Welcome back to Unsolved, everyone. This week’s case took place over one hundred years ago, but the circumstances surrounding it make it worth mentioning even now.

From May of 1918 to October 1919, this serial killer was active in New Orleans and the surrounding communities. In most of the victims’ cases, the killer entered the home by removing a panel on the back door with a chisel that they then left near the door. There were also never signs of robbery because not even a single item was taken from any houses. They were usually attacked with an axe that belonged to them, so the only weapon the killer ever actually brought onto the scene was a straight razor. Most of the victims were of Italian descent, either immigrants or Italian Americans, which also lead to the belief that ethnicity played a role in the killer’s motive.

The first victims were Joseph Maggio and his wife, Catherine. The couple’s throats were cut while they were sleeping after the killer broke into their home, and after that their heads were beaten with an axe. After committing the crime, the killer changed into clean clothes, leaving the bloodstained ones at the scene so they could flee without notice. Following a thorough search, only the bloody razor was found in the neighbor’s yard, but this evidence only made the case more of a mystery. It was inspected and found to have belonged to Andrew Maggio, the brother of Joseph Maggio, making him a prime suspect. He had no alibi because he was alone in his apartment at the time of the murders, but he was eventually released.

It took two more victims, both women, to reasonably speculate that the killings were related and the products of a serial killer. The victims were again attacked with axes found in their own residence and there were also suspects taken in just to be released due to a lack of evidence.

Some time after these killings, the most intriguing part of this case came about. On March 13, 1919, the Axeman wrote a letter that was published in newspapers all over New Orleans and the surrounding areas. It was essentially a warning that on March 19th he would attack again and if a live jazz band was playing in the location he chose, he would spare the inhabitants. That night, every dance hall in the city was filled with people all night and no murders occurred. Because of this letter, several jazz songs were named after the Axeman like “Axeman’s Jazz”.

The last murder was of Mike Pepitone on October 27, 1919. In this case, his wife witnessed the killer flee and described him as a large man holding an axe. She was unable to give any further description likely because of the time of night and the shock of what she had witnessed.

Although this killer was responsible for six deaths and six attempted murders, very few suspects were named. The chief suspect that most scholars attribute to the case is a man named Joseph Momfre, but when records were searched, no man of that name or a similar name was listed in connection with any evidence in the case. Some believe that this was an alias, but this cannot be proven due to how long ago this was. There is also the theory that this man was shot by a widow of one of the victims, but no evidence proving this could be found either. The killings stopped as abruptly as they began, and as the Axeman of New Orleans went on in his killing career, more questions came up than answers and that is why this is still and will likely always be a cold case.