The Mad Axeman Of New Orleans

[Miranda]

The Mad Axeman of New Orleans

On May 23, 1918 an Italian couple by the surname of Maggio, who operated a grocery store were attacked during the night by an axe wielding assailant. They gained access to their home by chiseling a panel off of their back door. Each one had been struck by an axe then had their throats slit with a razor. The razor lay on the floor of their bedroom and the axe in their back yard. The next day the police discovered an ominous message scribbled in chalk on a sidewalk a short block from the Maggio’s home, it read: Mrs. Maggio is going to sit up tonight just like Mrs. Toney.” Seven years earlier, in 1911, three other Italian grocers and their wives had been murdered by an axed killer. The Crutis, Rosettis and Tony Schiamba and his spouse (Mrs. Toney?).

Returning to 1918, June 28 John Zanca was a baker making a delivery to Louis Besumer; a grocer. The store was closed and Zanca went around the back where he discovered panel chiseled out of the door, he knocked and Besumer would come out stumbling, bleeding from a head injury. Inside the apartment, Zanca found a woman who had been calling herself Besumers wife, (later to be found out as Mrs. Harriet Lowe) lying on her bed suffering from severe wounds unconscious but still breathing. On August 5 Mrs. Lowe died . She claimed it was Besumer who had hit her with the axe. He was arrested and tried for her murder but in April 1919 acquitted.

The very night Harriet Lowe had been attacked the Axe Man of New Orleans had struck elsewhere.

Edward Schneider came home shortly after midnight to find his pregnant wife lying in a pool of her own blood, savagely battered. Mrs. Schneider survived the attack and delivered a baby girl but never could recall what had transpired that evening. On the early hours of August 10, Pauline and Mary Bruno were awakened from their sleep by the sounds of banging and scuffling coming from their uncles room next door. They crept out of their room to investigate, when they saw a man thed’s describe as “dark, tall, heavy-set, wearing a dark suit and a slouch hat” rush past them.

It seemed to the girls “as if he had wings” they would later say.

Pauline immediately called for help as her uncle Joseph Romano was rushed to the hospital suffering from axe wounds to his head; he died two days later. As in previous attacks panel was again removed from a back door and they axe laid in the yard. The significant difference was that Joseph Romano was not an Italian grocer, he was an Italian barber. New Orleans would soon find itself with many Italian grocers and tradesman finding panels on their back doors interfered with and sharp instruments strewn in their backyards, reports were coming in from every quarter of sightings of shadowy figures wielding axes.

“At least four persons saw the Axeman this morning in the neighborhood of Iberville and Rendon. He was first seen in front of an Italian grocery store. Twice he fled when citizens armed themselves and gave chase. There was something, agreed all, in the prowler’s hand. Was it an axe?” read one local newspaper account. Then as suddenly as he’d begun, the Axeman stopped, and it was not until March 1919 that he would once again make his presence known.

This time his victims were Charles Cortimiglia, his wife Rosie and their infant daughter Mary; an Italian grocers family. The pattern of the mutilated back door and the discarded axe were all too familiar. Mrs & Mrs. Cortimiglia would survive their wounds. Rosie Cortimiglia had described how she had awoken to find her husband in a struggle with a large white man wearing dark clothes wielding an axe. When Charles fell to the floor , the Axeman delivered two more blows, the first killing their infant daughter Mary, the second striking Rosie on her skull. It may have been the blow to her head that would unbalance her reason but Rosie accused her two neighbors Frank Jordano and his father Iorlando; Italian grocers, of being the ones who had attacked her and her family.

Charles Cortimiglia would vehemently deny that it was the Jordanos who had tried to kill him that evening, they were arrested anyway. When Rosie was released from the hospital she was taken to the jail where the Jordanos were being held, she again identified them as her attackers and murderers of her child. Frank and Iorlando Jordano came to trial on May 21, 1919 for the murder of Mary Cortimiglia. By this time the Cortimiglias had separated over the disagreement concerning the identity of the killer(s). On the fifth day of the trial after 45 minutes of deliberations the Jordanos were found guilty for Mary’s murder. Frank was sentenced to death and Iorlando would receive life imprisonment.

On August 10, 1919 it was very apparent to the people of New Orleans the Axeman was still very much among them. Early that morning , Italian grocer, Steve Boca, had his head split open with an axe. He would recover but have no memory of the events of the attack. On September 3, Sarah Laumann, 19, was found unconscious on her bed with several injuries to her skull. A bloody axe had been found outside beneath her window. This time the Axeman did not chisel panel to gain entry.

On October 27, a Mrs. Pepitone woke to hear a struggle going on in her husbands room next door. She burst in just in time to see a man flee through the door, and then found Michael Pepitone on the floor, soaked in his own blood, dead. An axe was again strewn on the back porch by the door where he had cut panel to gain entry. The Axeman went back into obscurity, as months passed he may have just become a horrid memory had it not been for the drama played out at the offices of the Times-Picayune newpaper . On December 7, 1920, Mrs. Rosie Cortimiglia burst into the city desk screaming and in distress “I lied, I lied, God forgive me, I lied.” Frank and Iorlando Jordano were released. But what of the Mad-Axeman? The police in New Orleans had heard a curious snippet of news from their counterparts in Los Angeles.

On December 2, 1920, a man named Joseph Mumfre, a resident of New Orleans had been walking down a Los Angeles street when “a woman in black, heavily veiled” stepped out of a doorway and emptied a gun into his body. Mumfre dropped dead onto the sidewalk and the woman stood by and waited for the police to arrive. At first she claimed she was Mrs. Esther Albano, and refused to say why she murdered Mumfre. Later she admitted she was Mrs. Michael Pepitone, widow of the Axeman's last victim. “He was the Axeman” she said “I saw him running from my husbands room”. Mumfre had a long criminal record, had spent a great deal of time doing short stints in prison; research indicated that on the nights the Axeman struck Mumfre was never in prison.

Interesting but hardly proof he was the Axeman of New Orleans. Mrs. Pepitone went on trial in Los Angeles in April of 1921 and pleaded guilty. She was sentenced to 10 years but would go on to serve only three. Who was The Mad Axeman of New Orleans if not Mumfre? Many believe he was innocent but there was strong evidence that he did kill Michael Pepitone. It has been considered that there were more than one Axeman. It is highly unlikely with such a time span passing that we will ever know.

By Miranda

[jadnifer]

That story was quite good. I very much enjoyed reading it, do you have more?