Empire of Sin (41 page)

The discovery of
two axes on the premises—one bloody and obviously the murder weapon, another covered with fresh mud—led Leson to believe that two men might have been responsible for this attack. Perhaps one had stood on the chair in the alley to keep an eye on the victims—and simultaneously on the street—while his partner worked on the back-door panel to gain entrance. This two-perpetrator idea could even illuminate one nagging aspect of the earlier attacks. Having an accomplice could explain how the axman was so successful at eluding detection, even while chiseling away at a back door—an activity that must have been noisy enough to be heard by anyone lying awake in bed or passing on the street. In other words, the axman may not have had wings (as the impressionable Bruno girl had speculated), but he could have had a second set of eyes—keeping a lookout while he performed his grim duties inside.

But Leson and Marrero were not interested in solving the earlier crimes; they were concerned only with the one in their own jurisdiction, and they pursued their investigation with an aggressive single-mindedness that they would later come to regret. While interviewing the Cortimiglias’ neighbors, they gleaned hints that the Jordanos might not be the Good Samaritans they at first had seemed. According to the neighbors, the two families had been
feuding for some time, ever since the Cortimiglias had taken over the languishing Jordano grocery in 1916 and turned it into a success. The Jordanos had taken back the business just a few months ago, forcing the Cortimiglias to find a shop elsewhere in Gretna. But recently the Cortimiglias had come back, setting up a brand-new grocery on the lot adjoining that of the Jordano store. And now, just two weeks later, the Cortimiglias were lying near death after being brutally attacked in the night. When asked about the situation, the Jordanos insisted that they had made peace with the Cortimiglias and were now good friends, but Marrero had his doubts.

Back on the other side of the river, Superintendent Mooney continued to insist that all of the ax attacks (except, perhaps, for the Harriet Lowe murder) had been committed by a “
degenerate madman,” and that “he ransacked the places he enters to create the impression that robbery is his motive.” The superintendent’s desk was now covered with maps, police reports, and photos of all of the ax cases in the city, and he was reportedly poring over them night and day. According to the
Times-Picayune
, his collection also included “the opinions of some of the South’s best recognized scientists, placing the axman in the same class as Catherine de’ Medici, the French author Sade, and other historic degenerates.”

But the Gretna authorities had a far more mundane perpetrator in mind for the Cortimiglia attack. So sure were they of Frank Jordano’s guilt that they kept asking the Cortimiglias again and again whether he was the man who assaulted them. The victims were still barely coherent and could do little more than nod or whisper in reply. But while Charles Cortimiglia (by some accounts)
continued to insist that he did not recognize his assailant, his twenty-one-year-old, highly traumatized wife apparently indicated an affirmative to the question. This was enough for Chief Leson. He promptly had the younger Jordano arrested, despite the fact that the Cortimiglias’ doctor refused to “
vouch for the condition of their minds.” “
Both Charlie Cortimiglia and his wife, Rosie, told me that Frank Jordano had committed the crime,” Leson told a skeptical press. “We have worked up a strong case against him and I am satisfied that the circumstances surrounding the case justified the arrest.”

Frank Mooney ignored these developments in Gretna, preferring to pursue his own theory of the murders. In
a high-profile presentation to the press—including, as a visual aid, a large city map marked with no fewer than sixteen alleged axman incidents—the superintendent outlined what he was now calling his “panel theory.” There were common elements, he claimed, not just in the various ax assaults, but also in the numerous attempted ax break-ins that had been reported throughout the city over the past year. And these common elements convinced him that the crimes were all the work of a single man.

The
Times-Picayune
reprinted the commonalities in full:

LOCATION
—In nearly all of the cases a corner house with a high board fence at the side and rear has been selected, and in most instances it was a grocery or barroom or a combination of both.

TIME
—The hour generally has been about 3 AM.

METHOD
—Entrance has been effected by removing a lower panel of a rear door. The plan of work in each instance has been remarkably similar.

WEAPON
—Where the crimes proceeded to the attack, an ax has been used (except in one case where a hatchet was wielded)—sometimes an ax found on the premises, sometimes brought by the murderer, but always an old ax and always left behind.

THE ATTACK
—Always on sleeping victims with no apparent choice between men and women, and use of the blade of the weapon as a rule.

PRECAUTIONS
—Complete failure to find fingerprints, together with the fact a pair of rubber gloves was left behind in one case, leads to the belief that the murderer uses rubber gloves to protect himself against identification by the fingerprint method.

ROBBERY AS A CAMOUFLAGE
—In practically every ax murder, while bureaus, safes, and cabinets have been ransacked, little was stolen, and money and valuables in plain sight were left behind. And in numerous instances of “panel burglaries,” the work of the intruder has been so incomplete as to leave strong doubt whether robbery was the real motive.

Mooney did acknowledge that each assault and break-in could conceivably be a separate, unrelated incident. He also admitted that they all might be part of a systematic campaign of revenge or terrorism by the Mafia or Black Hand. But he remained convinced that the culprit in all or most of the incidents was a “solo maniac”—“a diabolical, bloodthirsty fiend, cunning and shrewd,” as the
Times-Picayune
described him, “a slinking agent of the devil at 3 AM.”

Then, on Sunday, March 16, the city received a kind of confirmation of this macabre description. The
Times-Picayune
reprinted a remarkable document the paper had received in the mail on Friday. It was an open letter to the public purporting to be from the axman himself. Addressed to the newspaper’s editor, and written in a hand similar to that of the letters received by Superintendent Mooney from the anonymous criminologist, it began with an attention-getting flourish: “
Esteemed Mortal: They have never caught me and they never will. They have never seen me, for I am invisible, even as the ether which surrounds your earth. I am not a human being, but a spirit and a fell demon from hottest hell. I am what you Orleanians and your foolish police called the axman.”

The letter went on to ridicule the police for their inept investigation of his crimes. The department’s antics had been so “utterly stupid,” in fact, that they had amused not only him, but also “His Satanic Majesty” and the recently deceased emperor of Austria, Franz Joseph, among other denizens of hell. “Undoubtedly you Orleanians think of me as a most horrible murderer, which I am,” he continued, “but I could be much worse if I wanted to. If I wished to, I could pay a visit to your city every night. At will I could slay thousands of your best citizens, for I am in close relationship with the Angel of Death.”

The letter writer followed this with a threat, specifying the time of his next appearance: “Now, to be exact, at 12:15 o’clock (earthly time) on next Tuesday night, I am going to pass over New Orleans.”

But those in fear of their lives had one way to protect themselves:

“I am very fond of jazz,” he wrote, “and I swear by all the devils in the nether regions that every person shall be spared in whose house a jazz band is in full swing at the time I just mentioned. If everyone has a jazz band going, well, then so much the better for the people. One thing is certain, and that is [that] some of those persons who do not jazz it on Tuesday night (if there be any) will get the ax.” The letter was signed, simply: “The Axman.”

The sensation created by this letter—particularly in the poorer ethnic neighborhoods that had been hardest hit by the ax crimes—can only be imagined. Certainly many, if not most, people in the city must have doubted the authenticity of the document. There was something too slick—too ironic and knowing—about the entire exercise to be fully convincing as the ramblings of a crazed maniac. But for a populace traumatized by a bizarre and brutal crime wave, the letter was a shock, hoax or no hoax. After all,
something
was stalking the streets at night with malicious intent. And if the way to appease the demon was to cut loose for a night, then New Orleans, starved of music and conviviality by the forces of reform, would cut loose with abandon.

And indeed, when Tuesday night arrived—the eve of St. Joseph’s Day, a major holiday for the city’s Italians—New Orleans made sure to mollify its axman. “
The tinkle of jazz music coming from dozens of New Orleans homes at 12:15 o’clock Wednesday morning demonstrated that many New Orleanians took the axman letter seriously,” the
Times-Picayune
reported on March 19, “and that scores of others who didn’t take it seriously found inspiration in it for house parties.” Homes and cafés all over town were brightly illuminated and filled with jazz all night long. One group of uptown revelers expressly invited the axman to attend their stag party. “
Enter by way of the bathroom at the head of the stairs,” their invitation said. “It will not be necessary to remove any panels, for all of the doors will be open.”

One enterprising local composer even took the opportunity to do some self-promotion: Joseph John Davilla claimed to have composed “The Mysterious Axman’s Jazz” while waiting for the eponymous fiend to make an appearance. By Thursday morning, Davilla was already offering the composition—containing “
every known incidental, accidental, syncopation, flat, sharp, and casualty known to man”—for sale to the public. Dedicated to the New Orleans Police Band, the sheet music was soon being advertised in the daily papers (“
Immunity promised all homes wherever played,” the ad insisted). Davilla’s marketing ploy was so ingenious, in fact, that one wonders whether he himself may have written the axman letter—to create an eager market for his new composition.

Whether it was the jazz being played all around town, or Superintendent Mooney’s decision to put the
police on high alert, there was no ax attack in New Orleans on that St. Joseph’s Eve. Certainly the night had been a boon for the city’s jazzmen, suffering from a lack of work under the recent restrictions. And it was apparently just as much a bane for the city’s petty thieves (“
No burglar,” as the
Times-Picayune
pointed out, “likes to enter a home where there is a prospect of receiving the welcome of a sawed-off shotgun”). But in the days and weeks following the big night, the axman seemed to go silent.

Perhaps he, like the rest of New Orleans, was riveted by the spectacle of two court trials of alleged ax criminals that occurred in the city that spring. In the first, which took place in early May, Louis
Besumer finally got his day in court. Serving as his own best witness, the loquacious grocer testified for four hours, telling the jury the same story he had been telling police for months—that he was essentially a prominent businessman running a small grocery as a temporary sideline, that Harriet Lowe was his housekeeper and companion, and that the two of them had probably been attacked by the axman responsible for so many other assaults in the city. He reiterated that he had no idea why Mrs. Lowe had accused him of the deed, and suggested that she may have been forced to make that dying declaration by an overzealous district attorney. In the end, the jury believed him—or at least they disbelieved the deceased Harriet Lowe. After deliberating for just seven minutes, they came back with a verdict of not guilty.

Later that same month, Frank Jordano and his father Iorlando (who had been
arrested two days after his son) went on
trial for the murder of baby Mary Cortimiglia. Here again, the defense attempted to show that the principal evidence against the defendants—the accusation by Rose Cortimiglia—had been coerced from a highly traumatized victim influenced by aggressive and tendentious interrogation techniques. Charles Cortimiglia continued to insist that the man he struggled with in his bedroom that night was not Frank Jordano. But his wife, appearing in court with shorn hair and head bandages still in place, would not be shaken from her testimony. And although the defense tried to put Superintendent Mooney, Louis Besumer, and others on the stand to convince the jury that this was another in the long series of axman cases, the judge ruled their testimony irrelevant. Convinced by a living victim’s own testimony, the
jury found both Jordanos guilty. The case would eventually be
appealed to the state Supreme Court, but in the meantime, Frank was sentenced to death, and his father—perhaps because of his age—was given life in prison. Evincing some agitation after the verdict, Rose Cortimiglia stood up and tried to make an announcement to the court. “You can say what you want, but before God—” she began, but the judge did not allow her to finish.

So at least one axman candidate was convicted, but few New Orleanians thought that it was the true culprit who was headed to the gallows. (No one, in fact, had ever even suggested that Frank Jordano might be responsible for the other axman assaults.) Meanwhile, Superintendent Mooney and his police were coming under increasing criticism for their uselessness. “
There is no getting away from the fact that the police department of the city is utterly incompetent,” claimed an open letter from the Citizens League printed in the
Daily Item
. Seven unsolved ax murders, a resurgence of prostitution in the city, and a host of police scandals, according to the League, indicated a growing crisis of leadership in New Orleans. Had the hard-won victories of the forces of reform during the war years been in vain? Was New Orleans once again to descend into the chaos, lawlessness, and turpitude of the not-too-distant past?