The US serial killers you’ve never heard of: Henry Lee Moore, 25 murders from 1911
to 1912, across Iowa, Kansa, Illinois, and Colorado.
Then there is the unsolved Jack the Ripper style-murders in Atlanta during the same period.
From May 20 to July 1, 1911, he killed one person almost at the same time every Saturday
night.
But the killer that really stands out from the past is the axe murderer, who killed dozens
of people in Texas and Louisiana from January 1911 to April 1912.
This gruesome story is the stuff of horror movies.
In terms of American serial killers, you could call him the worst of the worst before serial
killers were ever actually discussed in everyday society.
In 1911, this killer entered a house in Rayne, Louisiana, and he left four family members
dead.
The murder weapon was an axe, although he used the dull side of it when he stuck his
victims.
Not long after, just 10 miles away in the small town of Crowley, he walked into the
Byers family home and killed three people much the same way.
Two weeks after that, he headed over to the city of Lafayette in Louisiana.
He opened the door to a family home and went on a bloody rampage, killing all four family
members.
He decided to go to Texas next, where a couple of months later, he killed a family of five
in their home.
Six months later, he was back in Lafayette.
Again, he skulked around a family home at night, waiting for the right time to pounce.
He entered the home and struck his axe with furious anger against six people who before
that had never dreamed such a monster could exist.
He didn’t wait long for his next bloodbath.
He killed a family of five in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
He left a note after that one, “When he maketh the inquisition for blood, he forgetteth
not the cry of the humble – human five.”
This maniac killed 49 people in all.
What’s even more shocking is he committed so many murders in such a short period.
If that happened today, there wouldn’t be a person in the world who owned a smartphone
or TV that didn’t hear about it.
Back then, hardly anyone knew about the axe murderer, the killer of innocent families.
We’re pretty sure you’ve never heard of him, so now it’s time to investigate some
more.
There has been a fairly recent book written about this killer, called, “Axes of Evil:
The True Story of the Ax-Man Murders.”
The book is correct in saying that those murders are still today the worst instance of serial
killing in the US for which no one has been found guilty.
Here’s the blurb from the book, “It’s a tale of ritual murder, voodoo mayhem, and
wholesale killings that leads the reader on a shocking train ride across two states and
into the chapters of a real American horror story.
The fiendish slayings of 10 sleeping families nestled in their beds.”
That’s no exaggeration, and it’s not an exaggeration to say the unsolved crime is
comparable to the crimes of one serial you all know, Jack the Ripper.
In fact, what the Ripper did was nothing compared to what the axe murderer did in terms of the
body count, but how he got away with it is just as confounding.
As for why you’ve never heard of these murders, they just didn’t fall on enough editors’
desks.
According to Vronsky, the small Texas and Louisiana towns where the murders took place
were kind of outbacks back then, while London during the time of Jack the Ripper was the
center of the world, especially when it came to the newspaper industry.
First of all, why so many axe murders and not so many knife or gun murders?
The simple answer is axes were used a lot back in those days.
They were just the weapon of choice for a lot of people, since they were always close
by.
As the Smithsonian Magazine points out, “Almost every family in rural districts owned such
an implement, and often left it lying in their yard.”
The same article said that most axe murder victims were killed in their beds.
Axes aren’t so useful when a person can see what’s coming, but they’re ideal when
the victim is stationary.
Some people called this span of crimes the “Mulatto Axe Murders” because the victims
were usually mixed race.
The scant reports we can find said the first murders in Louisiana all happened when the
families were fast asleep, usually in the early morning hours.
The first slaying in Texas happened on March 22, 1911, in the city of San Antonio.
The victims were the entire Cassaway family, who lived in a house on Olive Street.
The father of the family was Louis, an African-American man who worked at the Grant School.
When he didn’t show up for work that day, someone went around to his house to see why.
That’s when all five family members were found.
In one room, police found Louis and his daughter.
In another room was everyone else, including his wife, who, according to reports, was white.
She was reportedly in the worst state when police discovered the awful scene.
This has led some people to believe the killer not only held some racist belief that black
and white people shouldn’t have families together, but he mainly blamed the women of
mixed-race families.
There was certainly a motive there which pointed to intense hatred.
The killer stole nothing from the house, even though he could have.
According to one writer, “Nothing in the house was disturbed, and Louis’ trousers
were still hanging from the bedpost with several dollars in the pocket.”
The same author said the family had no known enemies in the town and got along with everyone.
The killer then returned to Louisiana, where he killed all six members of the Norbert Randall
family.
As he’d done in the past, he used the blunt side of the axe rather than the sharp side,
hitting his victims with such force that they died from head injuries.
Yet again, the father of the family was an African-American, and the mother was white.
Someone was actually arrested for this.
That’s something we want to come back to later.
While this person was in custody, more murders took place, and again, they involved mixed-race
families.
They also involved an axe, so it was hard not to connect the murders with the previous
ones.
For instance, in Crowley, the killer used an axe to kill a white woman and her three
mixed-race offspring.
Crowley’s Daily Signal newspaper wrote this on Jan. 22, 1912.
“In every Negro house in Crowley, lights are kept burning all night and adult family
members remain awake during the night.”
The same newspaper wrote, “Many believe that religious mania is responsible for the
killings.
Negro servants in Crowley are in a panic.
The more superstitious believe that some supernatural agency is at work.”
Just so you know, we are aware this word can be construed as offensive and anachronistic,
but using the actual language that was written serves a purpose here.
The family that was killed in Lake Charles was also of mixed race.
They were the Felix Broussard family, whose address was 331 Rock St. in North Lake Charles.
They lived in a small house close to the Southern Pacific Line.
This was one murder with a clue because, as you know, the murderer left that note behind.
“When He maketh the inquisition for blood, He forgetteth not the cry of the humble.”
It comes from the bible, Psalm 9:12.
The New King James version goes like this, “When He avenges blood, He remembers them;
He does not forget the cry of the humble.”
Next to the note were the words “Human” and “5.”
There were also the words, “Pearl Art” or “Ort”, which were written below everything
else.
People actually started talking about some crazy cult that called itself the “Human
5”.
According to Christian scholars, this part of the bible means people should not pursue
revenge themselves but let the Lord settle all scores on behalf of the humble.
What’s also strange is that the victim decorated the fingers of all the younger victims.
He used paper tied with a pin and put each piece between the victim’s fingers.
The killer had also placed a bucket below the bodies to catch the dripping blood, which
was another reason local people thought they had a killer cult on their hands.
In February 1912, the killer struck again, this time in Beaumont, Texas.
He killed a mixed-race woman and her three offspring.
Just over a month later, he killed a woman and her four kids as well as a man who was
staying over at her house.
The police had previously tried to link the murders with religious fanaticism, and of
course noted the fact many of the victims were of mixed race or were all African-American.
One news report we found said this about the killer in its conclusion:
“In all probability they have been perpetuated by the same person who no doubt is insane,
or affected with some fiendish mania against the negro race.”
Police now understood that most of the murders took place close to the Southern Pacific Railroad
line, so they came to the conclusion that the killer rode the train, got off, killed,
and got back on.
Hopping trains back in those days wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.
At this time, they were thinking there was only one killer, but the possibility of there
being more than one didn’t escape their minds.
There were some other clues, too, which many decades in the future would have stirred the
minds of criminal profilers.
In the first Lafayette murders, the bodies had been what profilers call “posed.”
All the victims had been placed on their knees as if praying.
The killer had put the wife’s arm over her husband’s shoulder, and the younger family
members were in front of them.
The sheriff at the time, Mr. LaCoste, first believed the murders could have been the work
of an escaped lunatic.
That guy was arrested but soon released and returned to the asylum.
The sheriff said he had several people he wanted to speak with, but so far, things didn’t
look good.
A story in the Lafayette Advertiser said since so many murders were looking like the same
person had done them, a “terrible monster” was on the loose.
Later in 1912, the killer struck twice in Texas.
First, he killed William Burton and four members of his family while they were asleep in their
San Antonio home.
Just two nights later, the killer struck in Hempstead, Texas, killing three family members.
African-Americans and mixed-race families were understandably panic-stricken.
People took to arming themselves and staying up all night long.
Neighbors took turns guarding each other’s homes.
A man named Ernest Smothers was guarding his home one night when he heard a noise at the
door.
He shot a man dead; only that man was a well-meaning neighbor who’d just come to check on him.
After Smothers shot the man, a guy named Max Warren went to see what had happened.
When he saw the body of a dead man lying on the floor, he ran away.
As he was running, someone shouted that he was the axeman.
Warren was shot after that by another person who was close by.
We can’t find the original news report describing this neighborly chaos, although podcasts and
blogs have talked about it.
The craziness does ring true when you look at one news story from back then.
We found an article in the Lafayette Advertiser dated August 20, 1912.
The headline reads, “Ax Man Again.”
The first paragraph reads: “The dreaded axe man who it is believed
is implicated in the murder of over forty negroes in Louisiana and Texas has been foiled
at last, but not caught.”
The article explains that the killer went to a house owned by a man named James Dashiell,
described in the story as “mulatto.”
It says the killer had tried once before to kill this man and his family but had not succeeded.
On his second attempt, he crept into the house through the kitchen window.
He saw Mrs. Dashiell asleep and struck her with his axe, missing her head but almost
severing her arm.
She screamed and kicked out, only to be struck again on the leg.
Her screams woke up her husband, who armed and ready fired on the person.
The story goes on to say, “Two families of five each, nearly white, have been murdered
with axes in the last eighteen months.”
Since the murders were similar to others farther afield, the newspaper said they might be connected
to a roving gang.
The story ended by saying: “Negroes here are greatly aroused and many
are purchasing pistols and guns and it is said that night vigils will be kept.”
It seems this last attack was the axeman’s last.
Like his other murders, it left police scratching their heads.
It left the public, especially African-American and mixed-race families, fearing for their
lives and living in a climate of constant fear.
We told you the police had a suspect for one of the attacks previously.
It wasn’t actually a he, but a she.
Her name was Clementine Bernabet.
She was just 19-years old.
She was the daughter of Raymond Barnabet, who himself had been accused of being the
killer.
He was arrested and let go and then re-arrested for the killing of the Randall family, although
the evidence against him was not very substantial.
His daughter, Clementine, had told police her father was the killer.
Her brother had said the same.
Still, while Raymond was in jail, the murders kept happening.
When the other Lafayette family were murdered, it obviously couldn’t have been him.
Then suspicion fell on Clementine, who lived just a few blocks away from where the murders
had taken place.
Police also found blood and parts of brain on her clothes.
Dr. Metz in New Orleans said the body matter matched that of the murdered family, but back
then, it was hard to say that conclusively.
In one news report it just says the doctor said the blood was not menstrual.
During questioning, Clementine admitted to killing that family.
She said the murders were to show her devotion to the high priestess of the Church of the
Sacrifice.
She, like others in this church, apparently believed that human sacrifice could bring
riches and even immortality.
Clementine also said the high priestess had given her some “conjure bags”, kind of
good luck charms that would help her get away with murder.
She also said this in her statement to the police, “One of the gang was instructed
to go to New Iberia and interview the hoodoo man, who said we were safe in any and all
actions which we might do.
Our lives would at all times be fully protected by the power of the hoodoos.”
It all sounds very strange and gruesome, but could a young woman have done all those murders
by herself?
Human Rights Watch has written about the axe murders, and it believes that indeed the same
person or people were responsible for the 49 murders comprising various families.
Clementine was arrested, as were Edwin Charles and Gregory Porter, two men that had been
with her on the night of the last Lafayette murders.
But then a guy named King Harris was also arrested.
He was said to be the leader of the Church of Sacrifice, which had members in Crowley
and Lafayette, and Lake Charles.
After his arrest, police found this passage underlined in his bible:
“And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth
not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire” (Matthew 3:10).”
Here’s what one newspaper story wrote about him, “It is known that on the night of the
murder this Harris held a meeting in a house about one half block from the Randall home
and Randall and his family are said to have been at the meeting.”
It’s since been theorized that if this guy had anything to do with the murders, the reason
he had that bit underlined was that he believed it meant that trees that bring bad fruit were
equal to mixed-race families.
That’s why they were killed.
Still, not all the murders were of mixed-race families.
News reports called him the “negro preacher” who was head of the church, but investigations
into him led to nothing.
Some people even questioned if the church existed at all.
Other people were arrested, some linked to those strange churches and others to the practice
of hoodoo.
Then everything went crazy again, because as you know, while Clementine and her father
were in jail, more axe murders happened.
So, there’s just no way that Clementine could have been behind all the 49 murders.
She told police she had committed 17 of them, although she said she had four accomplices,
two men and two women, who she wouldn’t name.
She said they drew straws as to who was the one who struck with the axe.
The others just watched.
In her own words, she said to the police about one attack, “We took the man and woman,
placed them in a kneeling position beside the bed, and left the house.
I was one of the first to aid the relatives the next day and helped prepare the bodies
for burial.”
She also said, “These families were not selected particularly.
We started out, not knowing who the victims would be.”
Still, investigators wrote that what she said was very “self-contradictory,” so at times,
she said one thing and then later said another thing.
Sometimes she just told outright lies.
It was as if she was making the whole thing up, and she seemed to be enjoying it.
Sheriff LaCoste didn’t think she was innocent, saying, “Clementine Barnabet is rational,
and I believe it is true, except as to details given with the purpose of confusing officers
as to her accomplices.”
She was eventually convicted of one murder, Mrs. Randall, and sentenced to life in prison,
although after having some kind of surgical operation it was said she was cured of her
ills.
It’s not known what operation was performed on her, but the prison said it restored her
to a “normal condition.”
She was released after ten years, and no one knows what happened to her after that.
Today people doubt whether she committed any of the murders.
Maybe she did commit the one murder.
As for the ones that happened while she was behind bars, perhaps she was part of the sacrifice
sect, and various other members committed other killings.
After researching this story, we can say with certainty that we are certainly uncertain
about who did what.
The local newspapers thought it was her, with one writing:
“While the woman at times seems practically insane, she yet has a certain intelligence
and cunning.
Ever since her incarceration, she has successfully foiled the officers in their attempts to get
at the true facts of the case, and when she deceives the officers by giving them some
false clew (sic), she smiles with devilish delight and chuckles over her victory.”
We will never know the answer.
Perhaps there was a general hysteria around the time, and perhaps there were copycats.
In 1909, a family was murdered by a person wielding an axe.
That murder also happened in Crowley.
In 1911, right after Clementine went to prison and vowed for more murders to happen when
the moon was full, William Walmsley and his loving wife Sallie and their daughter were
all killed in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
In 1912, eight family members were brutally slain in what became known as the Villisca
axe murders in Iowa.
A few years later came the “Axeman of New Orleans”, who was never caught.
Now you need to watch this, “Serial Killer With More Victims Than Any Other Killer in
American History.”
Or, learn more about these crazed people in, “How Serial Killer Profilers ACTUALLY Catch
Serial Killers.”