Episode 2: Greg Paramor AO — Shareholders First, Staff Second, Yourself Third

This is exactly right. I'm Jake Brenn and on the Discretsland Podcast, I explore the wild lives of rock stars in unbelievable true crime stories from music history. These are the stories you haven't heard. The kind you'll end up telling someone else. Like the time Paul McCartney spent in a notorious prison or the bizarre crime Lady Gaga's Rusta, where that time blondie's Debbie Harry escaped Ted Bunny. Listen to Discretsland on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you give your podcast. It's Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. This season we've got some awesome guests ready to dole out advice, guests like Tiffany Haddish. Kind of slide into people's DMs. I like Bumble. Also girl farmers only die kind. Like at states, sales, funerals, options are usually good. There's a lot of good men there, grocery stores near gyms. Darcy Cardin, Sheri Oteri, Anna Ferris, Dave Franco, Madeline Klein, Adam Scott, T.S. Madison and more. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, it's me, Anacin Field, the host of the Girlfriends. I'm back with more one-off interviews with some truly kick-ass women on the Girlfriends Spotlight. I'm going to climb this. It's badness, hereditary. Let's see how we can stop killing. I'm not too intimidated by her. What are you talking about? Listen to the Girlfriends Spotlight on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Kate Winkler-Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the last 25 years writing about True Crime. And I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator who's worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them. Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling True Crimes. And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries. Together using our individual expertise, we're examining historical True Crime cases through a 21st century lens. Some are solved and some are cold. Very cold. This is Bairied Bones. Hey Kate, how are you? I'm fine. What do you think of this mess we're in? I mean, just axes and meat cleavers and everything under the sun. I can't keep track. Yeah, well, it is hard, because there's a lot of details. There's a lot of cases. And they're spread out over eight years. So trying to keep them straight, you almost have to set up like an Excel spreadsheet. And check boxes of the various characteristics each case has. So you can see which ones fall into the same pattern and which ones are falling outside that pattern. Well, if you've just joining us, that was probably not a good idea. You need to go back at least one episode, maybe two, to the cleaver murders too. I mean, we are going back very far. And we're now going into the assumption that the cleaver and those attacks and murders that happened around 1910, at least some of what we're talking about now with the Axeman of New Orleans are connected. It's the same guy, a few of these, you know, or more of the 1918-1919 are the same guy as 1910. Yeah, I think there's one case that I would characterize as having high confidence from the 1918 timeframe going back. I think that is Joseph and Catherine Maggio is what you were thinking of. No, it was the last case where now you have another Italian grocery store, mail being attacked, vendor breaking into the house. You know, there's where it's like, okay, this is definitely got characteristics from cases that were six years prior. And so that's the one where the working, the newer cases, you have to look back at those older cases that where there's so much overlap. We do have a few cases where I'm like, they could be related, but I don't have as much confidence. And so that's just where now law enforcement, the investigators, have to kind of really focus their resources. And of course, they have to, they have an active public safety threat. They have a serial offender potentially that has resurrected himself after six years. And he likely is going to kill more. And so they have to focus in on these active cases. But the cold cases from the Cleaver series, that they may have a clue as to who your current offender is. So you have to be able to parse out your resources to kind of look at both angles to be the most effective in your investigation. Yeah, because I feel like we had some red herrings in here. We had, you know, Lewis Busomer, who ultimately kills his girlfriend. You've got Ed Schneider, the Polish grocer, no signs of forced entry. I mean, there's the mail is not attacked. There's all kinds of stuff happening that is not consistent. But then we have Joseph Romano, the guy at the end who's the barber. And, you know, he has died also. And so there's a very, now what's interesting about Joseph Romano is the grocery store in that case. Remember, it's the two sisters, their teenagers. And they run this little grocery store out of the front of their apartment. Right. And Joseph is their uncle versus Joseph and Catherine Maggio, who have a grocery store also. And they're both murdered. And that was the ominous chalk note. So at some point, we should circle back to that too. Once we hear more about these cases. But that is also important. Yeah. Is that if that is truly from the offender, he is pointing and saying, I'm back. He's put that taunt out there. Now, of course, there's a possibility. This could just be, you know, some crazy out there who's deciding to, you know, mess around with the public as well as law enforcement. But if it's truly from him, that chalk message, he is wanting everybody to know, I'm back. And I'm going to start killing again. That chalk message, I believe, was found that night slash that morning of when that attack happened. So it would have been before anybody had heard about it or anything like that. Then that just increases the confidence that he is the one, the killer is the one that wrote that message. Yeah. Well, the police have their hands full because we might have red herrings here, we might have real attacks here. But the ax man of New Orleans is a case that I have heard about for years. I would say as far as like a case of history, probably the most notorious case coming out of New Orleans and a really interesting case. But it is overwhelming. And so hopefully you and I can dig through this stuff. Sure. You're poor. Notepad. I've never seen that many pages out of it before. It is thinning out rapidly. Okay. So let's go back. Now we're in 1919. So we're officially nine years in it eight and a half nine years in from the cleaver. And this is March 9th of 1919. Now this is where things start to change a little bit. What I had said to you before was when Joseph Romano in the last episode died. It was August 10th, 1918. Now we're at March. So that is what four seven months something like that. Okay. But we're across the river when this happens coming up. Is that the Mississippi that goes out of New Orleans? Very good. Very good. Paul. Yep. You're absolved of any other mistake you make. Now spell it. Right. Okay. So offenders do travel. Okay. They can travel great distances. This is all six miles. This is just because it's in a different part of the city is that is not a data point that you can use to you know eliminate or even include. You know it as part of the series. Okay. This is in Gretna, which I've never been to before. Across the river like I said about six miles away. And you've got two women who are going into a grocery store in Gretna. And it's an Italian grocery store owned by the Quartimilas. And they go in. It's very quiet. And that they walk into the living quarters because just nobody's answering. And they see that the house has been ransacked. Okay. So there are clothes and papers littered across the floor. Nothing has been stolen. There's a $129, which is $2,500 today laying out. There's jewelry. There's a loaded revolver. Everybody has revolvers. Yeah. In New Orleans in this time period or in Louisiana probably smartly so. It's loaded and it's untouched. It's in clear view. So nobody's stealing that. There is blood around the bedroom when they finally enter the bedroom. There are blood pools on the floor. And here is the couple. So this is Vincenzo. He goes by Charlie and his wife rose. and their bodies are draped over a blood-soaked bed. One of them will survive the other one won't. Charlie's lower body is on the floor, his torso is slumped over the bed, and there are two severe wounds on the back of his head, skull fractures. His brain is exposed and swollen. It pushes through the bone, like mud through the slats of a chicken crate. You only get that. - Don't get caught. - I'm gonna fork it, we see it, I think. - Fort Texas. - Well. - Rosie suffers from several slices on the left side of her head and on her left ear. Her skull is fractured and depressed, bone pushes into her brain, two pieces of skull lie on the couple's pillow. And here's the most important point. They have a two-year-old toddler named Mary, and she is dead and lying between them. The back of her neck had been hacked with an axe. So that's new. - Do you know, did the couple normally sleep with their child? - I believe so. - Okay. So he's attacking all three victims in one location inside the house. Charlie, with his torso up on the bed and his legs off the bed, then he's got blows to the back of his head. I'm envisioning, 'cause I have, believe it or not, a series of cases, in 1970s and 1980s, I actually did a TV show on this, these the series of cases in which men were specifically targeted in hotel rooms. And in one case, the man was obviously put into a kneeling position next to the bed and then hatcheted to death. And so I'm envisioning kind of a similar thing happening to Charlie. Now it's possible, maybe he's sleeping and he's being hatcheted and now the offender is moving his body in order to get access to the other victims. But I'm also wondering, was Charlie executed? - Well, let me give you some more information. - Okay. - One of the women alerts the neighbor. He's a 65 year old, he's a grocer also, named Yolando Giordano, good name. When this guy arrives, the couple still alive, but they're going in and out of consciousness. And after he wipes the blood off of their faces, he races to find a doctor. In the meantime, there's a crowd that's gathered. People notice that a panel on the back door has been chiseled out. They find an ax under the house and blood in here stick to the blade. - Jim. - So this is kind of an odd part, I don't know if this is Gretna and the way things are handled there, but there is a guy named Mani, he calls the police, the charity hospital does not send an ambulance to Gretna. So the crowd decides to take down the bathroom door and use it as a stretcher. And using this ax with the blood on it, they dislodge the door from its hinges, so they take the murder weapon. (laughs) Okay. - Yeah, it's obviously it's less than ideal, but this is where preservation of life takes priority. And so they're just doing what they think is right, and I couldn't fault them for that. I even though you probably could have found something different to use, but that's fine. - Rosie and Charlie get to the hospital and a doctor performs an operation on Rosie to relieve the pressure caused by the skull fracture. He thinks they're both gonna die, Rosie and Charlie, they don't. - Okay. - So Charlie regains consciousness and the police ask a pretty specific question. They say, "Do you think that this burglar, "this guy named Charles Anderson is the attacker?" And this is a career burglar in Gretna. He said no because Charlie says the guy who attacked us was white and Charles is black. - Okay. - And so they're kind of already throwing out, you know, it sounds like they're trying to railroad some people. They are hoping that Rosie will gain consciousness and give some more information to but she hasn't. So they have to move on quickly because back in New Orleans about less than two weeks later, there is a letter sent to the TimesPick-You newspaper. And it is allegedly from the X-Men from Hell in it the writer threatens to continue terrorizing the people of New Orleans unless they start to listen to jazz music. - I love jazz but I mean, that's a weird pick. - Okay. - So now listen to this. There's a guy named Joseph John DeVilla who wrote a song called the X-Man's Jazz, Don't Scare Me Papa. And they think that they wrote this letter to drum up interest in his song. Might not be the case either, but this is a part of the legacy that's lived on to the serial killer who love jazz. - Yeah, well and it's also what kind of confidence can you have that the actual killer wrote this letter? - Yeah. - Yeah, this is where, okay, what are the details provided in the letter where he's proving he's the killer? It doesn't sound like he's giving any details on that front. So it's-- - It does the right. - Yeah, yeah. And so this is potentially just somebody who's wanting to insert themselves into the investigation. Of course we would go after it with finger print processing and tinted writing, can we source any aspects of the paper or the ink, anything that would give us a clue. But the reality is, right now I can't put any weight that this letter is from the killer. - Okay. Well, Rosie wakes up and she has a pretty specific accusation and it's not against this man, Charles Anderson, or her husband. She says that she believes that it was the killer of their neighbor. So you remember I told you about the guy, your londo, he's the grocer next door. So she's in the hospital for five days she wakes up and she says that she and the family have been attacked by the neighbor, you know, who is your londo, the grocer. He's the one that came and called the police initially. He has an 18 year old son named Frank. Rosie says they broke into the grocery store around three o'clock that morning and she knows this for sure. Now Charlie, the husband said she's lying. They are not the ones who did this. And the police don't really believe it either. They say that your londo is an older guy. They don't think he would have the strength to commit a brutal assault. We both know that that would not be the case. His son was there and he's 18, he's six foot tall and weighs 275. He could have done it, but they say he's so big that he wouldn't have been able to fit through the hole in the panel of the back door. Of course, the first thing I thought of was the dad went in and then unlock the door. I think they think that your londo is so frail that he wouldn't have made it through. There's nobody available to make it through this door. - Right. My concerns about Rosie's statement, she suffered major traumatic brain injury. There are, like I've got a victim who survived, but she was bludgeoned to basically to death, but she happened to survive. She has absolutely no recollection of who attacked her, what happened to her. And so with Rosie, who she's unconscious for such a long period of time with the brain swelling, the fracture, these acts injuries to her head. It's like, I don't think she's necessarily lying. She just maybe, her brain just may not be remembering things, right? - But these two people, if that's the case, could be completely real-rooted by this woman's memory. She knows both of them, so she can positively identify them. And so there, as with many investigations that happened in the 1900s, you're going off of witness statements and that's it. - So that's the tough thing. And then what would be the motive of Orlando and his son? Again, there's some boxes being checked in this case with. - Chiseledor, Daniel. - Chiseledor, this is also another Italian grocery store. If the male is actually being executed, that's interesting. Now this offender is just killing everybody in this bed. The fact that the toddler was killed, even though that's different than the previous cases, that really doesn't give me pause about whether or not this is the same guy. There's enough overlap here. This is also going back to the case that we just talked about. That's similar, and that's with. - The two boys. - Right. And then as well as the cleaver cases. - Yeah, absolutely. And also what I was thinking when they were saying the two-year-old girl, if she's lying in between them, she's crying and he's just trying to, unfortunately, dispatch her to stop the crying. I don't think it's part of his fantasy or whatever. I know it's not fantasy, but his drive to kill people, nothing's stolen. - Yeah, but there is now with what I think is a sufficient pattern over the course of years. This offender does have an internal compulsion to commit this type of crime. And there may be not necessarily a sexual fantasy associated with this, but this is something that he is feeling keen. needs to do. He's ransacking. He's throwing clothes and other items around the house, but not taking anything. This is kind of a weird thing that some of these offenders will do. In many ways, it's sort of like a fetish burglary where now, you know, guys will go in to women's undergarment drawers and just start tossing stuff all over the house. You're laying things out on the bed. This guy doesn't appear to be focused on female undergarments. He's doing is the same action, though. It's not just focused on the female. He's focused on the possessions of the victims and is just kind of ransacking the house. And so he's got an odd behavior that seems to be showing up several times now. I also think it's important that Charlie, he's struck a couple of times in the back of the head. But you don't have the offender continuing to strike Charlie over and over and over again to ensure he's dead. He's thinking, "Well, I've hit him sufficiently with an axe. He's got to be dead." And Charlie unsubservived and the same thing with Rosie. So this offender is not doing this overkill style of crime. I'm Jake Brennan and on my podcast, The Scraceland, I tell the stories behind music's biggest names, the moments that shaped them, haunted them, and changed music history forever. Like how the story of the Foo Fighters and Dave Grohl isn't just about music. Imagine that. You're in the biggest band on the planet as Dave Grohl was in 1994 in Nirvana. In the phone rings, and you learn that you're singer, your friend, the reluctant voice of a generation, Kurt Cobain, is dead. This is a story of fame, pressure, friendship, and the weight of fulfilling your destiny. Learn more about the moment, everything changed. The Scraceland is part of the exactly right network. Listen to new episodes every Tuesday, bonus episodes Thursday, and rewinds on Sunday on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season we've got some awesome guests ready to dole out advice. Guests like Tiffany Haddish. I like Bumble. Also, Girl Farmers Only.com. Like, at states, sales, fue and aros, auctions are usually good. There's a lot of good men near grocery stores near gyms. Darcy Cardin. Remember being like, I know this is good advice, but like, I really don't want to do that. So you didn't take her advice. I didn't take her advice. Are you still friends with that woman? No. She actually was kind of toxic. Neil deGrasse Tyson. I spent my whole life looking up. I was a geek kid. I had a telescope at age 12. And so. So you didn't have sex for a long time. Sherry O'Terry. Were you a soap opera person? Young and restless. Okay. Well, first of all, you should know it's the young and the restless. I can't even believe you're mispronounce a guitar. Some of us abbreviated because we've been so weird. T.S. Madison. Are you a Tupali? No. No, I don't think so. I could have told you. No. I'm not. Okay. It's a Polly. Just based on what she's wearing and the way her hair is styled. She was not in the Polly. Okay. On a Ferris, Dave Franco, Madeline Klein, Hannah Gadsby, Adam Scott, Juan de Sykes, and more. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, it's me, Anacinfield from The Girlfriends. The number one hit true crime show that puts women right in the center of their own stories. I want to introduce you to Sylvia. And then there's Fisaka. Let's see how we can stop killing and save lives. Layla dared to ask the question, is badness hereditary? And finally, we'll meet Rosamond. If it wasn't for the year where Ella lived, she wouldn't have died on that fate or night. You'll even get to meet my mum in that one, who I can always count on to keep my feet on the ground. Listen to The Girlfriends Spotlight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. These timelines are so intertwined that it's hard to know what to pull out and kind of wrap up. But I want to wrap up Charlie and Rosie's story here. Even though it stretches out, I would have to say quite a bit. So with their story, she accused your landowner and the son. You know, Charlie had said she's lying. That's not what happened. And your landowner and his son ended up getting arrested and indicted. And this is totally based on Rosie's accusations. So they are indicted on May 5th. The trial is on the 19th. It's a five-day trial. There is a 45-minute deliberation both her film guilty. Oh well. Frank the 18-year-old issonance to death by hanging. And your landowner issonance to life in prison. All based on Rosie who might be lying or might be suffering from such a bad head trauma that she simply doesn't remember. Sure. And I predict to that there's going to be another case after the arrest of your landowner in Frank. There are and a little bit of a revelation because there are other attacks. I'll tell you about in a little bit. Nobody trusts the New Orleans police department anymore. And they look at the people in New Orleans and the media look at your landowner and his son and say, are these the actual the right people, the right men? So a year later, Charlie and Rosie's business falls apart. And she ends up having to turn to sex work because Charlie divorces her. And then in 1920, she admits that she accused them on purpose because they were arrival to them. They were, you know, grocery store, another grocery store. Oh well. I think you're right. You still can't take out the component of the brain injury part of this, but she saw an opportunity and she took it with having brain surgery and I mean, yeah, that's unreal to me. You know, time has passed. You know, is it possible that, her brain has healed up enough where now she's going, oh, I shouldn't have said that or, you know, I didn't mean to say that. You know, something may have been happening with her brain. But yeah, that, I mean, on one hand, she's, I mean, she's been brutally attacked. And I imagine that there were some loss of function, you know, both mentally as well as maybe physically as a result of this type of attack. So absolute, terrific experience for her. But man, to, you know, accused two innocent people who are, I mean, 18 year old, a sentence to death. Yeah. Yeah. Come on. Yeah. So that's, I'm just, I guess, happy to hear that she came clean. And now, as I'm predicting is that there's probably more similar crimes that occurred after Rosie and Charlie were attacked. Yes. Except now I'm going to take a little detour to clean up one more final story. Okay. That was sort of a ruse for us a little red herring, which is the story of, you know, Lewis, a bestima and his girlfriend who ends up dying. So he's the creepy Polish guy that the police say, is he a spy or not? What's happening with him? So he goes on trial. He was in jail for nine months awaiting trial. And he is on trial for killing Harriet, the girlfriend. So this is a two day trial. And this is what's interesting. I think the prosecution is really homing in on, you know, Lewis has really targeted Harriet, it's domestic violence. But what the defense does is says, doesn't it make more sense that Harriet was the victim of the ax man? And can't you see that since she threw Lewis into jail that the ax man has continued to attack people, here go. Lewis is not the one who attacked his girlfriend. It was the ax man. And you can't tie him to being the ax man. They also say Harriet first blamed a man of mixed race. And you know, she had brain damage. She was having all kinds of health issues. And so she made a mistake. And there is a 10 minute deliberation and he is acquitted. Wow. So well, I think the defense did their job. Oh yeah, absolutely. A good job. Right. And you know, if I'm if I'm right and that Lewis staged this to make it look like, you know, these, this ax man that everybody in the press is reading about, then he pulled it off. You did. That's where you know, today that there's probably still a question as to whether Lewis was a true victim or Lewis was an abuser that took advantage of the types of crimes that were being committed to stage it because he wanted to get rid of Harriet. So he has a gash made by a hatchet that splits the area just above his right eyebrow, but that's it. She's the one who's got the major injuries, right? Right. So, and we talked about you said that he would hit himself. So, yeah, I think Louis got away with murder here. No, I think so. I mean, that's incredible. I think that's the last sort of weird thing that hasn't been tied up. I haven't heard anything else about Ed Schneider and his wife who gave birth later on to a healthy daughter, you know, and I know that we've have some real squishy cases here, but I'm just trying to wrap everything up so we can kind of not be distracted because a lot of these are distractions and they were for the police and that's the problem. Right. Yeah. Okay. So, we think now that we've taken your Lando and Frank out of this and they were released, they are not the ones who attacked Rosie and Charlie, but somebody did. And it sounds to you like the MO of the Axeman, even though it's across the river. Yes. Okay. Good. Not good for them, but good. Okay. So, now we're going to talk about another incident that happened except maybe not. So this is, I know. So this is a little confusing. So you have to hang with me on this. There is a case, listen three months later, it's in August, there's a guy named Frank Genusa and he says he woke up to someone furiously pounding on his door to his neighbor. His neighbor's name is Steve Boka and he's standing outside. There's blood pouring from his cracked open head. He passes out and then when the police examines Steve's house, they find a panel that's missing from the back door and there's acts as discarded in the kitchen. And so, you know, he is not an Italian grocer, but this is a story that's been passed around so often and is also on the internet that when you finally have an author like Miriam Davis take a look at it, she said it, I think it's all fake. She said there is not one New Orleans newspaper carrying an account of this happening. They cannot find even a Steve or a Stephen or anyone Boka with that last name is not even listed in the New Orleans city directory. So okay, so where then how is this case known? It's floated around as rumors and then I think certainly it's on the internet and it's just been part of a fake case, you know, not even what she's saying as there is no record of these people at all that she could find. But she's saying I think this was just part of people gining up more interest in the Axeman case because it's so legendary. Yeah, well, you know, I have to I think trust, you know, the authors diligence in terms of trying to track this down. I mean, there's plenty of cases that never get any type of press, right? You know, and so that's where, you know, what did was the law enforcement respond? Is it was there a log book that would possibly, you know, show this? You know, he basically and in 80 W or it's all with the deadly weapon. Yeah. You know, but it may not have been something that law enforcement really, you know, put a ton of effort into and may not have even related it to, you know, the Axeman murder. Yeah. And he could have been a railway worker. It, I mean, it doesn't mean this guy didn't exist. It just means she couldn't find him living in New Orleans. Yeah. And it's such a vague story. And I hesitated to even include it except that I think it's important that this story has been included in some accounts and it just adds to it. I mean, the, this is a long list of things that that people say you have this wild man, you know, killing people over a decade long period. And it's just part, it's just adds to the lore of it. You know, like with Jack the Ripper, they talk about the canonical victims versus victims that people think happened, but, you know, we're murdered before and after and what connects them and all of that. And it just, this is Jack the Ripper for the South as far as I'm concerned. Yep. And, you know, so it's, this is more lore than anything. I think so. I mean, as of now, and I think she has sort of the definitive book on this case, but I thought that was interesting. Okay. We do have what sounds like a real victim here. So this is September 3rd of 1919. The case against Charlie and Rosie happened in March. Is it six months later? Yes. Six months later, around 330 in the morning, there's a 19 year old named Sarah Laman and she wakes up to a man of medium build standing over her bed. So this is specific. She says he's about 26 years old and has a dark complexion. He's wearing a cap, a dark coat, a striped shirt and dark pants. He hits her with a blunt object behind her right ear and then he runs out on his way. He steals an axe from the backyard shed. And then the next day, they find an axe in the backyard of a nearby school. They are not sure then, Nora, do I think I would say Miriam Davis is not sure now that she was a victim of the axe man. They don't know what this blunt object is. He steals an axe. I mean, who knows what any of that is about. Yeah. This is just too sparse. Yeah. It is. How many conclusions do this? Yeah. I mean, that's part of this, right? I mean, when you were dealing with the Golden State Killer case, just like with any major case, you're getting people, you're getting incidents and you're getting people and it just gums everything up. And so the Nourle, and they already have a lot of problems to begin with. There's a lot of crime. But now they're going to keep coming distracted. But this is just another case that goes in as a maybe who knows. You know, why is this offender not doing what he did in the other cases if it's the axe man? I see just titting her on the head and running out right away. So I can't put any weight on that at all. In 26 years old, I mean, that just sounds bizarre. Who would pin it like that? Well, is she just making it up? I mean, I would have a hard time. I have a really hard time with ages. Oh, I mean, I thought you were like 31 for a really long time, but you're. Oh, yeah. Just give me a break. I can generally hit a decade sort of, but there are definitely. I just 26 seems odd. And this is specific and it sounds very much. I mean, without the Slouch Hat mentioned, this sounds like two or three other well publicized descriptions of this guy. I don't know what the motivation would be though. Attention seeking. I mean, how awful. It's just like Rosie. It brings out really bad things in people. Lewis too, you know, just like that being able to pin it on like the people who either committed murder or chose to disappear on September 11th because of all the chaos that was having gone away with it. So there is another attack October 27th. So we think that Rosie and Charlie were actually attacked by the Axeman potentially and that was in March. So there is another Italian grocer. You have a woman named Esther Papitani, she's woken up by the sounds of her husband's calls for help. This is about 120 in the morning. And Mike has been bludgeoned over the head with an iron bar. There's blood all over the place. It reaches eight to ten feet high. His skull is fractured twice on the left side and one time on the right side. And they said he's been beaten to a pulp on his face. There is a 14 inch iron bar with a three inch iron nut that's sitting on a table nearby. Nothing stolen. Esther says it was two guys, two male attackers, one is tall and thin, the other one is short and stalky, and then Mike dies two hours later. So the superintendent looks into Mike's past and he comes to suspect that this is not another victim of the Axeman because he said the murder might have been carried out to avenge the death of Paul D. Christina who Mike's father murdered in 1910. Does that sound more like that? It's a grosser still. Sure, but now you have this makeshift bludgeoning weapon, possibly two men coming in, targeting Mike. That's kind of getting into the case with the black hand society to where the guys come into the house and specifically shoot to the male. So this looks like a targeted attack. Right now I would just say that is not causing me to have any pause saying I don't think that's related. This sounds more of this vindictive style attack, which initially I thought possibly like the cleaver, that's what he was initially doing is he's going after the males. But as the pattern has developed, there's definitely more of an internal compulsion that the Axeman/Cleaver has in committing the types of crime. And when you have something like that, it's going to be a little bit more consistent in terms of what he's doing versus this is so inconsistent outside they go in and target the mail, but that's how many, many cases are, right? Absolutely. But this is again, this is the need of a lot of people to attribute this to a serial killer. You know what I mean? That builds up that book sales, the newspaper, really, the newspaper sales and the 1900s and all of that. Yeah, and that could be what's going on in terms of trying to link it. But right now, I'm just not impressed with the details on this case to say, I think this is the X-man. Well, listen, now you've got kind of a decision to make because that case, whatever you want to call it, which would be, I guess we'll go back to Rosie's case in February of 1920. So after that attack, which we think was from the Axmer right, there are no more attacks that can be definitively attributed to the X-man in New Orleans. Okay. Now there's stuff out of state, which could be interesting. But this is kind of the end of the road. And what it left me thinking was that the cleaver cases that we talked about, you know, starting in 1910, to me seemed so clear and they were happening, felt like one after the other. And so, but what the famous set of cases, the X-man, I was pretty overwhelmed with any evidence that maybe except one or two were connected and that was it. I don't know. Well, at least with, you know, what I'm remembering on the cases during this X-man era, I'm not sure, I think they have overlinked cases. And I'm more focused in on the cases that share the characteristics with the cleaver cases. Right. And I'm thinking that sounds like one offender attacking, having a pause, you know, that we know of. Now, does he move out of state and come back in? Does he go into custody? He's a burglar. Does he get popped for burglary and then does a few years and then is released and then he starts killing again. And they don't recognize that he's actually the serial offender. That's killing people. So who knows what's going on there. But, you know, I now that, you know, this infamous X-man murderer case that I've never heard of before, I'm going, you know what? It sounds like you've blown that case up bigger than what it really is. Yeah. Because if we really look at you, look at the end of what I was telling you at the end of the cleaver episode. And you've got that family, that seemed definitely connected. The two boys, one was kind of pistol whipped and the other one, it sounds like was attacked the NACs. Then you've got five months later, you've got Joseph and Catherine Maggio, both of them died. They were grocers, forced entry, you know, there's a lot, the bloody clothes in the corner, all of that kind of stuff. So that was 1918, right? So there's a six year gap between the cleaver and the two boys being attacked. Then you've got the boys, then you've got five months, and then you've got Maggio. After that, we have the Polish Grocer Lewis, who we know, that was not part of it. He was guilty. You've then got the Schneiders, which we said was a little odd because it's Ed Schneider walking into his house and finding his wife. And she never accuses him of anything. Then we've got a grocery store in Gretna. And we had talked about that. That's Charlie and Rosie. Okay, so, you know, that's in 1919. So do we think that that's like kind of our third in the Axeman series, the two boys, then the Magios with the chalk writing, and then Rosie, who accuses the neighbor, but it sounds like they were really victims of the Axeman. Right. And so we got three out of the cleaver era, and then three out of the Axeman era that appear to have characteristics that kind of almost, you have to span that that gap in time. But I think those characteristics do kind of overlap to where you go. Yeah, I think it's the same offender. He just has two different monocurs because he's got that gap. And we also have Joseph Romano. Oh, that's right. There's another one that you thought sounded pretty similar also. Yes, windows open. Yeah, all of that. Yeah. Okay, so we've got that this four. And we're dismissing a couple of them. Now we're down to the fake. We think the false incident in general, the made up people, but we aren't 100% sure. And then we have Sarah Laumann, who wakes up and we think that that's not connected either. There's not enough there. Maybe she's telling the truth. Maybe she's making it up. And this last case from 1919, where we think actually this guy was executed because his father killed someone. Yeah. I'm Jake Brennan, and on my podcast, Discrease Land, I tell the stories behind music's biggest names, the moments, rumors, and real life events that help shape their legacy. Like the story behind Sonic Youth that starts with downtown New York, cool and ends with album art inspired by a true crime. Sonic Youth was not fronted by a groupie hustling alpha like David Lee Roth. No, Sonic Youth's thirst and more was an artist in love with a fellow artist who just happened to play bass in the same band with him and his other artist friends. Her name was Kim Gordon and thirst and in Kim, where every bit is cool as the couple on the cover of Goop. The same couple involved in one of the UK's darkest true crimes. Discrease Land is part of the exactly right network. Listen to new episodes every Tuesday, bonus episodes Thursday and rewinds on Sunday on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. It's Chelsea handler from Dear Chelsea this season. We've got some awesome guests ready to dole out advice guests like Tiffany hadish kind of slide into people's DMs. I like Bumble also girl farmers only dot com like that stays sales, few in the rose options are usually good. There's a lot of good men there grossed the resource near gyms Darcy Cardin. I remember being like I know this is good advice, but like I really don't want to do that. No, she actually was kind of toxic. Neil to grass Tyson. I was a geek kid. And so you didn't have sex for a long time. Sherry O Terry were you a soap opera person young and restless. Okay. I can't even believe you're mispronouncing it. Some of us abbreviated because we've been so much. T.S. Madison. Are you into Polly? No, no, I don't think so. I could have told you no. I'm not. Girl, it's a Polly just based on what she's wearing and the way her hairstyle. She was not in a poly. On a Ferris, Dave Franco, Madeline Klein, Hannah Gadsby, Adam Scott, Wanda Sykes, and more. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the I Heart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. There was no anything inside those eyes. They turned black. It scared the hell out of me. Evil wake up and the woman saw the murder take place by creamette and the pippo. Anthony de Pippo showed no signs of remorse appearing unfazed after being sentenced to the maximum. I said, I'm not guilty. I'll take it to the grave. Listen to the devil's quarry and the bone valley feed on the I Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, now we'll talk about cases that were not in New Orleans proper and not particularly close to New Orleans just to see what you think. Okay, we have three attacks in other Louisiana cities. But at the time, no one is connecting these murders to the New Orleans acts man. And this is because superintendent Mooney, who has been driving this whole thing for years steps down. Just as these assaults get underway, I was thinking about that when I was reading this this bit, the institutional knowledge that people hold. Is it really just one person retiring? It would be one person retiring or moving on to something else. And then there's no one there's no personal motivation driving it from other cops because they're dealing with more clear and present danger. Right. I took a lot of institutional knowledge with me when I retired. What can you do about that? Do cops do that now? I mean, would they keep files to pass on to people or what happened? Almost certainly. Well, there's always files that are passed down. Like for me, I just had over decades the drive to keep compiling information on all these unsolved cases. Nobody else in my county has done it to the level that I did. And there's just no way for me to just digitize everything. I gave it to investigations, gave it to the crime analysts. Here you go. And then it just sits on a computer. And then there's others that are trying to work some of these cases. But I frequently will get called by individuals from the police. my old department or my from other agencies within my jurisdiction saying, "Hey, do you remember anything about this case?" Yeah, I was like, "Yeah, let's chat." It's disturbing to think how many cases could be solved if more people were diligent about that, you know? Well, yeah. When you start talking about older, unsolved cases and law enforcement is, their focus is going to be the current public safety situation. You know, oftentimes they can't justify the manpower, the resources, the budget to going after an older case where that offender likely is no longer offending in the jurisdiction. Do you remember the case that we talked about out of Missouri? I'm sure you don't. This was a long time ago. And it was a woman who was sexually assaulted and attacked. Maybe four blocks, maybe four, actually, I think it was four houses away from where she lived. And it was in the daylight and somebody dragged her back behind the house and killed her. And there was a police chief who had investigated and dug into it. And he was sort of, he was a black man and made history because of it. He had investigated and investigated. And when he finally retired, the cop took over for him and he sent the man, you know, who moved back to St. Louis, I think, sent a message to the cop and said, "You should come see me because, you know, I know who did this. I finally figured it out and he gets through and the guy's dead." Oh, wow. I mean, a heart attack, nothing, you know, no suicide or anything. And then his daughter said, "He never wrote anything down." And I just thought, "Oh, my God, because this case was such a big case." Sure. So that would be a bad, that's like a nightmare for a lot of investigators. I'm sure you get there and the guy's already gone and he, you know, all of his notes are in his head. Mm-hmm. I've, you know, plenty of cases I've looked into from over the decades. The original investigators had long time ago passed away. Oh, gosh. Well, let's go back to 1920. So now this will be a, do you think it's connected or not? 200 miles away. Okay. Well, that, the distance does America. It does not, and there's trains and all kinds of stuff. You're right. Okay. December 1920, 200 miles away in Alexandria, Louisiana. There is a woman named Rosa Spirosh wakes up to the sound of a man with an axe who is hitting her husband, Joseph, another one, Spirosh. He's around 1 a.m. And the man who was hitting Joseph's face, he hits his jaw, it's broken, his throat is slit. And before Rosa can scream, he hits her with an axe. And it also comes down on the couple's 20-month-old baby Josephine Spirosh. And like the axon's other victims, the Spirosh are Italian grocers. The attacker took the axe from their backyard, which is a little different. He came through the kitchen window. He stole a butcher's knife from the grocery before he goes into the residence. And when the detectives arrive at the scene, their bedroom is covered in blood. There's a bloody axe that he left behind and a railroad coupling pin is tossed on the bedroom floor. There's a bloody butcher knife that lies on the grocery counter. But $1,700 in the living quarters that is easily seen and he doesn't touch it. And no other valuables are taken. It has hallmarks. Yeah, it does. For sure. You know, offenders do travel. I mean, we know, I mean, we're talking 1920, you know, 200 miles is a distance, but they were frequently going that distance. Yeah, I'm trying to. So, you know, the railroad pin may be a clue. You know, maybe he is a railroad guy. He gets stationed in New Orleans for a period of time. And now, you know, he's crisscrossing whether it be the state of Louisiana or, you know, a certain geographic region working for the railroad. You know, and then when he's at a certain location, you know, or the circumstances are right. He goes out and commits a crime. Well, speaking of railroads, I mean, it's definitely been speculated that maybe this is connected to the main on the train, you know, Bill James and his daughter and the book and the murders that happen, I think are predominantly in the Midwest. It sounds like most people have completely dismissed of these are the same people or that this is the same person who was the main on the train. And, you know, I think about people who accused the servant girl and I later in Austin, Texas of being Jack the Ripper, which is silly. Right. Right. But, you know, I've seen that over and over again. Yeah. Of course. So, yeah, I just want to throw that out there. So, this is a, maybe, I mean, it fits pretty much everything that we're talking about. It's checking the boxes for me. You know, the, you know, he's, he's breaking in. He's attacking with an axe. He, you know, just like in the one case with Rosie and Charlie in which the young toddler was also killed. Here, you have another child, a young child that's also being killed. You know, the use of a railroad pin. You know, it's like, this is some pretty specific sets of circumstances where I would be, you know, if I'm the New Orleans investigator or a vice versa, you know, I'd be calling up saying, let's share information. You know, I think your guy might be my guy. Well, let's move on to 150 miles away now. So this is January of 1921. About a month later, 38 year old Giovanni John Orlando. He is a Sicilian grocer. He's in Derritor, Louisiana. He is bludgeoned to death with an axe, 2 a.m. and Mary Orlando, who is his wife and an 8 year old son named Paul and a 6 year old daughter named Josephine are all wounded, but they survive. The guy broke through a window, got through a window, left a bloody axe in the bedroom, and then left the scene. And those are the only details I know about that case. No, he's breaking in. It appears that he commits the most amount of violence on the male. He's using an axe. He's not afraid. He's not squeamish about using the axe on children at this point in the career. So it's a possibility. We're lacking some of the details, but I would say, "Yeah, this appears to at least have a subset of the characteristics that potentially could be related to the axe murders down in New Orleans." There's one more, and this is in Lake Charles. And this is April 12, 1921. So this is three or four months later. Marlena Scalise is married to a man named Frank Scalise. He is a 35 year old Italian grocer. She wakes up to find him being hacked to death by a short and chunky black man. The axe has been stolen from a neighbor's backyard. Luckily, the blade is blunt and loose. So when the attacker swings to hit her, the head of the axe flies off. He hits the wall. He hits her instead with the handle. And this is also a murder of Frank is one that went unsolved also. That's all we know. That's it. I mean, different description. People are pretty specific about white versus black in this case. Sure. But also Italian grocery store. Association, use of an axe, peers that he's focused on the mail has broken into the house middle of the night. There's, you know, some boxes check the description black male versus white male. You know, do we put much veracity on Marlena's description? It's enough where I'd go. It's in that possibility bin. I don't have high confidence, but I would say, you know, I'd want to know more about that case. And also, you know, there have been quite a few people who said dark complexion. Now they are not saying black. I think there would be a distinction. I thought at first it was more like Italian or, you know, somebody with somebody like that. But it's hard to know. And you remember going back to now I can't remember who said mixed race. Is that Rosie? That was Harriet. Those earlier in the show. It was much earlier. I don't know. That was the last one that was considered to be part of this series if at all that could be attributed in any way. But there's more information, of course. So just kind of give me a wrap up of what you think. What do you think is going on? I mean, are we looking at a period? I think the last one that we sort of said, I don't know. I don't know if you want to include these out of state people when we're out of city people when we're talking about it or. Well, I think most certainly. So maybe just from the very beginning we have the cleaver era by the defender. And I'm pretty confident three or four of those cases have enough overlap where I'll go, yeah, that committed by the same offender. Six years go by and then it appears that during this ax man era, I believe there's three cases in New Orleans that appeared to have enough overlap with the cleaver era where I go, I think this might be the same offender. And then you have several cases outside of New Orleans, but still within the state of Louisiana. And the one that really stands out to me is the Rosa and Joseph case, in which, you know, he's going through a window, he's attacking them with an axe, you have the railroad pin, which is something we saw during the cleaver era. So that one out of out of city, but within New Orleans really kind of stands out as I think the most promising. And so it appears that our offender kind of evolved as he, you know, went through this series, what's happening during the six-year gap as a mystery, whether he's offender during that time and he's out of state and it just hasn't been linked. He's in custody or he just stops because offender's will stop. And then he starts up again during the axeman era and then it appears now he's starting to move around the state. Now it's up because of his occupation, you know, he's on the railroad, you know, riding the rails. And then we don't have anything after this possible last one in April of 1921, which that's a, there's not enough information and she's saying it's a black male. I've seen, I've got a case in which, you know, you have one victim who's actually assaulted, saying it was a black male. Her mom is actually assaulted, saying, "White male, seven-year-old sees same guy who comes in and assaults her and the seven-year-old's going white male." So within the family, I've seen a difference in the racial characteristic of the offender that attacked them and they were intimately, you know, assaulted, sexually assaulted. So that's where it was just based off of that type of experience. Here we have the one case where she's saying it's a black male. I would say it's possible she's just not accurate with that. Right. I will say over the years that the mafia aspect of this pops up again and there are some stories that I don't think can be really verified about whether or not, particularly with the last murders that were in New Orleans with Mike and the avenging of, you know, his father had murdered someone and now he's murdered because of it. But nothing really that can be conclusively tied to any of this and it doesn't really fit, right? I mean, you know, as the series went on, I think a pattern, a more definitive pattern in terms of what type of offender we're looking at emerged. Just after a couple of cases, the idea of, you know, this being a vindictive style homicide against people involved, males involved within the Italian grocery store thing was like, okay, that seems to be something that's just vindictive. I think as the offender committed these crimes, he recognized that, you know, he was getting a certain psychological release. He became composed about doing this. Why he focused in on males associated with Italian grocery stores? Who knows? But he gets to a point where he is now doing this, this random ransacking, non-functional ransacking, if you will. And I'm looking at that is now he is just in this kind of frenzied angst going through and just disrupting his victims personal possessions. And so there's more going on with this offender than I pissed at Italian grocery store men and I'm going to go in and kill him. He's now killing whole families. He's evolved. So it appears that he kind of went down a path. Obviously, he had a lot of issues before even starts attacking. And then as he's attacking, he's recognizing he needs to do that. There is a psychological compulsion to this offender. And so I put, I do not like in this type of attack as being like some sort of mafia hitman going around taking out vengeance because these guys failed to pay their bill or whatever it is. Well, I mean, one last note, the father and son, their Gerjanos, you know, the grocers, they spent two and a half years in prison before they were finally released. You know, Rosie was responsible for that. We know. And Frank's fiance, the 18-year-old said, moved on. She married to one else and the dad died four years later. And so all of this, I mean, what do you lose gets away with murder and who knows what happened with the Schneiders and all of this, what a mess this is connected to a case that you know, most people who are into crime history have heard of it. And it's one of those boogie man stories. And we don't know what happened to him. Die prison, move somewhere else. Yeah, well, you know, this is your worst nightmare. Yeah. You know, he's, he is a Joseph DiAngelo. He's going into your own house, you know, where you should feel the safest. He's going after people who are asleep in the bed, you know, and then hatcheting them or using a meat cleaver or using an axe. And now at the end, he's killing young kids, you know. So this, this is a, this is a serious offender. And it's just too bad to that he wasn't caught. Yeah. And it's possible. He was and they never connected him to these cases down in Louisiana. And I know it's say this often, but I cannot think of anything else the police could have done in this case to figure it out. I mean, especially because the, the crime rate was fairly high in New Orleans to begin with. Yeah. And it's a growing city. And then he moves around and who knows if he's connected to the railroads. They were so handicapped to investigate a case like this, you know, and that's where even, you know, I shouldn't say today, but let's say, you know, get into the 1970s. You know, it was hard. You know, Golden State Killer did over 50 attacks in Northern California alone. And he wasn't caught. And they put a lot of resources to investigating that part of the series. Today, we've got all the electronic stuff. We have the surveillance stuff. Yeah, there's so much now where we can start tracking individuals movements that you think about 1920s? No. You could easily get away with murder and move around and just continue doing what you're doing. Well, I've waited a long time to tell you this case because number one, I knew it was going to be overwhelming. And then number two, the cleaver case thrown in there where, you know, these cases are often told separately. And it's interesting the way you've pulled them both together. And you're looking through that thread. And I know it's stuff that we can learn today. So, well, you know, all I can say is that, I mean, I think there's sufficient information to consider that the cleaver cases and the acts, the bonafide acts man cases are possibly done by the same offender. Obviously, it can't say that with 100% confidence, but I'm going, they need to look at that. Okay. Well, we're going to solve another case next week. Guarantee you. We didn't solve this. Well, but you made some connections. I mean, I really do often read about the acts man case and there's nothing about the cases from 1910 going back. There's nothing. Yeah. And so I just think it was interesting. This is a lot of good information. And it just reminds me of those little clues, the circumstances, the things that are unique about the crimes will really do matter. And you can learn about something from 1910 and I'll teach you about something today. Absolutely. For sure. All right. Next week, something maybe less complicated. Probably not. It'll probably be as complicated. Yeah, but I'm sure you will uncomplicated for me. I'm looking forward to it. We can do it. We can solve it. I know it. All right. Sounds good. Okay. Bye. Bye. This has been an exactly right production. For our sources and show notes, go to exactly right media.com/barriedbones sources. Our senior producer is Alexis Amarosey. Research by Allison Trouble and Kate Winkler Dawson. Our mixing engineer is Ben Tulliday. Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel. Our artwork is by Vanessa Lylac. Executive produced by Karen Kilgarif, Georgia Hard Stark and Daniel Kramer. You can follow buried bones on Instagram and Facebook at Barried Bones Pod. Kate's most recent book All That Is Wicked, a Guilded Age story of murder and the race to decode the criminal mind is available now. And Paul's best-selling memoir Unmassed, My Life Solving America's Cold Cases is also available now. Listen to buried bones on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jake Brenn and on the Discretsland podcast I explore the wild lies of rock stars in unbelievable true crime stories from music history. Like the time Paul McCartney spent in a notorious prison or the bizarre crime Lady Gaga's Accused Up where that time blondies Debbie Harry escaped Ted Bunny. Listen to Discretsland on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. a lot of good, many grocery stores near gyms. Madison and more. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, it's me, Anacinfield, the host of the Girlfriends. Is badness hereditary? (LAUGHS) Listen to The Girlfriends Spotlight on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.