The Axeman of New Orleans
True Crime
1 Episodes
Between 1918 and 1919, an unidentified man moved through the humid nights of New Orleans and attacked Italian-American grocers asleep in the rooms behind their own storefronts. His method never varied: he knelt in the back alley, chiseled the lower panel out of a thin wooden door, crawled through the gap, and took his weapon from the victims' own property — a hatchet from a courtyard bench, an axe from a chopping block — leaving the blade behind on the floor. Joseph and Catherine Maggio were the first, and by March 1919 the attacks had reached the Cortimiglia family in Gretna, where infant Mary was killed and two innocent neighbors were convicted on testimony later recanted. Days after that funeral, a letter arrived at the Times-Picayune from a writer claiming to be the killer, promising to spare any household playing jazz. Narrated from the documented record, the series follows the entries, the borrowed weapons, and a case that ended without a name.
The Axeman of New Orleans
True Crime
1 Episodes
Between 1918 and 1919, an unidentified man moved through the humid nights of New Orleans and attacked Italian-American grocers asleep in the rooms behind their own storefronts. His method never varied: he knelt in the back alley, chiseled the lower panel out of a thin wooden door, crawled through the gap, and took his weapon from the victims' own property — a hatchet from a courtyard bench, an axe from a chopping block — leaving the blade behind on the floor. Joseph and Catherine Maggio were the first, and by March 1919 the attacks had reached the Cortimiglia family in Gretna, where infant Mary was killed and two innocent neighbors were convicted on testimony later recanted. Days after that funeral, a letter arrived at the Times-Picayune from a writer claiming to be the killer, promising to spare any household playing jazz. Narrated from the documented record, the series follows the entries, the borrowed weapons, and a case that ended without a name.
