A Mental Case--Edmund Kemper

Kemper was committed to Atascadero State Hospital where he befriended his psychologist and even became his assistant. He was intelligent enough to gain the trust of the doctor to the extent of being allowed access to prisoners' tests. With the knowledge he gained from his "apprenticeship" he eventually was able to impress his doctor at the hospital enough to let him go. He was released into his mother's care in Santa Cruz, California, against the wishes of several doctors at the hospital. Kemper later demonstrated further to the psychologists that he was well—and not only managed to convince the doctors he was reformed, but to have his juvenile records sealed forever as well.

A killer at 15--Edmund Kemper

Kemper was born in Burbank, California, to Clarnell Stage and Edmund Emil Kemper Jr. He was extremely intelligent with an IQ of 136, however, he displayed sociopathic behavior from a young age: he tortured and killed animals, acted out bizarre sexual rituals with his sisters' dolls and once said that, in order to kiss a teacher he had a crush on, he would have to kill her. He even described himself as a "walking time bomb". Worsening the situation was Kemper's mother, who constantly berated and humiliated her son and often made him sleep in a locked basement due to a fear that he would molest his sisters.


(pics above: his grandparents in their youth; they would later become Edmund Kemp's first victims)


On August 27, 1964, Kemper shot his grandmother while she sat at the kitchen table putting the finishing touches on her latest children's book. When his grandfather came home from grocery shopping, Kemper shot him as well. Then he called his mother, who urged him to call the police. When questioned, he said that he "just wanted to see what it felt like to kill Grandma", and that he killed his grandfather because he knew he would be angry at him for what he had done to his grandmother. Kemper was just 15 at the time.

Madness--The Edmund Kemper Story

Edmund Emil Kemper III (born December 18, 1948), also known as The Co-ed Killer, is an American serial killer who was active in the early 1970s. He started his criminal life as a teenager by shooting both his grandparents while staying on their 17-acre ranch in North Fork, California, a crime for which he was incarcerated. Kemper later killed and dismembered six female hitchhikers in the Santa Cruz, California, area. He then murdered his mother and one of her friends before turning himself in to the authorities.

Scarface--Tony Montana--Background Info:

Date of birth 1940 Havana, Cuba
Date of death November 8, 1983 (aged 43), Miami, Florida
Occupation Drug Lord
Family Sister (Gina Montana), Mother
Spouse(s) Elvira Hancock
Children None
Relatives He had an American father who took him to movies

Scarface--Antonia "Tony" Montana

Antonio "Tony" Montana is a fictional character in the Brian DePalma film Scarface, portrayed by Al Pacino. Oliver Stone came up with the name by combining the last name of his then-favourite football player (Joe Montana) and the first name from the main character of the 1932 film Scarface: The Shame of a Nation, played by Paul Muni.

Rober Ford's Letter--Jesse James

Jesse James' home in St.Joseph where he was shot and killed by Robert Ford

Ford's letter to Governor Thomas Crittenden giving his version of how he killed Jesse James (April, 1882)



"On the morning of April 3, Jess and I went downtown, as usual, before breakfast, for the papers. We got to the house about eight o'clock and sat down in the front room. Jess was sitting with his back to me, reading the St. Louis Republican. I picked up the Times, and the first thing I saw in big headlines was the story about Dick Liddil's surrender. Just then Mrs. James came in and said breakfast was ready. Beside me was a chair with a shawl on it, and as quick as a flash I lifted it and shoved the paper under. Jess couldn't have seen me, but he got up, walked over to the chair, picked up the shawl and threw it on the bed, and taking the paper, went out to the kitchen. I felt that the jig was up, but I followed and sat down at the table opposite Jess.


Mrs. James poured out the coffee and then sat down at one end of the table. Jesse spread the paper on the table in front of him and began to look over the headlines. All at once Jess said: "Hello, here. The surrender of Dick Liddil." And he looked across at me with a glare in his eyes.


"Young man, I thought you told me you didn't know that Dick Liddil had surrendered," he said.

I told him I didn't know it.

"'Well," he said, "it's very strange. He surrendered three weeks ago and you was right there in the neighborhood. It looks fishy."


He continued to glare at me, and I got up and went into the front room. In a minute I heard Jess push his chair back and walk to the door. He came in smiling, and said pleasantly: "Well, Bob, it's all right, anyway."


Instantly his real purpose flashed upon my mind. I knew I had not fooled him. He was too sharp for that. He knew at that moment as well as I did that I was there to betray him. But he was not going to kill me in the presence of his wife and children. He walked over to the bed, and deliberately unbuckled his belt, with four revolvers in it, and threw it on the bed. It was the first time in my life I had seen him without that belt on, and I knew that he threw it off to further quiet any suspicions I might have. He seemed to want to busy himself with something to make an impression on my mind that he had forgotten the incident at the breakfast table, and said: "That picture is awful dusty." There wasn't a speck of dust that I could see on the picture, but he stood a chair beneath it and then got upon it and began to dust the picture on the wall.

As he stood there, unarmed, with his back to me, it came to me suddenly, 'Now or never is your chance. If you don't get him now he'll get you tonight.' Without further thought or a moment's delay I pulled my revolver and leveled it as I sat. He heard the hammer click as I cocked it with my thumb and started to turn as I pulled the trigger. The ball struck him just behind the ear and he fell like a log, dead."

Assassination--Jesse James

With his gang depleted by arrests, deaths, and defections, Jesse thought he had only two men left whom he could trust: brothers Bob and Charley Ford. Charley had been out on raids with Jesse before, but Bob was an eager new recruit. To better protect himself, Jesse asked the Ford brothers to move in with him and his family. Little did he know that Bob Ford had been conducting secret negotiations with Thomas T. Crittenden, the Missouri governor, to bring in Jesse James. Crittenden had made the capture of the James brothers his top priority; in his inaugural address he declared that no political motives could be allowed to keep them from justice. Barred by law from offering a sufficiently large reward, he had turned to the railroad and express corporations to put up a $10,000 bounty for each of them.

Robert Ford with the gun he used to kill Jesse James

On April 3, 1882, after eating breakfast, the Fords and James went into the living room. Before sitting down, James noticed a crooked picture on the wall and stood on a chair to straighten it. James was not wearing his guns and Bob Ford took advantage of the opportunity and shot James in the back of the head.

Robert Ford wired the governor to claim his reward. He then turned himself in to the law, but was dismayed to find he was charged with first degree murder. The Ford brothers were tried and convicted. They were sentenced to death by hanging, but within two hours were granted a full pardon by the Governor of Missouri. Ford then received a portion of the reward money.

Fall--Jesse James

Jesse and his first cousin, Zerelda "Zee" Mimms (pic right) married on April 24, 1874, and had four children: Jesse James, Jr. (b. 1875), Gould James (b. 1878), Montgomery James (b. 1878), and Mary Susan James (b. 1879). Twins Gould and Montgomery died in infancy. His surviving son was raised by his mother to become a lawyer, and he spent his career as a respected member of the Kansas City, Missouri, bar.

On September 7, 1876, the James-Younger gang attempted their most daring raid to date, on the First National Bank of Northfield, Minnesota (pic left). Cole and Bob Younger later stated that they selected the bank because of its connection to two Union generals and Radical Republican politicians: Adelbert Ames, the governor of Mississippi during Reconstruction, and Benjamin Butler, Ames's father-in-law and the stern Union commander in occupied New Orleans. However, the gang had been casing other locations in the area, as well.

The robbery was thwarted when Assistant Cashier Joseph Lee Heywood, left in charge while the bank officers attended the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, refused to open the safe, falsely claiming that it was secured by a time lock even as they held a bowie knife to his throat and cracked his skull with a pistol butt. The vault was in fact unprotected at the time of the robbery, the inner door closed but unlocked. Meanwhile, the citizens of Northfield had taken notice of the robbery and were arriving with guns. Before leaving the bank, Jesse James shot the unarmed Heywood in the head. When the bandits exited the bank, they found the rest of their gang dead or wounded amid a hail of gunfire. Suspicious townsmen had confronted the bandits, ran to get their arms, and fired from under the cover of windows and the corners of buildings. The gang barely escaped, leaving two of their number and two unarmed townspeople (Heywood and a Swedish immigrant named Nicholas Gustafson) dead in Northfield. A massive manhunt ensued. The James brothers eventually split from the others and escaped to Missouri. The Youngers and one other bandit, Charlie Pitts, were soon discovered. A brisk gunfight left Pitts dead and the Youngers all prisoners. Except for Frank and Jesse James, the James-Younger Gang was destroyed.

Jesse and Frank went to the Nashville, Tennessee area, where they went by the names of Thomas Howard and B. J. Woodson, respectively. Frank seemed to settle down, but Jesse remained restless. He recruited a new gang in 1879 and returned to crime, holding up a train at Glendale, Missouri, on October 8, 1879. The robbery began a spree of crimes, including the hold-up of the federal paymaster of a canal project in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and two more train robberies. But the new gang did not consist of old, battle-hardened guerrillas; they soon turned against each other or were captured, while James grew paranoid, killing one gang member and frightening away another. The authorities grew suspicious, and by 1881 the brothers were forced to return to Missouri. In December, Jesse rented a house in Saint Joseph, Missouri, not far from where he had been born and raised. Frank, however, decided to move to safer territory, heading east to Virginia.

The Pinkertons--Jesse James

Express companies turned to the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in 1874 to stop the James-Younger Gang. The Chicago-based agency worked primarily against urban professional criminals as well as targeting unions and breaking strikes. The former guerrillas, supported by many old Confederates in Missouri, proved to be too much for them. One agent (Joseph Whicher) was dispatched to infiltrate Zerelda Samuel's farm and turned up dead shortly afterward, with all but his hands eaten by the hogs that freely roamed the area. Two others, Louis J. Lull and John Boyle, were sent after the Youngers; Lull was killed by two of the Youngers in a roadside gunfight on March 17, 1874, though he killed John Younger before he died (an event depicted in the film The Long Riders (1980)). Allan Pinkerton, the agency's founder and leader, took on the case as a personal vendetta. Working with old Unionists around Jesse James's family's farm, he staged a raid on the homestead on the night of January 25, 1875. An incendiary device thrown inside by the detectives exploded, killing James's young half-brother and blowing off one of James's mother's arms. Afterward, Pinkerton denied that the raid's intent was to burn the house down.

However, a 1994 book written by Robert Dyer entitled Jesse James and the Civil War in Missouri (ISBN-13: 978-0826209597) contains the following:

"In early 1991, a Jesse James researcher named Ted Yeatman found an interesting letter among the papers of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. The letter was written by Allan Pinkerton to a lawyer working for him in Liberty, Missouri, named Samuel Hardwicke. In the letter Pinkerton tells Hardwicke that when the men go to the James home to look for Jesse they should find some way to 'burn the house down.' He suggests they use some type of firebomb."

This letter illustrates just how far Pinkerton was willing to go in his vendetta against the James brothers, but the move backfired. The bloody fiasco did more than all of Edwards's columns to turn Jesse James into a sympathetic figure for much of the public. A bill that lavishly praised the James and Younger brothers and offered them amnesty was only narrowly defeated in the state legislature. Former Confederates, allowed to vote and hold office again, voted a limit on reward offers the governor could make for fugitives.

A Folk Hero is Born--Jesse James

The robbery marked James' emergence as the most famous of the former guerrillas turned outlaw, and it started an alliance with John Newman Edwards, a Kansas City Times editor who was campaigning to return the old Confederates to power in Missouri. Edwards published Jesse's letters and made him into a symbol of Rebel defiance of Reconstruction through his elaborate editorials and supportive reporting. Jesse James' own role in creating his rising public profile is debated by historians and biographers, though politics certainly surrounded his outlaw career and enhanced his notoriety. However it is known that John Newman Edwards was a notorious liar and drunkard whose claims and writings were entirely false about Jesse's career as a guerrilla as well as Edwards' relationships with other guerrillas.

Meanwhile, the James brothers, along with Cole Younger and his brothers, Bob and Jim, Clell Miller and other former Confederates—now constituting the James-Younger Gang—continued a remarkable string of robberies from Iowa to Texas, and from Kansas to West Virginia. They robbed banks, stagecoaches and a fair in Kansas City, often in front of large crowds, even hamming it up for the bystanders. In 1873, they turned to train robbery, derailing the Rock Island train in Adair, Iowa. Their later train robberies had a lighter touch—in fact only twice in all of Jesse James's train hold-ups did he rob passengers, because he typically limited himself to the express safe in the baggage car. Such techniques fostered the Robin Hood image that Edwards was creating in his newspapers. Jesse James is thought to have shot 15 people during his bandit career.

Headlines for the First Time--Jesse James

In 1868, Frank and Jesse James joined Cole Younger in robbing a bank at Russellville, Kentucky. Jesse did not become famous, however, until December 1869, when he and Frank (most likely) robbed the Daviess County Savings Association in Gallatin, Missouri. The robbery netted little, but James (it appears) shot and killed the cashier, mistakenly believing the man to be Samuel P. Cox, the militia officer who killed "Bloody Bill" Anderson during the Civil War. James's self-proclaimed attempt at revenge, and the daring escape he and Frank made through the middle of a posse shortly afterwards, put his name in the newspapers for the first time.

A First--Jesse James

The end of the Civil War left Missouri in shambles. The pro-Union Republicans took control of the state government, keeping the Democrats from voting or holding public office. Jesse James was shot by Union militia when he attempted to surrender in Lexington, Missouri a few months after the war's end, leaving him badly wounded. His first cousin, Zerelda "Zee" Mimms (named after his mother), nursed him back to health, and he started a nine-year courtship with her. She eventually became his wife. Meanwhile, some of Jesse's old war comrades, led by Archie Clement, another of the bushwhacker leaders once allied with Quantrill, refused to return to a peaceful life. In 1866, this group conducted the first armed robbery of a US bank in post-Civil War times, holding up the Clay County Savings Association in the town of Liberty (pic top right). During this raid, Jesse deliberately shot a bystander student of William Jewell College (see Wellman, 1961). James claimed the reason he robbed the bank was to get back the deed to his land. The gang robbed the Alexander Mitchell Bank in Lexington shortly thereafter, and staged several more robberies over the next few years, though state authorities (and local lynch mobs) had decimated the ranks of the older bushwhackers.

The Begining...--Jesse James

Jesse Woodson James was born on September 5, 1847 in Clay County Missouri, near the site of present day Kearney. As an adult Jesse was of medium height, of slender but solid build, with a bearded, narrow face, and prominent blue eyes. Until his later years, when he became abnormally suspicious and moody, he was good-natured and jocular, though quick-tempered. He always justified his criminal activities by the claim that he had been driven into it by persecution.

His father, Robert James was a farmer and Baptist minister from Kentucky who helped found William Jewel College in Liberty, Missouri. Robert James traveled to California to prospect for gold and died there when Jesse was three years old. After his father's death, his mother Zerelda (pic left) remarried, first to Benjamin Simms, and then to a doctor named Reuben Samuel. After their marriage in 1855, Samuel moved into the James home.

In the tumultuous years leading up to the American Civil War, Zerelda and Reuben acquired a total of seven slaves and had them grow tobacco on their well-appointed farm. In addition to Jesse's older brother, Alexander Franklin "Frank" James and younger sister Susan Lavenia James, Jesse had four half-siblings: Sarah Louisa Samuel (sometimes Sarah Ellen), John Thomas Samuel, Fannie Quantrill Samuel, and Archie Peyton Samuel. Sarah married a man named John C. Harmon.

The James farm was supposedly visited in 1863 by Federal troops looking for information regarding Confederate guerrilla groups. James claimed the soldiers beat him and hanged his stepfather (who survived). Shortly after that, in 1864, Jesse joined a guerrilla unit led by Bloody Bill Anderson, who led the Centralia Massacre. Jesse joined at about the same time Anderson's group split from Quantrill's Raiders, so there is some uncertainty regarding whether Jesse James ever served under Quantrill.

Who was Jesse James?

Of Jesse Woodson James, crime historian Jay Robert Nash asserts, "Millions of words would be written about this handsome, dashing and utterly ruthless bank and train robber. To many of his peers, he would appear a folklore hero who took vengeance in their name upon an industrial society that was grinding the old agrarian lifestyle to ashes. To others, Jesse James and his band represented the last vestiges of the Old South and its lost cause of secession...He was at large for sixteen years. He committed dozens of daring robberies and killed at least a half-dozen or more men. He died at the age of thirty-four."


Every century brings its heroes and its villains. Every now and then, however, a character lurches forth with a combination of the two; maybe because the world doesn't know whether to love or hate him or her, he or she becomes a milestone in the study of complex mankind. Nitty, gritty, but with the spirit of a conquering warrior. In short, a legend is born.

Such is the legend of Jesse James...

The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford--More Wallpapers

The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford--Wallpapers

Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford trl 2

The Assassination of Jesse James (Trailer)

Belligerent till the end 3--The Carl Panzram Story

On the cold and dusty morning of Friday, September 5, 1930, Panzram was taken from his cell for the last time at 5:55 a.m. and escorted to the gallows. A handful of newspapermen and a dozen guards acted as witnesses.

“Here they come!” yelled someone in the crowd.

Carl’s demeanor was rebellious as always. He cursed his own mother for bringing him into this world and the “whole damned human race!” Escorted by two U.S. Marshals, he walked briskly to the wooden scaffold “with teeth clenched, defiantly facing the crowd of officials, newspaper men and guards gathered in the enclosure.” He climbed the 13 steps to the platform and stood erect as the Marshals attempted to place a black hood over his head.

Before they completed their task, Panzram spat in the executioner’s face and snarled: “Hurry up you bastard, I could kill 10 men while you’re fooling around!” After the hood was secured, the Marshals stepped back without delay, and at exactly 6:03 a.m. the trap doors sprung open with a crash. Carl dropped five and a half feet down. His large body jerked repeatedly and swung from side to side in the sudden silence. He was pronounced dead by Dr.Justin K. Fuller at 6:18 a.m.

After Panzram was removed from the gallows, an autopsy was performed at the prison hospital. His body remained unclaimed and later that same day, he was carted over to the prison cemetery in a wheelbarrow. The only identification on his tombstone is the number “31614”.

Belligerent till the end 2--The Carl Panzram Story

For Carl, the death sentence was a relief and he resisted all attempts to have a stay of execution. “I look forward to a seat in the electric chair or dance at the end of a rope just like some folks do for their wedding night,” he said.

Even during the 1930s, there were several national organizations who strenuously objected to the death penalty on moral and ethical grounds. One of these groups, called the Society for the Abolishment of Capital Punishment petitioned the governor’s office for a pardon or a commutation of sentence, a fact that infuriated Panzram.

On May 23, he wrote to the society and said: “The only thanks you and your kind will ever get from me for your efforts on my behalf is that I wish you all had one neck and that I had my hands on it… I have no desire whatever to reform myself. My only desire is to reform people who try to reform me, and I believe that the only way to reform people is to kill ‘em!”

On May 30, Panzram wrote another letter to President Herbert Hoover expressing his concerns over a possible change in sentencing. He said that he was “perfectly satisfied with my trial and the sentence. I do not want another trial…I absolutely refuse to accept either a pardon or a commutation should either or the other be offered to me.”

Belligerent till the end--The Carl Panzram Story

By the time his trial began, Carl Panzram's story had already appeared in dozens of newspapers, including the Topeka Times, The Boston Globe and The Philadelphia Inquirer.

When the trial began on April 14, 1930, for Warnke’s murder, Panzram was defiant and uncooperative. He limped into the courtroom at 9:30 a.m. His awkward gait was the life-long reminder of his “medical treatment” years before in the dungeons of Dannemora.

“Have you an attorney?” asked Judge Hopkins on the morning of opening testimony.

“No, and I don’t want one!” answered Panzram. Hopkins went on to advise the defendant that he had a constitutional right to representation and should use the services of an attorney, who would be appointed to him for free. Carl replied by cursing the judge loudly. When asked for a plea, he stood and sneered at the court.

“I plead not guilty! Now you go ahead and prove me guilty, understand?” he said. The prosecutor called a parade of witnesses . Appearing were Warden T.B. White, who also brought the murder weapon to court, five Leavenworth guards and 10 prisoners. Several prisoners testified they saw Panzram smash the skull of his helpless victim with an iron bar repeatedly while Warnke lay unconscious on the prison floor. Throughout the testimony, Panzram sat in his chair smiling at the witnesses. The jury took just 45 minutes to arrive at a verdict. To the surprise of no one, Panzram was found guilty of murder with no recommendation for mercy.

Hopkins remanded him back to Leavenworth until “the fifth day of September, nineteen thirty, when between the hours of six to nine o’clock in the morning you shall be taken to some suitable place within the confines of the penitentiary and hanged by the neck until dead.” Carl seemed relieved, almost happy. A huge grin came across his face as he slowly rose up from his chair.

“I certainly want to thank you, judge, just let me get my fingers around your neck for 60 seconds and you’ll never sit on another bench as judge!” he said to a shocked audience.

Panzram stood erect, his shirt unbuttoned from the collar down, partially exposing the massive tattoo on his broad chest, his powerful arms strained against the iron handcuffs as his face contorted into a twisted sneer. U. S. Marshals surrounded Panzram, while he cursed the jury, and dragged him out of the courtroom. When the jury filed out of the box, they could hear his maniacal laughter reverberating off the sterile walls.

IF--The Carl Panzram Story

When he arrived at Leavenworth, he figured he would be beaten and abused anyway so he decided that he wouldn’t be beaten for nothing. He immediately tried to escape and was caught. He became hostile and uncooperative to the guards. However, this time, there were no beatings. “No one lays a hand on me. No one abuses me in any way…I have been trying to figure it out and I have come to the conclusion that, if in the beginning I had been treated as I am now, then there wouldn’t have been quite so many people…that have been robbed, raped and killed,” he wrote.

Backlash 2--The Carl Panzram Story

On June 20, 1929, Carl was working in the laundry at his usual detail. Leaning against the door was a four-foot long iron bar used as a support for the wooden transport crates. Without a word, he picked up the heavy bar and approached Warnke, who was preparing paperwork. Panzram raised the bar high over his broad shoulders and brought it down squarely on the man’s head. Warnke’s skull broke instantly. “Here’s another one for you, you son of a bitch!” he screamed. As the victim fell to the ground, Panzram smashed the bar continuously on the man’s head sending blood and bone matter all over the room. There were other inmates in the laundry that day, and they stood back and watched in horror as Panzram beat Warnke. The men tried to escape, but Panzram decided that since he killed one man, he should kill the others as well. He attacked one of the inmates in the corner of the room and managed to break the man’s arm before he could run away. The other inmates tried desperately to get out of the room but the doors were locked. All the men began to scream for help as Panzram chased them around the room, shouting, cursing, swinging the huge iron bar, smashing bones, desks, lights, breaking up the furniture into pieces and sending the terrified inmates crawling up the walls to get away from the raging madman.

A general alarm sounded in the prison and dozens of guards armed with submachine guns and high-powered rifles came running to the laundry. The guards looked through the bars into the room and saw the maniacal Carl Panzram, holding the 20-pound steel bar like a baseball bat, his clothes shredded and covered from head to toe with fresh blood.

“I just killed Warnke,” he said to the guards calmly. “Let me in!” They refused until he dropped the bar. “Oh,” he said oddly, “I guess this is my lucky day!” The bar fell noisily to the ground and the guards carefully opened the door. Panzram walked quietly to his cell without saying a word and sat down on his bunk.

Backlash--The Carl Panzram Story

Carl was assigned to the laundry room where he could work all day alone, sorting and washing inmate clothes. There he could withdraw into himself and have little contact with humans. His supervisor was Robert Warnke, a small, balding man who was notorious for writing up prisoners for minor infractions. Transgressions against the rules were a serious matter at Leavenworth. Punishment included solitary, revocation of concession and library privileges and sometimes torture. Warnke, a civilian employee, and therefore not under the same pressures as the inmates, used his supervisory position to wield power.

From the beginning, Carl had trouble with Warnke. On several occasions, Panzram was written up for infractions, which caused him to be sent to solitary for a time. When he was finally released from the hole, Panzram told other prisoners to stay away from Warnke because he was going to die soon...

Contentious 2--The Carl Panzram Story

On the day he arrived at Leavenworth, February 1, 1929, Panzram was brought in to see Warden T. B. White. Bound in chains, his bulging muscles apparent even under his prison shirt, Panzram was still an impressive physical specimen. He had a brooding presence; an aura of evil that warned people to stay away from him.

When the warden finished reading him the rules of the institution, Carl looked him squarely in the eye and said, “I’ll kill the first man that bothers me.”

Panzram was considered too psychotic to mix with the general prison population. In a letter to the warden dated March 26, 1929, he asked for a different work detail and wrote: “I want that job because I am doing a long time and I am an old crank and I want to be by myself. I am a cripple and the job I have now I don’t like, standing on my broken ankles bothers me. I am very truly, Carl Panzram #31614”.

Contentious--The Carl Panzram Story

His trial for the burglary and house breaking charges opened on November 12, 1928. Carl foolishly acted as his own attorney and frequently terrified the nine-man, three-female jury with his unpredictable, combative behavior. When a witness, Joseph Czerwinksi of Baltimore testified against him, Panzram rose to ask a question.

“Do you know me?” he said as he moved to within inches of the man’s face. “Take a good look at me!” he whispered. As the frightened witness looked into those steel gray eyes, Carl dragged his fingers across his neck giving the sign of a slit throat. The message was clear: “This is what will happen to you!”

At the end of the trial, Panzram took the stand and not only admitted to the burglary but told the court that he intentionally remained in the house for several hours hoping the owners would come home so he could kill them. On November 12, 1928, he was found guilty on all counts. Judge McCoy sentenced him to 15 years on the first count and 10 years on the second to run consecutively.Carl would have to serve 25 years back at the Federal Prison in Leavenworth, Kansas. When he heard the sentence, Panzram’s face broke into a wide, evil grin.

“Visit me!” he said to the judge.

Accountability--The Carl Panzram Story

On October 29, an arrest warrant for Carl arrived at the D.C. jail. It was a murder indictment (pic left) from Philadelphia charging Panzram “with homicide on an Alexander Uszacke, by strangling and choking on July 26, 1928, at Point House Road.”

Salem Police Department in the State of Massachusetts also learned about Panzram’s arrest and his extensive confession. During his stay at the Washington, D.C., jail, Salem police brought the two witnesses from the George Henry McMahon killing in 1922 to look at Panzram. Both witnesses positively identified Panzram as the person they saw on the night 12-year-old McMahon was killed. Oregon State Penitentiary contacted Washington police and asked that Panzram be held as an escapee who still owed 14 years on his original sentence at their prison.

By early 1929, Panzram must have finally realized that he would never get out of jail this time. He wrote a letter to District Attorney Clark in Salem, Massachusetts, about the McMahon killing. In this shocking letter Panzram repeated his admissions regarding the murder: “I made a full confession of this murder of McMahon…You sent a number of witnesses from Salem to identify me, which they done. I do not change my former confession in any way. I committed that murder. I alone am guilty… I not only committed that murder but 21 besides and I assure you here and now that if I ever get free and have the opportunity I shall sure knock off another 22!”

An Interlude--Belligerent F***ers

soft caress a manic angel
lust struck hate struck
crouches against the wall
that velvet fever
the familiar, she is sick
she is dormant
lying in a pool of discharge
her fluid interior escapes again
her lurid lips--torn, battered
tales of monstrous lust
belligerent f***ers
wandering, stumbling, thrusting
knifing inside her
belligerent f***ers
exploding inside her
left her broken, bleeding
raped her flesh
charred her soul...
crouched against a wall
a solitary tear escapes
our manic angel
it is all she will allow,
this godforsaken world!

The Confession--The Carl Panzram Story

From the time he was sent to the Minnesota State Training School at Red Wing in 1903 until the time he arrived at the Washington, D.C., jail, there were thousands of crimes, dozens of murders and a life spent in single-minded pursuit of destruction.

“All my associates, all of my surroundings, the atmosphere of deceit, treachery, brutality, degeneracy, hypocrisy, and everything that is bad and nothing that is good. Why am I what I am? I’ll tell you why. I did not make myself what I am. Others had the making of me.”

In this extraordinary 20,000-word confession, to which renowned psychologist Dr. Karl Menninger commented “No one can read this manuscript in its entirety without an emotional thrill.” Panzram gave details of his murders, which were later confirmed with local authorities. He supplied dates, times and the places where the crimes occurred as well as his arrest history, which was extensive. Of course, during the period 1900-1930, communications between law enforcement agencies were not as sophisticated as they are today. Criminals were frequently able to avoid arrest warrants by simply changing names and keeping their mouths shut. Carl learned this trick early in his career and was arrested under several names including, Jefferson Baldwin (1915), Jeffrey Rhodes (1919), John King (1920) and John O’Leary (1923).

Carl Panzram had some opinions on the criminal justice system and the power of society over the individual. “All of your police, judges, lawyers, wardens, doctors, National Crime Commissions and writers have combined to find out and remedy the cause and effect of crime,” he said. “With all this knowledge and power at their command, they have accomplished nothing except to make conditions worse instead of better.”

He blamed crime on society, which he said perpetuates itself by producing more criminals. “I am 36 years old and have been a criminal all my life,” he wrote, “I have 11 felony convictions against me. I have served 20 years of my life in jails, reform schools and prisons. I know why I am a criminal.” He laid the blame for his violent life on those who tortured and punished him. “Might makes right” was the only rule he ever learned and he carried that belief with him wherever he went. “In my lifetime I have broken every law that was ever made by both man and God,” he said, “If either had made any more, I should very cheerfully have broken them also.”

In page after page, Panzram described his odyssey of killing and rape, which spanned several continents. For none of it was he ever sorry. Panzram was never inhibited by feelings of guilt or remorse. He saw crime and violence as a way of getting back at the world. It didn’t matter that the people he victimized had not caused his own pain. Someone, anyone, had to pay...

Belligerent Monster 2--The Carl Panzram Story

On the night of August 9, 1923, as he searched the New London area for a mugging victim, Panzram saw a young boy begging for money. He pulled a knife on the terrified youth and dragged him into the nearby woods. Panzram sodomized the boy as he put the blade to his throat.

“This boy’s name I don’t know but he was a Jew and he told me that his home was in Brooklyn, New York,” Panzram said, “where his uncle was a policeman at that time.” He held the youth prisoner while he taunted him with the knife. As the child pleaded and sobbed for mercy, he sodomized the boy again. Panzram later wrote that of all his murders, he enjoyed this one the most. Then he took the belt from the victim’s pants and strangled him with his powerful arms.

“I committed a little more sodomy on him also,” he later wrote. “On the right hand side of that road I left the body of the murdered boy with his own belt still tied around his neck.” He then tossed the body into the bushes and walked back out onto the street.
The boy, who has never been conclusively identified, lay in the bushes undiscovered for two days. On August 11, a local resident walking to work noticed torn clothing lying in the grass just off the road. When he investigated, he found the corpse of the boy, already decomposing and partially destroyed by animals.

On October 6, 1928, Panzram confessed to this murder and wrote a letter to the chief of police of New London, Connecticut, in which he wrote, “If there is anything more that you want to know about this case that I can tell you, I will.” At the bottom of this letter, Panzram apologized for lack of detail about some of his murders. “I have killed a number of people in different places and some of the facts escape my memory,” he explained.

Belligerent Monster--The Carl Panzram Story

After he was released from Leavenworth in 1910, Panzram had nowhere to go. Though he was only 19, he had already spent a substantial portion of his young life in reform schools and prison. At Leavenworth, any semblance of hope that he may have had to grow into a mature, productive adult citizen was effectively destroyed. Years of abuse and physical torture had taken their toll. There was no family who cared about him, no real home and no prospects for the future. He had probably never known a woman’s touch in his life to that point and never evolved as a man in natural way. “All that I had on mind at that time was a strong determination to raise plenty of hell with anyone and everybody in every way I could,” he said. The years that followed saw Carl drift across the U.S. raising hell wherever he went. He was arrested several times under various aliases.

The different names he used were enough to cover up his tracks as law and enforcement wasn't as efficient and organized in those days. “I burned down old barns, sheds, fences, snow sheds or anything I could, and when I couldn’t burn anything else I would set fire to the grass on the prairies, or the woods, anything and everything.” When he burglarized homes, he looked for guns first. “I would spend all my spare change on bullets. I would take potshots at farmers’ houses, at the windows. If I saw cows or horses in the fields, I would cut loose at them. I burned down old barns, sheds, fences, snow sheds or anything I could, and when I couldn’t burn anything else I would set fire to the grass on the prairies, or the woods, anything and everything.” When he burglarized homes, he looked for guns first. “I would spend all my spare change on bullets. I would take potshots at farmers’ houses, at the windows. If I saw cows or horses in the fields, I would cut loose at them,” he wrote. He raped without mercy, rarely passing up an opportunity to take on a new victim. “Whenever I met one that wasn’t too rusty looking I would make him raise his hands and drop his pants. I wasn’t very particular either. I rode them old and young, tall and short, white and black. It made no difference to me at all except that they were human beings,” he said years later.

Tempered by years of drinking, beatings, imprisonment and living on the road like an animal, Panzram evolved into a hardened criminal. He was also physically big, square shouldered and muscular. His dark hair and good looks attracted women, but Panzram never displayed any interest in the opposite sex. And his eyes had a strange, sullen appearance that unnerved people, made them wonder what was behind that cold, barren stare.

Leavenworth--The Carl Panzram Story

In May 1908, his hands shackled and leg irons firmly attached, Panzram entered into the gloomy confines of Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary for the first time. Prison authorities did not know that he was just 16 years old, so he was treated like any other man. Prisoners had to stand in formation every morning regardless of weather. Guards invoked a regimen of strict discipline and mandatory obedience. Like many other institutions of its day, a strict code of silence was enforced and if an inmate was caught speaking out of turn, he was whipped and thrown into solitary. This code of silence maintained by a legion of penology reformers for decades, was a powerful tool of control used by the nation’s prisons during that era. Any infraction was punished without delay. Guards thought nothing of torturing prisoners since it was the only way they could think of to keep control. A convict could not remain unpunished for breaking the rules. To do so would encourage more violations and ultimately, anarchy. Prisoners and guards lived under a fragile pact of restraint and fear. Every guard knew that, if a revolt occurred, they had little chance of getting out alive.

Carl suffered numerous beatings and soon became desperate to break out. “I wasn’t there long before I tried to escape but luck was against me,” he said. Instead, he decided to burn down one of the prison workshops, causing more than $100,000 worth of damage. Though he was never charged with this crime, Panzram was constantly in trouble for breaking a multitude of other prison rules.
Panzram was chained to a 50-pound metal ball. He had to carry the weight no matter where he went, even when he slept at night. He was assigned to break rocks in a quarry, which he did for 10 hours a day seven days a week. But he grew strong and muscular all the while, planning for the time when he would get out. Day by day, he grew bitter and angry, consumed by vengeance, waiting for the day when he would roam free again.

“I was discharged from that prison in 1910. I was the spirit of meanness personified…Well, I was a pretty rotten egg before I went there,” he wrote years later, “but when I left there, all the good that may have been in me had been kicked and beaten out of me.” He was released in August that year convinced he would never see Leavenworth and its hated walls again. But he was wrong. Twenty years later, he would be confined at Leavenworth again. But this time on death row.

Uncle Sam--The Carl Panzram Story

In December 1907, Panzram arrived in the city of Helena, Montana, a town where there was little law enforcement and people still wore pistols on their belts. One night in a local tavern, Carl was drinking alone at the bar and heard a speech given by a local Army recruiter.
Later that same night, he lied about his age and enlisted in the U.S. Army. Panzram left for boot camp, which at that time was held in Fort William Henry Harrison, a distant post in western Montana. He was assigned as a private to Company A in the 6th Infantry. On his first day in uniform, Panzram was brought up on charges of insubordination for refusing a work detail. Over the next month, he was jailed several times for various petty offenses. Constantly drunk and impossible to control, Panzram was unable to conform to military discipline.

In April 1908, he broke into the quartermaster’s building and stole a quantity of clothes worth $88.24. As he attempted to get away with the stolen items, he was arrested by the military police and thrown in the stockade. He received a general court martial on April 20, 1908, before a military tribunal of nine junior and senior officers who had no tolerance for criminal activity from men in uniform. Panzram pleaded guilty to three counts of larceny. According to court transcripts, he was sentenced “to be dishonorably discharged from the service of the United States, forfeiting all pay and allowances due him, and to be confined at hard labor at such place as the reviewing authority may direct for three years.”

Federal prisoners at that time typically were sent to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Future President William Howard Taft (pic right) who, at that time, was the Secretary of War, approved the prison sentence. It would not be the last time their paths crossed.

A Troubled Teen--The Carl Panzram Story

A short time later, Panzram got locked up in Butte, Montana, for burglary and received a sentence of one year in the Montana State Reform School at Miles City.

In the spring of 1906 Carl Panzram, age 14, arrived at the reform institution. He had the body of a man and weighed nearly 180 pounds. In a few weeks, he developed a reputation as a born criminal and the prison staff paid special attention to the defiant teenager. One guard made it his business to make life miserable for Panzram. “He kept on nagging at me until finally I decided to murder him,” he later wrote. He found a heavy wood plank outside one of the workshops and, one night when the guard turned his back, Panzram bludgeoned the man over the top of his head.

“For this I got several beatings and was locked up and watched closer than before,” he said years later.

In 1907, Panzram and another inmate, Jimmie Benson, escaped from the Montana State Reform School. They managed to steal several handguns in a nearby town and headed toward the town of Terry. “I stayed with him for about a month, hoboing our way east, stealing and burning everything we could,” said Carl. They traveled along the road to the state line, passing through the towns of Glendive, Crane and Sidney, robbing people and homes along the way. When they finally arrived in western Minnesota, they were armed with two handguns each and hundreds of dollars in stolen money. They decided to split up in the city of Fargo and go their separate ways.