds bizarre.
[31:09] Speaker 1: Who would pinant like that?
[31:12] Speaker 2: Well? Is she just making it up?
[31:15] Speaker 1: I mean I would have a hard time. I have
[31:17] Speaker 1: a really hard time with ages.
[31:19] Speaker 2: Oh.
[31:20] Speaker 1: I mean I thought you were like thirty one for
[31:22] Speaker 1: a really long time, but you're.
[31:24] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, just give me a break.
[31:27] Speaker 1: But I could generally hit a decade sort of. But
[31:29] Speaker 1: there are definitely I just twenty six seems odd and
[31:33] Speaker 1: this is specific and it sounds very much I mean,
[31:35] Speaker 1: without the slouch hat mentioned. This sounds like two or
[31:39] Speaker 1: three other well publicized descriptions of discovery. I don't know
[31:43] Speaker 1: what the motivation would.
[31:44] Speaker 2: Be though, attention seeking, I mean, how awful.
[31:47] Speaker 1: I mean, it's just like Rosie. It brings out really
[31:50] Speaker 1: bad things in people Lewis two, you know, just like
[31:53] Speaker 1: that being able to pin it on, like the people
[31:55] Speaker 1: who either committed murder or chose to disappear on September
[31:59] Speaker 1: eleventh because of all the chaos that was having got
[32:01] Speaker 1: away with it. So there is another attack October twenty seventh.
[32:07] Speaker 1: So we think that Rosie and Charlie were actually attacked
[32:11] Speaker 1: by the axe Man potentially, and that was in March.
[32:14] Speaker 1: So there is another Italian grocer. You have a woman
[32:18] Speaker 1: named Esther Pepitoni. She's woken up by the sounds of
[32:21] Speaker 1: her husband's calls for help. This is about one twenty
[32:24] Speaker 1: in the morning, and Mike has been bludgeoned over the
[32:28] Speaker 1: head with an iron bar. There's blood all over the place.
[32:31] Speaker 1: It reaches eight to ten feet high. His skull is
[32:35] Speaker 1: fractured twice on the left side and one time on
[32:38] Speaker 1: the right side, and they said he's been beaten to
[32:41] Speaker 1: a pulp on his face. There is a fourteen inch
[32:44] Speaker 1: iron bar with a three inch iron nut that's sitting
[32:50] Speaker 1: on a table nearby. Nothing stolen. Esther says it was
[32:56] Speaker 1: two guys, two male attackers. One is tall and thin,
[32:58] Speaker 1: the other one is short and stalky. And then Mike
[33:01] Speaker 1: dies two hours later. So the superintendent looks into Mike's
[33:06] Speaker 1: past and he comes to suspect that this is not
[33:10] Speaker 1: another victim of the ax man, because he said the
[33:13] Speaker 1: murder might have been carried out to avenge the death
[33:16] Speaker 1: of Paul D. Christina, who Mike's father murdered in nineteen ten.
[33:23] Speaker 1: Does that sound more like that? I mean? Or is
[33:25] Speaker 1: this is this it's a grocer still?
[33:28] Speaker 2: I mean, you know, well sure, but you know now,
[33:30] Speaker 2: I mean, you have, you know, this makeshift bludgeoning weapon.
[33:36] Speaker 2: Possibly you know, two men coming in targeting Mike. You know,
[33:40] Speaker 2: that's kind of getting into the case with the Black
[33:46] Speaker 2: Hand Society right to where the guys come into the
[33:49] Speaker 2: house and specifically shoot the mail. You know, So this
[33:53] Speaker 2: looks like a targeted attack right now. I would just say, yeah,
[33:58] Speaker 2: that is not causing me to have any pause saying
[34:02] Speaker 2: I don't think that's related. You know, this this sounds
[34:05] Speaker 2: more of you know, this vindictive style attack, which initially
[34:09] Speaker 2: I thought possibly like the cleaver, that's what he was
[34:12] Speaker 2: initially doing, is he's going after the mails. But as
[34:14] Speaker 2: the pattern has developed, there's definitely more of a of
[34:19] Speaker 2: an internal compulsion that the axe man slash cleaver has
[34:25] Speaker 2: in committing the types of crime. And when you have
[34:27] Speaker 2: something like that, it's going to be a little bit
[34:30] Speaker 2: more consistent in terms of, you know, what he's doing
[34:35] Speaker 2: versus this is so inconsistent outside they go in and
[34:39] Speaker 2: target the mail. But that's how many many cases are, right,
[34:44] Speaker 2: absolutely so.
[34:45] Speaker 1: But this is again that this is the need of
[34:48] Speaker 1: a lot of people to attribute this to a serial killer,
[34:52] Speaker 1: you know, I mean that builds up the book sales,
[34:55] Speaker 1: the newspaper really the newspaper sales and the nineteen hundreds
[34:58] Speaker 1: and all of that.
[34:59] Speaker 2: Yeah, and that could be what's going on in terms
[35:01] Speaker 2: of trying to link it. But right now, I'm just
[35:03] Speaker 2: not impressed with the details on this case to say
[35:05] Speaker 2: I think this is the X Man.
[35:07] Speaker 1: Well, listen, now you've got kind of a decision to
[35:10] Speaker 1: make because that case, whatever you want to call it,
[35:14] Speaker 1: which would be I guess we'll go back to Rosie's
[35:17] Speaker 1: case in February of nineteen twenty. So after that attack,
[35:23] Speaker 1: which we think was from the ax me or right,
[35:27] Speaker 1: there are no more attacks that can be definitively attributed
[35:31] Speaker 1: to the X Men in New Orleans. Okay, now there's
[35:35] Speaker 1: stuff out of state which could be interesting, but this
[35:40] Speaker 1: is kind of the end of the road. And what
[35:42] Speaker 1: it left me thinking was that the Cleaver cases that
[35:47] Speaker 1: we talked about, you know, starting in nineteen ten, to me,
[35:49] Speaker 1: seems so clear and they were happening. It felt like
[35:52] Speaker 1: one after the other. And so but what the famous
[35:55] Speaker 1: set of cases the X Man. I was pretty overwhelmed
[35:58] Speaker 1: with any evidence that maybe except one or two were
[36:02] Speaker 1: connected and that was it.
[36:03] Speaker 2: I don't know, well, at least with you know what
[36:06] Speaker 2: I'm remembering on the cases during this axe Man era there,
[36:13] Speaker 2: I'm not sure. I think they have overlinked cases and
[36:20] Speaker 2: I'm more focused in on the cases that share the
[36:25] Speaker 2: characteristics with the Cleaver cases. And I'm thinking that sounds
[36:30] Speaker 2: like one offender attacking having a pause, you know that
[36:35] Speaker 2: we know of. Now does he move out of state
[36:39] Speaker 2: and come back in, does he go into custody. He's
[36:43] Speaker 2: a burglar? Does he get popped for burglary and then
[36:46] Speaker 2: does a few years and then is released and then
[36:48] Speaker 2: he starts killing again, and they don't recognize that he's
[36:51] Speaker 2: actually the serial offender's that's killing people. So who knows
[36:57] Speaker 2: what's going on there. But you know, I now that
[37:01] Speaker 2: you know this infamous axe men murderer case that I've
[37:04] Speaker 2: never heard of before, I'm going, you know what, it
[37:08] Speaker 2: sounds like, you've blown that case up bigger than what
[37:11] Speaker 2: it really is.
[37:12] Speaker 1: Yeah, because if we really look at it, you look
[37:14] Speaker 1: at the end of what I was telling you at
[37:16] Speaker 1: the end of the Cleaver episode, and you've got that
[37:20] Speaker 1: family that seemed definitely connected. The two boys. One was
[37:24] Speaker 1: kind of pistol whipped in the other one it sounds like,
[37:26] Speaker 1: was attacked an axe. Then you've got five months later,
[37:30] Speaker 1: you've got Joseph and Catherine Maggio. Both of them died.
[37:35] Speaker 1: They were grocers, forced entry. You know, there's a lot
[37:39] Speaker 1: that bloody clothes in the corner, all of that kind
[37:42] Speaker 1: of stuff. So that was nineteen eighteen, right, So there
[37:47] Speaker 1: there's a six year gap between the Cleaver and the
[37:51] Speaker 1: two boys being attacked. Then you've got the boys, then
[37:54] Speaker 1: you've got five months, and then you've got Maggio. After that,
[37:58] Speaker 1: we have the grocer Lewis, who we know that was
[38:02] Speaker 1: not part of it. He was guilty. You've then got
[38:05] Speaker 1: the Schneiders, which we said was a little odd because
[38:08] Speaker 1: it's Ed Schneider walking into his house and finding his
[38:11] Speaker 1: wife and she never accuses him of anything. Then we've
[38:15] Speaker 1: got a grocery store in Gretna, and we had talked
[38:20] Speaker 1: about that. That's Charlie and Rosie. Okay, so you know
[38:25] Speaker 1: that's in nineteen nineteen. So do we think that that's
[38:29] Speaker 1: like kind of our third in the ax Man series?
[38:32] Speaker 1: The two boys, then the Maggios with the chalk writing,
[38:36] Speaker 1: and then Rosie who accuses the neighbor. But it sounds
[38:40] Speaker 1: like they were really victims of the axe Man, right,
[38:43] Speaker 1: And so.
[38:43] Speaker 2: We got three out of the Cleaver era and then
[38:47] Speaker 2: three out of the axe Men era that appear to
[38:50] Speaker 2: have characteristics. Yep, that kind of almost you have to
[38:56] Speaker 2: span that gap in time, but I think those characteristics
[39:01] Speaker 2: do kind of overlap to where you go. Yeah, I
[39:03] Speaker 2: think it's the same offender. He just has two different
[39:06] Speaker 2: monikers because he's got.
[39:07] Speaker 1: That gap and we also have Joseph Romano. Oh that's right,
[39:10] Speaker 1: there's another one that you thought sounded pretty similar. Also
[39:15] Speaker 1: his windows open, yeah, all of that. Yeah, okay, So
[39:18] Speaker 1: we've got those four and we're dismissing a couple of them.
[39:22] Speaker 1: Now we're down to the fake will we think the
[39:26] Speaker 1: false incident in general, the made up people, but we
[39:29] Speaker 1: aren't one hundred percent sure. And then we have Sarah
[39:31] Speaker 1: Lowman who wakes up and we think that that's not
[39:34] Speaker 1: connected either.
[39:35] Speaker 2: There's not enough there. Maybe she's telling the truth, maybe
[39:39] Speaker 2: she's making it up.
[39:40] Speaker 1: In this last case from nineteen nineteen where we think,
[39:43] Speaker 1: actually this guy was executed because his father killed someone. Yeah, okay,
[39:50] Speaker 1: now we'll talk about cases that we're not in New
[39:53] Speaker 1: Orleans proper and not particularly close to New Orleans, just
[39:56] Speaker 1: to see what you think. Okay, where we have three
[39:58] Speaker 1: attacks and they're Louisiana cities, but at the time, no
[40:03] Speaker 1: one is connecting these murders to the New Orleans as man.
[40:07] Speaker 1: And this is because Superintendent Mooney, who has been driving
[40:11] Speaker 1: this whole thing for years, steps down just as these
[40:16] Speaker 1: assaults get underway. I was thinking about that when I
[40:19] Speaker 1: was reading this bit. The institutional knowledge that people hold.
[40:24] Speaker 1: Is it really just one person retiring? It would be
[40:27] Speaker 1: one person retiring or moving on to something else, and
[40:31] Speaker 1: then there's no one there's no personal motivation driving it
[40:35] Speaker 1: from other cops because they're dealing with more clear and
[40:37] Speaker 1: present danger.
[40:38] Speaker 2: Right. I took a lot of institutional knowledge with me
[40:41] Speaker 2: when I retired.
[40:42] Speaker 1: Man, what can you do about that? Do cops do
[40:45] Speaker 1: that now? I mean, what do they keep files to
[40:47] Speaker 1: pass on to people or what happens most certly?
[40:49] Speaker 2: Well, there's always files that are passed down, you know.
[40:54] Speaker 2: Like for me, I just had, you know, over decades
[40:57] Speaker 2: to drive to keep compiling information on all these unsolved cases.
[41:02] Speaker 2: Nobody else in my county has done it to the
[41:04] Speaker 2: level that I did, and there's just no way for
[41:07] Speaker 2: me to just you know, I digitized everything. I gave
[41:11] Speaker 2: it to the investigations, gave it to the crime analysts,
[41:14] Speaker 2: here you go, and then it just sits on a computer,
[41:17] Speaker 2: you know. And then there's others you know that are
[41:19] Speaker 2: trying to work some of these cases, you know. But
[41:22] Speaker 2: I frequently will get called by you know, individuals from
[41:26] Speaker 2: my old department or my from other agencies within my
[41:31] Speaker 2: jurisdiction saying hey, do you remember anything about this case?
[41:34] Speaker 2: You know? And I was like, yeah, you know, let me,
[41:36] Speaker 2: let's let's chat.
[41:38] Speaker 1: It's disturbing to think how many cases could be solved
[41:41] Speaker 1: if more people were diligent about that, you know, or.
[41:45] Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and when when you start talking about older
[41:48] Speaker 2: unsolved cases, and you know, law enforcement is you know,
[41:52] Speaker 2: their focus is going to be the current public safety situation.
[41:56] Speaker 2: You know, oftentimes they can't justify the manpower, the resources,
[42:01] Speaker 2: the budget to going after an older case where that
[42:04] Speaker 2: offender likely is no longer offending in the jurisdiction.
[42:08] Speaker 1: Do you remember the case that we talked about out
[42:09] Speaker 1: of Missouri. I'm sure you don't. This was a long
[42:12] Speaker 1: time ago, and it was a woman who was sexually
[42:15] Speaker 1: assaulted and attacked maybe four blocks maybe four actually, I
[42:19] Speaker 1: think it was four houses away from where she lived,
[42:23] Speaker 1: and it was in the daylight and somebody dragged her
[42:25] Speaker 1: back behind the house and killed her. And there was
[42:28] Speaker 1: a police chief who had investigated and dug into it,
[42:32] Speaker 1: and he was sort of he was a black man
[42:34] Speaker 1: and made history because of it. He had investigated and investigated,
[42:38] Speaker 1: and when he finally retired, the cop took over for
[42:42] Speaker 1: him and he sent the man you know who moved
[42:44] Speaker 1: back to Saint Louis. I think sent a message to
[42:46] Speaker 1: the cop and said he should come see me because
[42:49] Speaker 1: you know, I know who did this. I finally figured
[42:51] Speaker 1: it out. And he gets there and the guy's dead.
[42:53] Speaker 1: Oh wow, I mean a heart attack, nothing, no suicide
[42:56] Speaker 1: or anything. And then his daughter said he never wrote
[42:58] Speaker 1: anything down. And I just thought, oh my god, because
[43:01] Speaker 1: this case was such a big case. Sure, so that
[43:03] Speaker 1: would be a bad That's like a nightmare for a
[43:06] Speaker 1: lot of investigators. I'm sure you get there and the
[43:08] Speaker 1: guy's already gone and he you know, all of his
[43:10] Speaker 1: notes are in his head.
[43:12] Speaker 2: No, I've you know, plenty of cases I've looked into
[43:15] Speaker 2: from over the decades the original investigators had a long
[43:19] Speaker 2: time ago passed away.
[43:20] Speaker 1: Gosh, well let's go back to nineteen twenty, so now
[43:24] Speaker 1: this will be a do you think it's connected or not?
[43:28] Speaker 1: Two hundred miles away?
[43:29] Speaker 2: Okay, Well that the distance doesn't matter.
[43:32] Speaker 1: And there's trains and all kinds of stuff. You're right, okay.
[43:35] Speaker 1: December nineteen twenty, two hundred miles away in Alexandria, Louisiana,
[43:39] Speaker 1: there is a woman named Rosa Spiro. She wakes up
[43:42] Speaker 1: to the sound of a man with an axe who
[43:44] Speaker 1: is hitting her husband, Joseph. Another one Spiro. It's around
[43:49] Speaker 1: one am and the man who is hitting Joseph's face,
[43:55] Speaker 1: he hits his jaw, it's broken, his throat is slit,
[43:59] Speaker 1: and before Rosa can scream, he hits her with an
[44:02] Speaker 1: axe and it also comes down on the couple's twenty
[44:07] Speaker 1: month year old baby, Joseph Fine Spiro and like the
[44:11] Speaker 1: axe men's of their victims, the Spiros are Italian grocers.
[44:15] Speaker 1: The attacker took the axe from their backyard, which is
[44:18] Speaker 1: a little different. He came through the kitchen window. He
[44:22] Speaker 1: stole a butcher's knife from the grocery before he goes
[44:24] Speaker 1: into the residence, and when the detectives arrive at the scene,
[44:28] Speaker 1: their bedroom is covered in blood. There's a bloody axe
[44:32] Speaker 1: that he left behind, and a railroad coupling pin is
[44:36] Speaker 1: tossed on the bedroom floor. There's a bloody butcher knife
[44:40] Speaker 1: that lies on the grocery counter, but seventeen hundred dollars
[44:45] Speaker 1: in the living quarters that is easily seen and he
[44:48] Speaker 1: doesn't touch it and no other valuables are taken.
[44:52] Speaker 2: It has the hallmarks, yeah, it does for sure. You know,
[44:56] Speaker 2: you know, offenders do travel. I mean, we know, I
[44:59] Speaker 2: mean we're talking nineteen twenty. You know, two hundred miles
[45:04] Speaker 2: is a distance, but they were frequently that train. Yeah, sure,
[45:08] Speaker 2: So you know, the railroad pen may be a clue.
[45:15] Speaker 2: You know, maybe he is a railroad guy. He gets
[45:17] Speaker 2: stationed in New Orleans for a period of time, and
[45:20] Speaker 2: now you know he's criss crossing, whether it be the
[45:24] Speaker 2: state of Louisiana or you know, a certain geographic region
[45:29] Speaker 2: working for the railroad. You know, and then when he's
[45:32] Speaker 2: at a certain location or the circumstances right, he goes
[45:36] Speaker 2: out and commits a crime.
[45:38] Speaker 1: Well, speaking of railroads, I mean, it's definitely been speculated
[45:42] Speaker 1: that maybe this is connected to the man on the train.
[45:45] Speaker 1: You know, Bill James and his daughter and the book
[45:48] Speaker 1: and the murders that happen I think are predominantly in
[45:50] Speaker 1: the Midwest. It sounds like most people have completely dismissed
[45:53] Speaker 1: these are the same people, or that this is the
[45:56] Speaker 1: same person who was the man on the train. And
[46:00] Speaker 1: you know, I think about people who accuse the Servant
[46:03] Speaker 1: Girl Annihilator in Austin, Texas of being Jack the Ripper,
[46:06] Speaker 1: which is silly.
[46:07] Speaker 2: Right right, But you know I've seen that over and
[46:10] Speaker 2: over again.
[46:10] Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, so you know, I just wanted to
[46:12] Speaker 1: throw that out there. So this is a maybe. I mean,
[46:16] Speaker 1: it fits pretty much everything that we're talking about.
[46:18] Speaker 2: It's checking the boxes for me, you know, the you know,
[46:22] Speaker 2: he's breaking in, he's attacking with an axe. He you know,
[46:26] Speaker 2: just like in the one case with Rosy and Charlie
[46:30] Speaker 2: in which the young toddler was also killed. Here you
[46:33] Speaker 2: have another child, a young child that's also being killed.
[46:38] Speaker 2: You know, the use of a railroad pin. You know.
[46:41] Speaker 2: It's just like, this is some pretty specific sets of
[46:44] Speaker 2: circumstances where I would be you know, if I'm the
[46:47] Speaker 2: New Orleans investigator or vice versa, I'd be calling up saying,
[46:52] Speaker 2: let's share information. You know, I think your guy might
[46:54] Speaker 2: be my guy.
[46:56] Speaker 1: Well, let's move on two hundred fifty miles away now.
[47:00] Speaker 1: So this is January of nineteen twenty one. About a
[47:03] Speaker 1: month later, thirty eight year old Giovanni John Orlando. He
[47:09] Speaker 1: is a Sicilian grocer. He's in Deritter, Louisiana. He is
[47:14] Speaker 1: bludgeoned to death with an axe. Two am and Mary Orlando,
[47:20] Speaker 1: who is his wife and an eight year old son
[47:24] Speaker 1: named Paul and a six year old daughter named Josephine
[47:27] Speaker 1: are all wounded, but they survive. The guy broke through
[47:32] Speaker 1: a window, got through a window, left a bloody axe
[47:35] Speaker 1: in the bedroom, and then left the scene. And those
[47:38] Speaker 1: are the only details I know about that case.
[47:40] Speaker 2: No, he's breaking in. It appears that he commits the
[47:44] Speaker 2: most amount of violence on the mail. He's using an axe,
[47:48] Speaker 2: he's not afraid. He's not squeamish about using the axe
[47:51] Speaker 2: on children at this point in the career. So it's
[47:56] Speaker 2: a possibility. We're lacking some of the the details, but
[48:02] Speaker 2: you know, I would say, yeah, you know, this appears
[48:05] Speaker 2: to at least have a subset of the characteristics that
[48:09] Speaker 2: potentially could be related to the axe murders down in
[48:15] Speaker 2: New Orleans.
[48:16] Speaker 1: There's one more, and this is in Lake Charles and
[48:19] Speaker 1: this is April twelfth, nineteen twenty one, so this is
[48:24] Speaker 1: three or four months later. Marlena Scalizi is married to
[48:28] Speaker 1: a man named Frank Scalesi. He is a thirty five
[48:32] Speaker 1: year old Italian grocer. She wakes up to find him
[48:36] Speaker 1: being hacked to death by a short and chunky black man.
[48:41] Speaker 1: The axe has been stolen from a neighbor's backyard. Luckily,
[48:45] Speaker 1: the blade is blunt and loose, so when the attacker
[48:49] Speaker 1: swings to hit her, the head of the axe flies
[48:52] Speaker 1: off hits the wall. He hits her instead with the handle.
[48:56] Speaker 1: And this is also a you know, the murder of
[49:01] Speaker 1: Frank is one that went unsolved also, and that's all
[49:05] Speaker 1: we know. That's it. I mean, different description. People are
[49:08] Speaker 1: pretty specific about white versus black in this case.
[49:12] Speaker 2: Sure, but also Italian grocery store association. The use of
[49:19] Speaker 2: an axe peers that he's focused on the mail has
[49:22] Speaker 2: broken into the house middle of the night. There's you know,
[49:25] Speaker 2: some boxes checked the description black male versus white male.
[49:30] Speaker 2: You know, do we put much veracity on Marlena's description.
[49:36] Speaker 2: It's it's enough where I'd go it's in that possibility. Ben, Yeah,
[49:42] Speaker 2: I don't have high confidence, but I would say, you
[49:44] Speaker 2: know what, I'd want to know more about that case.
[49:47] Speaker 1: And also, you know, there have been quite a few
[49:49] Speaker 1: people who have said dark complexion. Now they are not
[49:51] Speaker 1: saying black. I think there would be a distinction. I
[49:55] Speaker 1: thought at first it was more of like Italian or
[49:58] Speaker 1: you know, somebody with somebody like that. But it's hard
[50:01] Speaker 1: to know. And you remember going back to now I
[50:04] Speaker 1: can't remember who said mixed race?
[50:07] Speaker 2: Is that?
[50:08] Speaker 1: Remember Rosie? That was Harriet? It was earlier in this Yeah,
[50:15] Speaker 1: it was much earlier. I don't know. That was the
[50:18] Speaker 1: last one that was considered to be part of this series,
[50:22] Speaker 1: if at all that could be attributed in any way.
[50:26] Speaker 1: But there's more information, of course, So just kind of
[50:29] Speaker 1: give me a wrap up of what you think which
[50:32] Speaker 1: you think is going on. I mean, are we looking
[50:34] Speaker 1: at a period I think the last one that we
[50:36] Speaker 1: sort of said, I don't know. I don't know if
[50:39] Speaker 1: you want to include these out of state people when
[50:41] Speaker 1: when we're out of city people when we're talking about.
[50:43] Speaker 2: It, or yeah, well I think most certainly so. Maybe
[50:48] Speaker 2: just from the very beginning, we have the Cleaver era
[50:53] Speaker 2: by this offender, and I'm pretty confident three or four
[50:56] Speaker 2: of those cases have enough overlap where I'll go, yeah,
[50:59] Speaker 2: that admitted by the same offender. Six years go by,
[51:03] Speaker 2: and then it appears that during this axe Man era,
[51:08] Speaker 2: I believe there's three cases in New Orleans that appear
[51:13] Speaker 2: to have enough overlap with the Clever era where I go,
[51:16] Speaker 2: I think this might be the same offender. And then
[51:19] Speaker 2: you have several cases outside of New Orleans but still
[51:23] Speaker 2: within the state of Louisiana. And the one that really
[51:27] Speaker 2: stands out to me is the Rosa and Joseph case
[51:34] Speaker 2: in which you know, he's going through a window, he's
[51:38] Speaker 2: attacking them with an axe. You have the railroad pin,
[51:42] Speaker 2: which is something we saw during the Cleaver era, So
[51:46] Speaker 2: that one out of city but within New Orleans really
[51:52] Speaker 2: kind of stands out as I think the most promising.
[51:55] Speaker 2: And so it appears that our offender kind of evolved
[51:59] Speaker 2: as he, you know, went through this series. What's happening
[52:04] Speaker 2: during the six year gap is a mystery. Whether he's
[52:07] Speaker 2: offender during that time and he's out of state and
[52:10] Speaker 2: it just hasn't been linked. He's in custody, or he
[52:13] Speaker 2: just stops because offenders will stop, and then he starts
[52:17] Speaker 2: up again during the ax Men era, and then it
[52:19] Speaker 2: appears now he's starting to move around the state. Now
[52:22] Speaker 2: is that because of his occupation, you know, is he
[52:25] Speaker 2: on the railroad, you know, riding the rails? And then
[52:29] Speaker 2: we don't have anything after this possible last one in
[52:32] Speaker 2: April of nineteen twenty one, which there's not enough information
[52:38] Speaker 2: and she's saying it's a black mail. It's just you know,
[52:41] Speaker 2: I've seen I've got a case in which, you know,
[52:46] Speaker 2: you have one victim who's actually assaulted, saying as a
[52:49] Speaker 2: blackmail her mom has actually assaulted, saying white male. Seven
[52:54] Speaker 2: year old sees same guy who comes in and assaults her,
[52:59] Speaker 2: and the seven year old's going white male. So within
[53:02] Speaker 2: the family, I've seen a difference in the racial characteristic
[53:09] Speaker 2: of the offender that attacked them, and they were intimately
[53:12] Speaker 2: you know, assaulted. It's actually assaulted. So that's where just
[53:15] Speaker 2: based off of that type of experience here we have
[53:18] Speaker 2: the one case where she's saying it's a black male.
[53:22] Speaker 2: I would say it's possible she's just not accurate with that, right.
[53:27] Speaker 1: I will say over the years that the mafia aspect
[53:31] Speaker 1: of this pops up again, and there are some stories
[53:34] Speaker 1: that I don't think can be really verified about whether
[53:36] Speaker 1: or not, particularly with the last murderers that were in
[53:39] Speaker 1: New Orleans with Mike and the avenging of you know,
[53:43] Speaker 1: his father had murdered someone and now he's murdered because
[53:47] Speaker 1: of it. But nothing really that can be conclusively tied
[53:50] Speaker 1: to any of this, and it doesn't really fit, right,
[53:53] Speaker 1: I mean.
[53:54] Speaker 2: No, you knows. As the series went on, I think
[53:58] Speaker 2: a pattern, a more definitive pattern in terms of what
[54:02] Speaker 2: the what type of offender we're looking at, emerged just
[54:07] Speaker 2: after a couple of cases. The idea of you know,
[54:12] Speaker 2: this being a vindictive style homicide against people involved males
[54:15] Speaker 2: involved within the Italian grocery store thing was like, Okay,
[54:18] Speaker 2: that seems to be something that's just vindictive. I think
[54:22] Speaker 2: as the offender committed these crimes, he recognized that, you know,
[54:27] Speaker 2: he was getting a certain psychological release. He became compulsed
[54:31] Speaker 2: about doing this. Why he focused in on males associated
[54:34] Speaker 2: with Italian grocery stores. Who knows. But he gets to
[54:38] Speaker 2: a point where he is now doing this random ransacking,
[54:46] Speaker 2: non functional ransacking, if you will, and I'm looking at
[54:49] Speaker 2: that is now he is just in this kind of
[54:55] Speaker 2: frenzied angst going through and just disrupting his victim personal possessions.
[55:02] Speaker 2: And so there's more going on with this offender than
[55:08] Speaker 2: I pissed out Italian grocery store men and I'm gonna
[55:10] Speaker 2: go in and kill him. He's now killing whole families.
[55:14] Speaker 2: He's evolved. So it appears that he kind of went
[55:20] Speaker 2: down a path. Obviously had a lot of issues before
[55:24] Speaker 2: he even starts attacking, and then as he's attacking, he's
[55:28] Speaker 2: recognizing he needs to do that. There is a psychological
[55:31] Speaker 2: compulsion to this offender. And so I put, I do
[55:35] Speaker 2: not like in this type of attack as being like
[55:38] Speaker 2: some sort of mafia hit man going around taking out
[55:42] Speaker 2: vengeance because these guys failed to pay their bill or
[55:45] Speaker 2: whatever it is.
[55:47] Speaker 1: Well, I mean, one last note, the father and son,
[55:51] Speaker 1: the Giorgiano's, you know, the grocers, they spent two and
[55:56] Speaker 1: a half years in prison before they were finally released,
[56:00] Speaker 1: and you know Rosie was responsible for that, we knew,
[56:04] Speaker 1: you know. And Frank's fiance, the eighteen year olds had
[56:06] Speaker 1: moved on and married. She married someone else, and the
[56:10] Speaker 1: dad died four years later. And so all of this,
[56:13] Speaker 1: I mean, what you know, Lewis gets away with murder
[56:16] Speaker 1: and who knows what happened with the Schneiders and all
[56:18] Speaker 1: of this what a mess. This is connected to a
[56:22] Speaker 1: case that you know, most people who are into crime
[56:24] Speaker 1: history have heard of it, and it's one of those
[56:27] Speaker 1: boogeyman stories and we don't know what happened to him,
[56:31] Speaker 1: died prison, moved somewhere else.
[56:33] Speaker 2: Yeah, well you know this is your worst nightmare. Yeah,
[56:36] Speaker 2: you know, he's he's a Joseph DiAngelo. He's going into
[56:40] Speaker 2: your own house, you know, where you would you should
[56:43] Speaker 2: feel the safest. He's going after people who are asleep
[56:47] Speaker 2: in the bed, you know, and then hatcheting them or
[56:51] Speaker 2: using a meat cleaver or using an axe. And now
[56:54] Speaker 2: at the end he's killing young kids. You know. So this,
[56:59] Speaker 2: this is a this is a serious offender. And it's
[57:02] Speaker 2: just too bad that he wasn't caught. Yeah, and it's
[57:05] Speaker 2: possible he was, and they never connected him to these
[57:09] Speaker 2: cases down in Louisiana.
[57:10] Speaker 1: And I don't say this often, but I cannot think
[57:13] Speaker 1: of anything else the police could have done in this
[57:15] Speaker 1: case to figure it out. I mean, especially because the
[57:18] Speaker 1: crime rate was fairly high in New Orleans to begin with,
[57:22] Speaker 1: and it's a growing city, and then he moves around
[57:25] Speaker 1: and who knows if he's connected to the railroads.
[57:27] Speaker 2: They were so handicapped to investigate a case like this,
[57:30] Speaker 2: you know, And that's where even to you know, I
[57:33] Speaker 2: shouldn't say today, but let's say, you know, get into
[57:35] Speaker 2: the nineteen seventies. You know, it was hard. You know,
[57:39] Speaker 2: Golden State Killer did over fifty attacks in northern California alone,
[57:43] Speaker 2: and he wasn't caught, and they put a lot of
[57:45] Speaker 2: resources to investigating that part of the series. Today, we've
[57:51] Speaker 2: got all the electronics stuff, we have the surveillance stuff.
[57:54] Speaker 2: You know, there's so much now where we can start
[57:57] Speaker 2: tracking individuals' movements that you think about nineteen twenties, Now
[58:02] Speaker 2: it could easily get away with murder and move around
[58:04] Speaker 2: and just continue doing what you're doing.
[58:08] Speaker 1: Well, I've waited a long time to tell you this
[58:10] Speaker 1: case because number one, I knew it was going to
[58:11] Speaker 1: be overwhelming, and then number two, the Cleaver case thrown
[58:15] Speaker 1: in there where you know, these cases are often told separately,
[58:18] Speaker 1: and it's interesting the way you've pulled them both together
[58:21] Speaker 1: and you're looking through that thread, and I know it's
[58:23] Speaker 1: stuff that we can learn today.
[58:25] Speaker 2: So well, you know, all I can say is is that,
[58:29] Speaker 2: I mean, I think there's sufficient information to consider that
[58:33] Speaker 2: the Clever cases and the acts the bona fide ax
[58:37] Speaker 2: men cases are possibly done by the same offender. Obviously,
[58:43] Speaker 2: I can't say that with one hundred percent confidence, but
[58:45] Speaker 2: I'm going, oh, they need to look at that.
[58:47] Speaker 1: Okay, Well, we're going to solve another case next week,
[58:50] Speaker 1: guarantee you.
[58:51] Speaker 2: Well, we didn't solve this one.
[58:52] Speaker 1: Well, but you made some connections. I mean, I really
[58:56] Speaker 1: do often read about the X Men case and there's
[58:58] Speaker 1: nothing about the cases from nineteen ten going back and
[59:02] Speaker 1: there's not that. Yeah, and so I just think it
[59:05] Speaker 1: was interesting. This is a lot of good information. And
[59:08] Speaker 1: again it just it reminds me of those little clues,
[59:11] Speaker 1: the circumstances, the things that are unique about the crimes
[59:14] Speaker 1: really do matter. And you can learn about something from
[59:17] Speaker 1: nineteen ten. And I'll teach you about something today.
[59:20] Speaker 2: Know absolutely for sure, all.
[59:21] Speaker 1: Right, next week something maybe less complicated, Probably not it'll
[59:24] Speaker 1: play be as complicated.
[59:26] Speaker 2: Yeah, but I'm sure you will uncomplicated for me.
[59:29] Speaker 1: Looking can do it. We can solve that. I know it.
[59:31] Speaker 2: All right. Sounds good, Kate, Okay, bye bye.
[59:38] Speaker 1: This has been an exactly right production for.
[59:41] Speaker 2: Our sources and show notes go to exactly Rightmedia dot com,
[59:44] Speaker 2: slash Berried Bones sources.
[59:46] Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Alexis Emrosi.
[59:49] Speaker 2: Research by Alison Trouble and Kate Winkler Dawson.
[59:52] Speaker 1: Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
[59:55] Speaker 2: Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
[59:57] Speaker 1: Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
[1:00:00] Speaker 2: Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark, and Daniel Kramer.
[1:00:04] Speaker 1: You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
[1:00:08] Speaker 1: buried Bones pod.
[1:00:09] Speaker 2: Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded
[1:00:12] Speaker 2: Age story of murder and the race to decode the
[1:00:14] Speaker 2: criminal mind, is available now.
[1:00:16] Speaker 1: And Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life solving America's
[1:00:20] Speaker 1: cold cases, is also available now.
[1:00:22] Speaker 2: Listen to Baried Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
[1:00:26] Speaker 2: or wherever you get your podcasts.

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