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.

Nature and Nurture 2--The Carl Panzram Story

On his return from Minnesota State Training School Carl had changed forever. Never an outgoing child even at home, he became more withdrawn, quiet and brooding. But his mother had too many other things to worry about. One of Carl’s brothers had recently died in a drowning accident and her health was fragile. She had no time for a rebellious child who had a habit of getting into trouble. Even at this early age, he felt deep resentment toward his mother.
“Mother was too dumb to know anything good to teach me,” he said years later, “there was little love lost. I first liked her and respected her. My feelings gradually turned from that to distrust, dislike, disgust and from there it was very simple for my feelings to turn to into positive hatred towards her.”

He knew nothing else in his brief life except suffering, beatings and torture. His youthful mind dwelt on things most children his age knew little of. “I fully decided when I left there just how I would live my life. I made up my mind that I would rob, burn, destroy and kill everywhere I went and everybody I could as long as I lived, “ he wrote years later. By the age of 14, Carl was relegated to working the fields on his mother’s farm. Envisioning a dismal future of backbreaking labour with no reward, he convinced his mother to send him to another school. There, he soon became involved in a dispute with a teacher who beat him on several occasions with a whip. Carl managed to get a handgun and brought it to school so he could kill the teacher in front of the class. But the plot failed when, during a hand-to-hand struggle, the weapon fell out of his pants and onto the floor of the classroom. He was thrown out of school and returned to the farm. Two weeks later, he hopped a freight train and left the Minnesota farm forever.

Shortly after, Carl rode a freight train heading west out of Montana. He came upon four men who were camping in a lumber car. They said they could buy him nice clothes and give him a warm place to sleep. “But first they wanted me to do a little something for them,” Panzram wrote years later. He was gang-raped by all four men. “I cried, begged and pleaded for mercy, pity and sympathy, but nothing I could say or do could sway them from their purpose!”

He escaped with his life but the incident may have destroyed whatever feelings of compassion he had left.

Nature and Nurture 1--The Carl Panzram Story

“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…”

The Descent of Man into Mayhem and Madness

Michelangelo's "David"! The epitome of man in all his splendid glory.

Crime library will venture to deliver an insight into, as Charles Darwin put it, "The descent of man..." not into some splendid deity; but rather into a godforsaken fiend, a deplorable being, a misanthrope whose inner cage fails to hold back the monsters within.