“His brains were coming out of his ears when I left him. I am not sorry. My conscious doesn’t bother me. I sleep sound and have sweet dreams.”recalled Carl Panzram after the brutal rape and murder of a 12 year old boy in 1922.He was a remorseless, vicious killer, a child rapist, a man with no soul. Born in rural Minnesota on June 28 1891, he began a life-long odyssey of crime and murder at the age of eight. Having spent most of his chaotic life in prisons where archaic methods of repression included physical tortures that were reminiscent of medieval times; Panzram evolved into a man who was meanness personified. He hated everyone, including himself. “I was so full of hate that there was no room in me for such feelings as love, pity, kindness or honor or decency,” he said, “my only regret is that I wasn’t born dead or not at all.” He lived a nomadic existence, committing crimes in Europe, Scotland, the United States, South America and once killed six men in a day in Africa and fed their bodies to hungry crocodiles. Cursed with a misanthropic nature; the flames of which were fueled by lurid acts committed on a young Carl in his era's reformatory institutions. He made no apologies for what he was and placed the blame for his deviance squarely on the doorstep of society’s institutions. He was born on a desolate farm in northern Minnesota. His parents were of German descent, hard-working, stern and like most other immigrants of that era, dirt poor. Carl eventually had five brothers and one sister. He later said that his siblings were honest and dedicated farmers, though the same traits were not passed on to him. “I have been a human animal ever since I was born…I was a thief and a liar,” he said. “The older I got the meaner I got.” When Carl reached the age of 7, his parents ended their marriage. His father simply left the farm one day and never returned. As a result, the family faced a bleak future. They worked the farm the whole day with very little to show for their labours. During these early years, Carl was beaten by his brothers continuously for any reason however insignificant. “Everybody thought it was all right to deceive me, lie to me and kick me around whenever they felt like it, and they felt like it pretty regular,” he later wrote.
At age 11, Carl broke into a neighbour’s home and stole anything he could get his hands on, including a handgun. He was quickly found out by his brothers, who beat him unconscious. Carl was later arrested for the crime and in 1903 sent to the Minnesota State Training School (pic right), a reform institution for juveniles. The Minnesota State Training School contained about 300 boys whose ages varied from 10 to 20. They were all at the mercy of the jailers who were under little or no outside supervision, a condition that promoted or at least allowed a level of abuse that cannot be imagined today.When Carl arrived at the school he was brought into a reception office where a male staff member examined him. The frightened boy was stripped naked and questioned about his sexual practices. “He examined my penis and my rectum, asking me if I had ever committed fornication or sodomy or had ever had sodomy committed on me or if I had ever masturbated,” he later wrote. Carl had received little formal education growing up on a farm and was unable to read very well. For this he was also beaten regularly. “I may not have accomplished much in a scholarly way while there but I learned how to become a first class liar…and the beginnings of degeneracy,” he said. . The more beatings he endured, the more hateful he became. He was hit with wooden planks, thick leather straps, whips and heavy paddles. But during all that time, Carl was planning revenge. On the night of July 7, 1905, he prepared a simple device that started a fire after he left the building. The fire quickly consumed the workshop at the school and it burnt to the ground while Carl lay in his bed laughing at the spectacle of sweet revenge.
In late 1905, Carl was on his way out of the horrors of the Minnesota State Training School. He learned to say the things the staff wanted to hear and when he appeared before the parole board, he convinced them that he was a changed boy and had been “reformed” by the school. “I was reformed all right…I had been taught how to be a hypocrite and I had learned more about stealing, lying, hating, burning and killing,” he said, “I had learned that a boy’s penis could be used for something besides to urinate with and that a rectum could be used for other purposes…”
