occasion he kept them on throughout. At first, the gloves were usually made of black leather, but later he wore brown gloves made out of heavy cotton with heavy stitching. Latent fingerprints have been found at the scene of the crimes, but no match has been made.
It is thought he lived in the Sacramento Area between 1976 and 1979, and frequented or lived in Rancho Cordova, possibly near Paseo Drive, up to 1976. He frequented Costa Contra County in 1979, and frequented or lived in Goleta from 1979 to 1980. Possibly he had relatives or friends living there at the time. And he frequented or lived near Ventura County or Orange County in southern California from 1980 to 1986.
As several of the neighbourhoods the suspect targeted had homes on the market or homes recently sold, he is thought to have posed as a realtor, building inspector or prospective home-buyer. He may even had studied plans of the homes where the attacks later took place.
In two cases there were two nearby homes for sale. In another case, there was a development directly opposite the victim’s house. A neighbour of another victim had put his own home up for sale. About two weeks before to the attack, the house was inspected by a prospective purchaser, who said he was transferring from Las Vegas to McClellan Air Force Base. He was described thin, blond and in his twenties with a short haircut and blue eyes. Two signs from an real estate company were in the backyard of another victim. It appeared the house had been shown earlier.
Another victim had recently bought their house. The previous owner said that, while the house was in process of being put on the market, a very unusual realtor called. He paid no attention to the interior of the house, but inspected the south and west exteriors. He asked her where her husband worked and why her daughter was not at home. She said he was extremely well-dressed, with light brown hair, a darker complexion and a medium frame.
In the vicinity of another victim, there were several newly constructed and unsold homes. There was a vacant condominium for lease near another victim’s home. The garage window at this location was opened. Yet another victim had recently moved into their house, which still bore a “SOLD” sign at the time of the attack. A neighbour of another victim had her home on the market. Another victim’s home had just been sold and the victim was planning to join her husband in the Bay Area, where he had already moved. A new home was being constructed next to the home of yet another victim.
The killer was proficient at tying ornate knots and probably engaged in bondage-oriented fantasies with his female sexual partners. He would also have collected violent pornographic material that included bondage.
The killer had access to a large collection of knives and handguns—specifically, .38, .357 Magnum and .45 Calibre handguns. He also had a large collection of flashlights.
It seems that he made a practice of parking his car some way from his intended attack. No licence plate was ever linked to the attacker. Tracker dogs followed his path down the drainage ditches, fields and park areas where he made his escape to a place where one would expect a car to be left.
However, from 1977, it is thought he drove an older VW Bug of a nondescript colour. Seen under different lighting conditions, it was variously reported as dark green, grey or silver blue. It is also thought to have wide wheels and a large, customized rear bumper. While in southern California, he seems to have had access to a white 1970s model Pontiac. A bright yellow, 1952 or 1953 Ford or Chevrolet side-step pick-up was seen parked near the scene of a rape for three days before the attack.
It is also thought that the killer had some law enforcement or military police training, and that he was possibly stationed at McClellan or Mather Air Force Base in the early to mid-1970s. He may have been a student at American River College or California State University at Sacramento in the late 1970s, possibly attending school on the GI Bill. He may have tried to get into University of California, Davis around 1979, and was possibly a student at a college in Santa Barbara or Irvine in the early 1980s.
The Southern Pacific Railroad Axeman
Between January 1911 and April 1912, a homicidal maniac slaughtered 49 victims in the states of Louisiana and Texas. Victims were viciously hacked to death with an axe while they slept. In each case, the dead were mulattoes or black members of families with mulatto members. Both the police and leaders of the African-American communities believed that the perpetrator was a dark-skinned Negro who aimed to purge their mixed-race or “tainted” blood.
The first attack took place in early January 1911, at Rayne, Louisiana, when a mother and her three children were hacked to death in their beds. In February, at Crowley, six miles to the west, all three members of the Byers family were slaughtered in identical fashion. Two weeks later, the scene shifted to Lafayette, 15 miles east of Rayne, where a family of four was massacred in the small hours of the morning.
The murders shifted 400 miles to San Antonio, Texas, where five members of the Cassaway family were butchered by the axe murderer in April. As before, the victims died in their sleep and there was no sign of robbery or other “rational” motive for the crime.
On Sunday 25 November 1911 six members of the Norbert Randall family were butchered in the their beds back in Lafayette. Each had been despatched with a single blow of the axe behind the right ear. The police arrested Clementine Bernabet, a black woman who they suspected was involved in the crime. But while she was in jail throughout the spring of 1912, the carnage continued.
The killer moved back to Crowley again in 19 January 1912, killing a mother and her three children as they slept. Just two days later, 50 miles away at Lake Charles, Louisiana, Felix Broussard, his wife and three children were slain. Again each was killed with a single blow behind the right ear. This time, the killer left a message that read: “When He maketh the inquisition for blood, He forgetteth not the cry of the humble—human five.”
Armed with this quasi-Biblical quotation, police turned their attention to a small sect named the Sacrifice Church, arresting two members. There were rumours connecting the Sacrifice Church to a voodoo cult in New Orleans and the sect’s leader, the Reverend King Harris, had spoken at a meeting in Lafayette on the night of the murder of the Randall family there. But still the killing did not stop.
On 19 February a mulatto woman and her three children were hacked to death in their sleep in Beaumont, Texas. Then on 27 March, another mulatto woman, her four children, and a male friend who staying overnight were butchered in Glidden, Texas. The police then noticed a geographical pattern in the crimes. They all took place along the Southern Pacific Railroad that ran from Louisiana to California. Since November 1911, the killings had been moving slowly westwards, striking at stops on the Southern Pacific Railroad line. Indeed the next massacre in the early hours of 12 April took place further west in San Antonio, when five members of the family of William Burton were butchered in their beds. But then the killer doubled back. Two nights later, the axe murder killed three more mulatto victims in Hempstead on another branch of the line.
Meanwhile, Clementine Bernabet surprised everyone by confessing. She admitted attending meetings of the Sacrifice Church, but that was not the inspiration for the killings. She had bought a
The axe murderer finally missed his mark in San Antonio on 6 August 1912, when the wife of mulatto James Dashiell was woken by an axe shearing through the flesh of her arm. Her screams woke the rest of the family and the attacker fled. All she could tell police was that her attacker was a lone man, but could not provide a useful description.
The killer had struck again, leaving the police without a single piece of solid evidence. Those who had been arrested had to be released. Informants from the Sacrifice Church pointed to the Gospel according to St Matthew, chapter seven, verse 19 in the New Testament which reads: “Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.” But that did not take the investigation any further forward and the killer, or killers, remained at large.
St Louis’ Slayings
