GRISLIEST AXE MURDERERS

Article BY LORI BELL - Art by NICHOLAS RAIMO

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Unhinged fury and axe murderer go together like greasy, grimy, gopher guts and mutilated monkey meat. The threat of being on the wrong end of an axe has seeped into the very floorboards of our language such as “getting the axe,” or “let’s bury the hatchet.”

Axes make for great verbal imagery because of their very nature; a powerful, imprecise tool, whose efficiency relies heavily on the strength and determination of the person welding the handle. Put in the hands of an adrenaline – fueled maniac and you’ve got a terrifying weapon for murderous mayhem.

 

Frankie Stewart Silver:

There are many words that could be used to describe the Charlie and Frankie Silver story. Bizarre, gruesome, and puzzling will do for starters. The motive is unclear, with theories ranging from jealously to self-defense of herself and their infant daughter. Either way, 13th century society didn’t take kindly to wives dismembering their husbands. In addition to an axe murderer, Frankie was something of a twisted fire starter as well.

She became the prime suspect in her husband’s disappearance when a neighbor named Jack Collins was one of the first to get suspicious. He decided to check the cabin when Frankie was out. He found bits of bone and greasy ashes in the cabin fireplace and under the floorboards was found a pool of blood. Charles’ head and torso would later be found outside the cabin. Frankie Silver hacked apart and scattered her husband so thoroughly he wasn’t found all at once.

I the cemetery of the Kong Baptist Church, up a gently sloping hill to the center of the graveyard, you will find a grave marker – it reads: Charles Silver, Oct 3 1812 – Dec 22 1831. But this marker is not a tombstone. Three natural stones have that distinction because Charlie Silver wasn’t buried all at once.

Frankie was not the first woman hung in North Carolina or Burke County. Some reports say Frankie Silver was hung from the limb of a huge oak tree that stood on a hill above the courthouse in Morgantown. She did die, apparently bravely, on July 12, 1833.

 

Eva Dugan:

Wealthy, reclusive Arizona rancher and chicken farmer, Andrew J. Mathis,fired the wrong housekeeper. When former Alaskan Gold Rush cabaret singer, Eva Dugan, got the axe from her employer, she took an axe into her own hands, murdering Mathis. She stole everything she could carry, loaded up Mathis’ automobile, and high tailed it to New York with a young companion named Jack. Originally arrested for theft of Mathis’ sweet ride, Dugan was charged with and convicted of murder when a camper impaled Mathis’ skull with a tent peg.

Despite only circumstantial evidence linking her to the murder Dugan’s insanity defense failed, and she was convicted and sentenced to hang. The prosecution didn’t even bring up that four of her five husband’s had died suspiciously. She responded to her conviction in a matter you might expect from a rough neck frontiers woman telling the jury: “ I’ll die with my boots on and in good health. And that’s more than most of you old coots’ll be able to boast on.” She was wisecracking right up until the end and even befriended the jailhouse guards. But her execution proved more grisly than the crime itself. The snap of the rope sent Dugan’s head rolling to stop at the feet of the spectators. Five witnesses fainted. Because of the gore, Arizona soon changed their preferred method of capital punishment from hanging to the gas chamber.

Dugan has the distinction of being both the only woman and the last person to be executed by hanging in the Grand Canyon state.

 

Victor Licata:

In the 1930s, you would have thought that Marijuana was a demon weed intent on eating your children. The government did all it could to link Marijuana use to vicious true crimes. Real-life axe murderer, Victor Licata, just so happened to be down with the Mary Jane before it was cool. In 1933, Victor hacked apart his mom, dad, two brothers, a sister, and the family dog near Tampa, Florida. After police discovered multiple corpses and a bloody axe, they found Victor cowering in the family’s bathroom. His skin was drenched in blood underneath his crisp, clean clothes.

Blood soaked the beds and dropped off the sides, forming thick, red puddles on the wooden floors of the Licata’s family home. Mangled and mutilated bodies were strewn throughout the house. And under the front porch, a dog caked in its own blood let out one final whimper before joining the afterlife. The home looked like something out of a modern day horror flick.

Victor denied killing his family. Instead, he claimed that they had attacked him with knives and sawed off his arms, replacing them with mechanical ones. He said that as revenge, he knocked each family member unconscious with a “funny axe” he found on the porch. What made this axe so funny? It was rubbery and bendable, like something out of a cartoon. Given how convinced he was about this insane explanation, police believed that he must have had nightmare and awoke in a delirious state, which earned him the over-the-top nickname, “The Dream Slayer.” Of course law enforcement keyed in on his admission to drinking moonshine and smoking Marijuana with friends on the evening in question.

Marijuana had nothing to do with the murders. Licata did admit to the police that he smoked Marijuana the night of the murders, but the report also stated that Licata was long thought to be mentally unstable. He suffered from dementia, his family had a history of mental instability, and his parents were first cousins. Nowhere in the report was Marijuana mentioned as a cause of Licata’s mental instability.

Medical professionals deemed him unfit to stand trial due to a form of psychosis that is now understood to be schizophrenia, something that ran in Victor’s family. He was given a life sentence at a mental institution. Twelve years later, he managed to briefly escape and completely freak out a cousin.

In December 1950, a prison guard found Victor’s still warm body dangling from a bed sheet tied to the top of his cell’s double-decker bed. Victor committed suicide by hanging, the final chapter in the bloody Ybor city story of the “Dream Slayer.” He was buried alongside his family.

 

The Murder of Helen Jewett:

Prostitution has always been a dangerous line of work, but 19th century New York at least provided the relative security of classy brothels. That didn’t help out 23 year-old Helen Jewett. Sometime after midnight on a cold spring night in 1836, a beautiful and notorious prostitute, who called herself Helen Jewett, was found axed to death, her corpse slowly roasting from a fire set in her elegant mahogany bed. As “the murder of Helen Jewett” engrossing details, the crime set off one of the greatest sensations of 19th century America. When the madam of the brothel entered the room, Helen’s body was found with three hatchet gashes dug into her face and her bed was smoldering. The madam then shouted “fire” in a crowded brothel, and pandemonium ensued.

Helen’s night clothes were discovered to be reduced to ash. One side of her body was charred and her pillow was soaked through with blood. A young clerk named Richard P. Robinson – one of Helen’s regular customers, with whom she regularly exchanged florid love letters – was quickly fingered by the testimony of Helen’s fellow ladies of the night. He was arrested after he didn’t flinch when taken to view her still warm corpse.

The evidence against Robinson was strong, including a discarded hatchet and cloak that didn’t require Sherlockian deduction to trace him. Somehow, the brutal slaying captured the nation’s imagination. The story ran in papers throughout the country, something not all that common for 1836. In the end, Robinson was aquitted despite the considerable evidence against him, because the judge instructed the jury to disregard testimonies from many of Helen’s fellow prostitutes because they were “polluted.”

The sense of what Helen Jewett and Richard Robinson meant to themselves and to each other, remains tantalizing beyond the reach of history, in the realm of the imagination.

 

William Stewart:

The sea can do strange things to men. In 1828, trading ship Mary Russell returned to port in Ireland with seven of its crew members brutally murdered. The ship’s paranoid captain was to blame. William Stewart, for reasons known only to his psychotic brain, falsely believed his crew was about to mutiny. So he took the completely reasonable next step of binding the seven men in his crew from hand to foot and splitting their skulls.

To pull this off, Captain Stewart coerced three adolescents to help him. Stewart started his rampage by clocking his Chief Mate with a harpoon and ordering the other crewmen to tie him up. The Chief Mate was thrown into solitary confinement for two days. Stewart then lured the rest of the adult crew, one by one, to be bound. The brainwashed children stood guard.

From there, Captain Stewart killed seven of his crew, first using a crowbar and then moving on to the axe. During the attacks he screamed, “The curse of God is upon you all.” With most of his crew dead, he could finally kick back and relax for the first time in ages, smoking and drinking happily amid the mangled corpses. Two of the crew members managed to survive, and when one escaped his confinement, his reappearance frightened the captain. Naturally, Stewart then threw himself overboard on three separate occasions before the ship reached shore. After being brought to trial, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

William Stewart was committed to the Asylum for Criminal Lunatics, Dundrum, then transferred to the Cork Asylum. Stewart had another psychotic episode and killed a hospital attendant. He was then sent back to Dundam, where he died in 1873.

 

Pierre Provost:

There’s nothing worse than paying for your own death. Such a crime rocked an Indiana town in 1878, when four family members were discovered hacked beyond recognition by a hired hand. Patriarch John Desire Vacelet received nine axe gashes to the head. His wife was so brutalized by the madman’s axe that she was virtually decapitated. Their two sons died side-by-side in bed, with brain matter protruding from their broken skulls. The murders were so elaborate that both axes and knives were used.

Suspicions on fell upon French immigrant Pierre Provost. He reported the attack to neighbors when he appeared at their doorstep before sunrise, barefoot and wearing nothing but is underwear. Eventually, he even expressed amusement about the whole ordeal. Not being the greatest judges of character, the Vacelets had set up Provost on a trundle bed in their teenage son’s bedroom. He claimed to have narrowly escaped out a window while a savage attack was taking place by a large group of men. The problem with his story was that the window remained fastened shut, and the presence of cobwebs proved that it hadn’t been open in ages. A bloody barefoot print next to the Vacelet parents’ corpses did Pierre no favors either. In the wake of the murders, there was a threat of a lynch mob, but Pierre saved the townsfolk the hassel and hanged himself in his jail cell.

 

Joseph Ntshongwana:

Sports figures are no strangers to murderous mayhem. In 2011, former South African rugby player Joseph Ntshongwana found himself carrying something much more macabre than a ball. After stalking a group of men he believed to have gang-raped his daughter and infected her with HIV, Ntshongwana went on an axe – wielding rampage of vengence, eviscerating three of the men and severely wounding a fourth. He carried the decapitated head of one of his victims almost a mile from the site of the murderous scrum before tossing it into the trash. The problem with Nsthongwana’s revenge plan: the cops said no such rape occurred.

At his initial court appearance Ntshongwana shoved police officers and spoke in tongues. His father told the court his son was bipolar. It has since been revealed that Nsthongwana suffers from schizophrenia disorder, and he had been extremely paranoid leading up to the slayings, even believing his sister was poisoning his food. However, he was deemed mentally fit to stand trial, given the lengths he went to in concealing evidence of his crime. Other aspects also indicate that his actions were consistent with purposeful and intentional behavior.

 

Tyree Smith:

Not many crazed axe murderers and cannibals end up apologizing, but that’s just what Tyree Smith did in the courtroom after being sentenced to 60 years in a psychiatric hospital. Smith bludgeoned a homeless man and ate his brain and eyeballs. His apology didn’t make his crime any less heinous. Having long heard voices that told him to do things. Smith turned up on his cousin’s front step one day in 2011, rambling about Greek God’s and a thirst for blood.

Unsurprisingly, the cousin kicked him out the next night, after she spotted Smith with blood stains on his clothes, toting chopsticks, and a bloody axe. He also had quite the story to tell about killing and eating a man the night before, washing it all down with a bottle of sake before heading over to Subway. Police later recovered the bloody axe and an empty bottle of sake in a stream off Boston Avenue.

While in custody, Smith explained that the voices in his head had commanded him to eat another man’s brain to help the study the ins and outs of human behavior. Also, if Smith consumed the eyes, the voices would be able to see into a spiritual plane of existence. In another warped twist, the victims body was discovered inside a vacant apartment building where Smith had grown up as a child. Smith retained his lust for human flesh after his arrest.

 

Elifasi Msomi:

“The Devil made me do it” is not a very compelling defense. But blame your vicious axe murders on a tokoloshe (a dwarf like water sprite) that sits on your shoulder and … well, you’ll still get executed. In mid 1950s South Africa, failed Zulu witch doctor Elifasi Msomi, was convicted of 15 brutal axe murders. He was subsequently hanged, despite that seemingly airtight tokoloshe defense.

Msomi claims to have been afflicted by the malevolent entity when he sought professional assistance from another Zulu Shaman. His killing spree began when he raped and murdered a young woman and collected her blood in a bottle. Msomi was quickly captured, but he managed to escape. Thereafter, he went on an 18 month axe weilding rampage that claimed 15 victims in total, including five children.

Ultimately, he was arrested for petty theft before the police realized they had a real-life monster on their hands. Msomi helped the cops uncover many remains of his victims, including a missing skull, though he may have gained pleasure from doing so. After all, psychologists determined that he got off on inflicting pain and causing death.

In January 1956, Msomi was found guilty of first – degree murder and was sentenced to death in Pretoria. Still he maintained his tokoloshe defense right up till the end, claiming that he was only a conduit for the evil spirit. He even made room for his imaginary friend to sleep next to him on his jailhouse cot. Zulu chiefs demanded to be present at his hanging to ensure that the evil spirit would not save him from death. According to local legend, Msomi may one day return as a tokoloshe himself. After the execution, Zulu Chief Manzo Iwandla breathed relaxedly and reportedly said, “I am satisfied. Tokoloshe did not save him.” The dead body of “Dr.” Msomi was put on display in a small village to reassure the restless natives that he would never escape again.

 

Jake Bird:

On October 30 1947, a 45- year-old transient breaks into the home of Bertha Kludt and her daughter, Beverly June Kludt. Tacoma police officers Andrew P. Sabutis, and Evan “Skip” Davies, we’re dispatched to investigate reports of screaming. A barefoot man ran out of the back door into the backyard. The man captured by Officers Sabutis and Davies was identified as Jake Bird. He had a lengthy criminal record including burglaries, assaults, attempted murder, and murder.

When police officers entered the residence, they found Bertha Kludt, age 52, dead in her bedroom, and the body of her daughter, Beverly June Kludt, on the kitchen floor. Both women had been bludgeoned to death with an axe, which had been left at the crime scene.

Bird’s trial was a speedy one, given that the Kludt women’s blood and brain matter were splattered all over his clothes when he was apprehended. He put up a “surprised burglar” defense in order to avoid the death penalty but was unsuccessful. But through eerie coincidence or something more metaphysical, Bird got his revenge. When asked for any final remarks at trial, Bird said “All you guys who had anything to do with this case are going to die before I do.”

In all, six people associated with the trial dropped dead before Bird was hanged two years later, including the judge, police investigator, his defense attorney, and even the court reporter. While on death row – perhaps getting a big head in the wake of his newly unleashed “Jake Bird Hex” – Bird went on to claim responsibility for 44 murders across the country. He was hanged at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla on July 15, 1949.

 

Lizzie Borden:

On the morning of August 4, 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were murdered and mutilated in their Fall River home. Lizzie Borden alerted the maid, Bridget, to her father’s dead body. He had been attacked and killed while sleeping on the sofa. A search if the home led to the discovery of the body of Abby Borden in an upstairs bedroom. Like her husband, Abby was the victim of a brutal hatchet attack. In the basement police found two hatchets, two axes, and a hatchet – head with a broken handle. The hatchet – head was suspected of being the murder weapon.

The coroner confirmed that Abby was killed first, by 19 blows. Andrew received even fewer wounds, but the 10 or 11 that finished him off were quite gruesome, focused mainly on the head and completely destroying the face. The victims heads were removed during autopsy. The skulls were used as evidence during the trial – and Borden fainted upon seeing them. The heads were later buried at the foot of each grave.

Lizzie was arrested and tried for the axe murders. She was acquitted in 1893 and continued to live in Fall River until her death on June 1, 1927. Lizzie and her sister, Emma, neither of whom had ever married, we’re buried side by side in the family plot in Oak Grove Cemetery, Massachusetts.

And so our axe murder reminiscing comes to an end. Some tips to avoid your demise by the welding of an axe – never date a butcher, never get a cook mad in the kitchen, never come between someone and their “imaginary friend,” and finally don’t lose your head over family squabbles.