Carl Panzram was an American
serial killer. While imprisoned, Panzram wrote an articulate autobiography
about his life and his descent into crime. Many of the claims he made in it are
unverified.
1. The Prologue to Evil
He was a remorseless, vicious
killer, a child rapist, a man with no soul. Born in rural Minnesota in 1891, he
began a life-long odyssey of crime and murder at the age of eight. By the time
he was eleven, his family sent him off to a reform school as part of a plea
bargain on a burglary charge. Repeatedly sodomized and physically tortured
during his two years at the juvenile home, his emotional problems grew
progressively worse. As a teenager, he enjoyed setting fires so he could watch buildings
burn and often fantasized about committing mass murder. After he raped and
murdered a 12-year-old boy in 1922, he joyfully recalled the killing: "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."
His name was Carl Panzram, one
of America’s most ferocious, unrepentant serial killers. Embittered by years of
torture, beatings and sexual abuse both in and out of prison, 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. He spent most of his chaotic
life in prisons where archaic methods of repression included physical tortures
that were reminiscent of medieval times. But when he was on the loose, Panzram
murdered, raped and burned his way across the country in a mission of
destruction that was unlike anything law enforcement had ever seen before. To explain
his debauchery, he said his parents "were ignorant, and thru their
improper teachings and improper environment, I was gradually led into the wrong
way of living." But it was the prisons that Panzram hated most. Throughout
his life, he was trapped in a hopeless cycle of incarceration, crime and jail.
Dr. Karl Menninger once described Panzram as a man "faced with the problem
of evil in him and in the rest of us. I have always carried him in my mind as
the logical product of our prison system." On the day of his execution in
Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in 1930, he ran happily up the gallows steps,
spit in the executioner's face and yelled: "Hurry up you bastard, I could
kill ten men while you're fooling around!" This is the story of a man who
was "too evil to live." He was a true misanthrope, a man who hated
human beings. He made no apologies for what he was and placed the blame for his
deviance squarely on the doorstep of society's institutions. There is no need
to exaggerate or expand on the life and crimes of Carl Panzram. The truth is
enough.
2. Minnesota
Carl Panzram was born on June
28, 1891, 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. Of
course, for people at their economic level, there was no divorce, no courts,
and no alimony. His father simply left the farm one day and never returned. As a result, the family faced a bleak future.
They worked the farm from sunup to sundown with very little to show for their
labors. During these early years, Carl was beaten by his brothers continuously
for any reason no matter how 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. Carl broke into a neighbor's home when he
was 11. He 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,
a reform institution for juveniles. Located in the town of Red Wing on the Mississippi
River, south of St. Paul, the Minnesota State Training School contained about
300 boys whose ages varied from 10 to 20. The school population was 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. The admissions log, dated October 11, 1903, lists Panzram's
crime as "incorrigibility" and the relationship of his parents as
"quarrelsome." When Carl
arrived at Red Wing 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. It was an admonition of
what was to come. The inmates also received Christian training and when they
misbehaved or failed to learn the lessons properly, they were attacked by angry,
vindictive attendants. Because Carl received little formal education when he
lived on the farm, he 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. Soon he developed a hatred for the attendants and
everything connected to religion, which he saw as the cause of his suffering.
"I first began to think that I was being unjustly imposed upon. Then I
began to hate those who abused me. Then I began to think that I would have my
revenge just as soon and as often as I could injure someone else. Anyone at all
would do," he later 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 by Christians 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."
During that winter, Carl's
mother, Lizzie Panzram, arrived at the Red Wing School to bring him home. Carl
had changed. 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. She may have thought that Carl would eventually work out his own
problems. But 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, and
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 dwelled on things of
which most children knew little. "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. It was January 1906, and Carl Panzram was about to be unleashed on
the world.
3. The Odyssey Begins
At the age of 14, Panzram was
relegated to working the fields on his mother's farm. Envisioning a dismal
future of backbreaking labor 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. For the next few years, Carl wandered across
the Midwest, sleeping in freight cars, riding under the trains and running from
the railroad cops, who in many cases were more dangerous than the outlaws. He
begged for food and stole it whenever he could. He became part of the vast,
mobile culture of hobos and beggars who populated America’s rails during that
era. These were the prewar years, a time of craziness, frantic activity and
sweeping social change. It was a period of expansion in the United States , a
rising financial boom that would come to an abrupt end with the stock market
collapse of Black Tuesday in 1929. Later would come a time of lawlessness,
inspired by the experiment of the National Prohibition Act of 1919, which
created an almost universal disrespect for authority. Everywhere, it seemed,
criminals were at work. The rails were no exception. Shortly after he left
Minnesota, 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. 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. He had enough with prison life
and decided to break out, even if it meant his own death. 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," Panzram wrote. "I taught
him how to set fire to a church after we robbed it. We got very busy on that,
robbing and burning a church regular every chance we got."
Throughout his life, everywhere
he went, Panzram burglarized and burned churches, one of his favorite crimes.
Churches held a special significance in the mind of Carl Panzram, ever since he
learned to hate Christianity while at Red Wing. "Naturally, I now love
Jesus very much, " he said, "Yes, I love him so damn much that I
would like to crucify him all over again!"
Benson and Panzram 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. Panzram, who had
changed his name to Jefferson Baldwin, eventually drifted west, back across the
state and into the vast plains of North Dakota.
In
December 1907, Panzram arrived in the city of Helena, Montana, a wide-open town
where there was little law enforcement and people still wore pistols on their
belts. Populated by Canadian fur traders and hard-as-nails river fishermen, it
was not a place for teenagers. One night in a local tavern, Panzram 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 go AWOL 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, who, at that time, was the
Secretary of War, approved the prison sentence.
It would not be the last time their paths crossed. Panzram was chained
up and taken to the local train station with a number of other military
prisoners. They were shackled to the inside of a cattle car by armed guards and
given no food or water for the 1,000-mile trip. The trains rolled out of the
Helena depot and crawled south into Wyoming, across the cornfields of Nebraska and
into eastern Kansas where the towering walls of Leavenworth Federal
Penitentiary rise up from the muddy banks of the Missouri River like giant
tombstones.
The U.S. Federal Penitentiary
at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, was an awesome sight. Surrounded by 40-foot high
concrete walls that descended 20 feet underground, it was a veritable fortress.
Situated on more than 1,500 acres of flat unobstructed land, the prison was
originally built after the Civil War to house military prisoners and, though it
was used continuously since then, by 1890 the institution had fallen into
disrepair through underfunding and neglect. A new construction plan was put
into effect by 1895, and work began in earnest a few years later. The inmates
housed in the old Civil War unit performed all the construction and physical
labor. The main section was completed by
the inmates in mid-1903. Later that year, more than 400 prisoners were moved
into the new facility. Almost 23 acres were contained inside its prison walls,
which surrounded four barracks and various support facilities. By 1906, two
years before Panzram arrived; all the prisoners from the old section of the
prison had been successfully transferred to the new prison. 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, born in Auburn Prison in the State of New
York during the 19th century and 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. And 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. 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. The only way to ensure a subdued prison population was too keep them
down, punish them severely, be brutal to those who rebelled and make an example
out of the ones that were caught. 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. He
walked outside into the fresh air 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.
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. For the next few years, Panzram drifted across
Kansas, Texas, through the Southwest and into California. During this time, he
was arrested several times using the name "Jeff Baldwin" for
vagrancy, burglary, arson and robbery. He escaped from jails in Rusk, Texas,
and The Dalles, Oregon. "I burned down old barns, sheds, fences, snow shed
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 rode the trains over vast
distances and spent time in Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Utah, cutting a path
of destruction across the country in a methodical, relentless way that kept
police hot on his trail but a step behind. 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. During the summer of 1911, as
"Jefferson Davis," Panzram drifted from town to town, robbing people
and escaping by the rails whenever he could. In Fresno, California, he was
arrested for stealing a bicycle. He was sent to the county jail for six months
but escaped after only 30 days. He jumped a freight train heading northwest and
brought along some stolen guns that he had buried outside town before he got
arrested. While he was in a boxcar with two other bums, he saw another
opportunity for rape. "I was sizing up the youngest and the best looking
one of the two and figuring when to pull out my hog leg and heist' em up,"
he said. But a railroad cop found his way into the boxcar and tried to extort
money from the men or he would throw them off the train. Panzram had other
ideas. "I pulled out my cannon and told him I was the fellow who went
around the world doing people good," he said. Panzram robbed the cop of
his watch and whatever money he had. Then, while the other two men watched, he
raped the officer at gunpoint. He then forced the other two men to do the same
by "using a little moral persuasion and much waving around of my pistol,
they also rode Mr. Brakeman around."
Panzram threw all the men off the train and continued his trip up to
Oregon where he became one of the many seasonal loggers who roamed the
countryside looking for work. And when work couldn't be found, they survived by
any means available.
7. The Deer Lodge
By the year
1913, 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. As he continued his journey
through the northwest, he was arrested in several states under the name
"Jack Allen."
"Under
that name I was pinched for highway robbery, assault and sodomy at The Dalles,
Oregon .I was there about 2 or 3 months and then broke jail," he said
later. The Dalles was a tough river port
on the Columbia River where pirates, gamblers, loggers and outlaws frequently
gathered. After he broke out of jail, with a posse of furious deputies after
him, Panzram fled Oregon and crossed the eastern state line into Idaho. Within
the week, he was arrested again for stealing and thrown into the county jail at
Harrison, Idaho . On this occasion, he used the alias "Jeff Davis."
The jail was poorly run and consisted of just cells and a wall. During his
first night in custody, he set a massive fire to one of the buildings and
several of the inmates escaped, including Panzram. He quickly fled north,
through the Grove of Ancient Cedars, across the Bitterroot Mountains and into
western Montana. In the small town of Chinook, Montana, Panzram got locked up
as "Jefferson Davis" for burglary and received a one-year sentence at
the Montana State Prison at Deer Lodge. Located 30 miles north of Butte in the
midst of the Rockies, the prison resembled a medieval castle. It was built in
1895 when American prison construction was modeled after European castles. Four
pointed steeples rose majestically over a dark and forbidding complex that was
surrounded by thick, stone block walls. There were turrets spaced periodically
on all four walls and corners. Inside
the towers rifle- toting guards kept a watchful eye over the vast courtyard,
ready to shoot any prisoner who dared attempt to escape. According to the
prison admissions log, Panzram was received at Deer Lodge on April 27, 1913. He
listed his occupation as "waiter and teamster." But there was little for convicts to do at
the prison, except kill time. While he was at Deer Lodge, he ran into Jimmie
Benson, his old cellmate from Montana State Reform School. He was doing a
10-year stretch for robbery. Together, they planned an escape, but at the last
minute, Benson was transferred and couldn't participate. On November 13, 1913,
Panzram escaped from Deer Lodge and fled toward Butte. Barely a week later, in
a town called Three Forks, he was arrested for burglary under the name
"Jeff Rhodes." He was given another year for the escape and returned
to the state prison. Life at Deer Lodge
was slow and monotonous. Understaffed and mismanaged, there was very little
assigned labor for the inmates who spent most of the day in their cells, lying
in their bunks or wandering outside in the prison yard. "At that place I
got to be an experienced wolf,” he said. "I would start the morning with
sodomy, work as hard at it as I could all day and sometimes half the
night." Because of his size and reputation, he was able to intimidate the
other prisoners into submission. "I was so busy committing sodomy that I
didn't have time left to serve Jesus as I had been taught to do in those reform
schools," he later wrote. Panzram served out his full sentence at Deer
Lodge and on March 30, 1915, he was released. "When I left there, the
warden told me that I was pure as lily, and free from all sin," he wrote,
"He gave me $5, a suit of clothes, and a ticket to the next town six miles
away."
8. The Escape From Oregon
Wherever he
went, Panzram stole for food, clothes, money and guns. For months during the
year 1915, he traveled up and down the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest,
through Washington, Idaho, Nebraska and South Dakota. Panzram was a veteran of
the rails. On the night of June 1, 1915, he broke into a house in the town of
Astoria, Oregon. He lifted a suit of clothes and other articles that weren't
worth more than $20. He was later arrested when he tried to sell a stolen
watch. He was indicted for Larceny in a Dwelling and later, after a promise by
the local D.A. to go easy on him, pleaded guilty. He was sentenced, as
"Jefferson Baldwin," to seven years at the Oregon State Penitentiary
in Salem. On June 24, 1915, he arrived at the prison and became inmate #7390.
In the admission record, he listed his place of birth as Alabama and his occupation
as "thief." On the same page, it was noted that he used two other
names: Jefferson Davis and Jeff Rhodes. Guards immediately took notice of the
prisoner's surly, uncooperative attitude. But they weren't concerned with
uncooperative inmates. Salem prison was notorious in the northwest for
punishing its prisoners by abuse and torture. The warden at that time was a
tough, crude, former sheriff named Harry Minto, who believed whole-heartedly in
keeping the inmates in line by force. Whipping, hosing, beatings, starvation
and isolation were part and parcel of life at Salem. Minto endorsed the Auburn
system by which prisoners would be punished even if they uttered one word out
of line. They were frequently shackled to walls and hung from rafters for hours,
sometimes days at a time. Inmates were whipped with the terrible
"cat-o-nine-tails," a brutish device that caused appalling injury to
a man's back. "I swore I would
never do that seven years," Panzram said, "and I defied the warden
and all his officers to make me. The warden swore I would do every damned day
or he would kill me."
He got into
trouble almost immediately for rule violations, and punishment became routine.
Panzram's record of discipline shows that on January 1, 1916, he was hung
"10 hours a day for two days for hammering, rising a disturbance in cell
and cursing an officer." A month later, on February 27, he was hoisted up
"12 hours at door for going on another tier from where he cells and having
a dangerous weapon, a Billie or a sap." He was later found to be in
possession of a blackjack and thrown into the "dungeons" for three
weeks with only bread and water. "They stripped us naked and chained us up
to a door," he said, "and then turned the fire hose on us until we
were black and blue and half blind." But still, Panzram continued his
combative behavior. He started several fires and burned down three buildings at
different times. He spent 61 days in solitary where he groped around in the
dark and ate cockroaches for food. In
early 1917, Panzram helped another inmate, named Otto Hooker, escape from the
prison. Hooker later shot and killed
Warden Minto when he accidentally ran into the warden in a nearby town. The
killing sparked a public outcry, and conditions at the Oregon State Penitentiary
became even worse.
By
September 1917, Panzram's reputation was well known both inside the
penitentiary and out. He had made several escape attempts by cutting through
the bars in his cell. On September 18, 1917, he finally succeeded and escaped
from the prison. He broke into a house in the town of Tangent stealing clothes,
food, money and a loaded .38 caliber handgun. A few days later, a local cop
recognized Panzram from a wanted poster and tried to arrest him. Panzram pulled
out his gun and opened fire on the sheriff's deputy. "I fired and fought
until my gun was empty of bullets and I was empty of courage," he later
said. But he ran out of ammunition and was captured. On the way to the jail,
Panzram tried to grab the cop's gun and a fierce struggle took place inside the
police car. The rear windows were kicked out and several shots were fired
through the roof as the men battled for the officer's handgun. Panzram was
beaten bloody and unconscious. He was brought back to Salem and dumped into
solitary. But not for long. Incredibly,
on May 12, 1918, Panzram escaped from Oregon Prison again. He sawed through the
window bars using a hacksaw blade and jumped down off the prison walls. As
frantic guards fired hundreds of rounds at the fleeing convict, Panzram made it
into the woods and disappeared from sight. He later hopped a freight train
heading east and left the Pacific Northwest forever. He changed his name to
John O'Leary and shaved his mustache. Slowly, methodically, still burglarizing
and burning churches along the way, Panzram headed for the East Coast.
Part II
In the
summer of 1920, Panzram spent a great deal of time in the city of New Haven,
Connecticut. He preferred places with
activity and lots of people. More people meant more targets, more money and
more victims. It also meant the cops were busy; maybe too busy to bother with
the likes of him. He went out at night, cruising the city streets looking for
an easy mark. If he didn't mug an unsuspecting drunk or rape a young boy, he
would look for a house to burglarize. In August, he found a house located at 113
Whitney Avenue that looked "fat" and ready for the taking. It was an
old three-story colonial, the home of an aristocrat, he hoped. He broke in
through a window and began to ransack the bedrooms. Inside a spacious den,
Panzram found a large amount of jewelry, bonds and a .45 caliber automatic
handgun. The name on the bonds was "William H. Taft," the same man
who he thought sentenced him to three years at Leavenworth in 1907. At that
time, Taft had been the secretary of war. In 1920, he was the former president
of the United States and current professor of law at Yale University in New
Haven. After stealing everything he
could carry, Panzram escaped through the same window and hit the streets
carrying a large bag of loot. He made his way to the Lower East Side of
Manhattan where he sold most of the jewelry and stolen bonds. He later wrote
that "out of this robbery I got about $3,000 in cash and kept some of the
stuff including the .45 Colt automatic. With that money I bought a yacht, the
Akista." He registered the boat
under the name John O'Leary, the alias he used while he was living in the New
York area. He sailed the boat up the East River, eastward through the Long
Island Sound past the south shore of the Bronx, the City of New Rochelle, Rye
and onto the rocky coast of Connecticut. Along the way, he broke into dozens of
boats on their moorings, stealing booze, guns, supplies, anything he could get
his hands on. One of the boats was the Barbara II, a 50 footer owned by the
Marsilliot family from Norfolk, Virginia. He eventually moored the Akista at
the New Haven yacht club where he settled in for a time, enjoying the hot
weather, drinking prohibition booze and thinking about his next victims. When
he visited Manhattan's Lower East Side, Panzram noticed hordes of visiting
sailors on shore leave from their ships docked along the East River. He
realized many of them were looking for work on outgoing freighters or local
boats. This was an era of enormous shipping activity, the age of the ocean
liner when international travel was mostly accomplished by sea. As he drifted
through the narrow streets of the East Village, he devised a scheme of robbery
and murder. "Then I figured it
would be a good plan to hire a few sailors to work for me, get them out to my
yacht, get them drunk, commit sodomy on them, rob them and then kill them. This
I done." For several weeks, he went down to the South Street neighborhood
and picked out one or two victims. Panzram told them that he had work on board
his yacht and needed some deckhands. He promised them anything just to get them
on board the Akista, which he anchored off City Island at the foot of Carroll
Street. He remained there for the entire summer of 1920. City Island is a small landmass of about two
square miles off the Bronx. In 1920, City Island was a secluded, maritime
community of fishing boats, sail manufacturers and residents who tended to
their own business. At first, most people paid little attention to
"Captain John O'Leary," the brooding stranger who came on shore only
to buy supplies and always seemed to have a new crew each week. "Every day or two I would go to New
York and hang around 25 South Street and size up the sailors," Panzram
said. When he convinced them to come on board his yacht, they would work for maybe
a single day. "We would wine and dine and when they were drunk enough they
would go to bed. When they were asleep I would get my .45 Colt automatic, this
I stole from Mr. Taft's home, and blow their brains out." He then tied a
rock onto each body and carried them into his skiff. He rowed east into Long
Island Sound near Execution Lighthouse, so named because during the
Revolutionary War British troops chained rebel colonists to the rocks there and
waited for the rising tide to drown the prisoners. There, not 100 yards from
the lighthouse, Panzram dumped his victims into the sea. "There they are
yet, ten of 'em. I worked that racket about three weeks. My boat was full of
stolen stuff," he later wrote. But City Islanders soon grew suspicious of
the Akista and its skipper. Panzram realized he had to change venue. He sailed
down the coast of New Jersey with his last two passengers until he reached Long
Beach Island, where he intended to kill them both. In late August 1920, a huge
gale hit and the Akista smashed to pieces against the rocks. Panzram swam to
shore and barely escaped with his life. The two sailors made it to the beaches
of the Brigantine Inlet just north of Atlantic City. "Where they went I
don't know or care," Panzram said later.
They quickly disappeared into the Jersey farmlands, never realizing how
lucky they had been to escape certain death by the bullet of a president's
gun.
In 1921,
Panzram served six months in jail in Bridgeport, Connecticut, for burglary and
possession of a loaded handgun. When released, he joined a maritime union that
was involved in a labor strike. Hard liners in the union got into a brawl with
strikebreakers, and Panzram was quickly re-arrested for being involved in a
running gun battle with police. He jumped bail and fled the state of
Connecticut. A few days later, he stowed away on a ship and landed in Angola, a
Portuguese colony on the west coast of Africa. He eventually got a job with the
Sinclair Oil Company as a foreman on an oil-drilling rig. At that time, the
American oil industry was involved in an exploratory expedition to search for
new sources of oil in Africa. In the coastal town of Luanda, Panzram raped and
killed an 11-year-old boy. "A little nigger boy about 11 or 12 years old
came bumming around," he said. Panzram lured the boy back to the Sinclair
Oil Company grounds where he sexually assaulted and killed him by bashing his
head in with a rock. "I left him there, but first I committed sodomy on
him and then I killed him," Panzram wrote in his confession. "His
brains were coming out of his ears when I left him and he will never be any
deader." After this murder, Panzram went back to Lobito Bay on the
Atlantic coast where he lived for several weeks in a fishing village. The
locals suspected him of the murder but it could never be proven. Several weeks
later, he hired six natives to take him into the jungle to hunt for crocodiles,
which brought a hefty price from European speculators in the Congo. The natives
later demanded a cut of the profits. They paddled into the jungle, never
suspecting what Panzram had on his mind. As they went downriver, Panzram shot
and killed all six men. "To some of average intelligence, killing six at
once seems an almost impossible feat. It was very much easier for me to kill
those six niggers than it was for me to kill only one of the young boys I
killed later and some of them were only 11 or 12 years old," he later
said. He shot them all in the back, one by one. While they lay in the bloody
canoe, Panzram shot each native again in the back of the head. He then fed the
bodies to the hungry crocodiles and rowed back to Lobito Bay. When he docked
the boat, he realized he had to get out of the Congo since "dozens of
people saw me at Lobito Bay when I hired these men and the canoe." He then
headed north up the Congo River toward a place called Point Banana and
eventually made his way to the Gold Coast. He robbed farmers in the local
village and got enough money to buy a fare to the Canary Islands. Broke and
unable to find anyone worth robbing, he immediately stowed away on a ship to
Lisbon, Portugal. But when he arrived in the city, he discovered that the local
government knew about his crime spree in Africa and cops were warned to be on
the lookout for him. He managed to hide aboard another ship headed for America
and by the summer of 1922, he was back on U.S. soil. Panzram marveled at how
easy it was to kill. He imagined himself making a living as a professional
hitman who would murder for money. He brought the gun he used in the Congo
killings back to the United States with him, even though cops were hot on his
trail as he fled Africa. In 1922, he had the gun fitted with a silencer by the
Maxim Silent Firearms Co. in Hartford, Connecticut. But when he test fired it
later, he found that the weapon still made a great deal of noise, much to his
disappointment. "If that heavy calibered pistol and the silencer had only
worked as I thought it would, I would have gone into the murder business on a
wholesale scale," he wrote years later. But his life of crime and mayhem
caused Panzram to be continuously on the move. He never lingered in one place
very long. He knew the police were forever on his trail, never far behind,
always ready to lock him up for some forgotten offense he committed months,
even years before. He learned early on to change his name frequently and never
confided in anyone the details of his past life. As soon as he committed a
crime, Panzram would leave the area quickly, hop a train out of town, stowaway
on a freighter, and hitched a ride on a passing truck. Always running, looking
over his shoulder, waiting for the "screws" to catch up with him,
always living with the fear of capture; this was his life. And yet still,
knowing he could be minutes away from capture and driven by a hatred most of us
can never understand, he killed.
Part: III
11. A Killing in Salem
After a few
days back in the States, Panzram went to the U.S. Customs office in New York
City where he renewed his captain's license and retrieved the papers for his
yacht, the Akista, wrecked on the Jersey shoals two years before. He planned to
steal another boat and refit her under the Akista name. He began to search the
local boatyards in the New York area and wandered up the Connecticut coast. He
soon drifted into the seaport of Providence, Rhode Island, where he still could
not find a boat that resembled the Akista. He continued north along Boston Road
into Boston and eventually arrived in the town of Salem, Massachusetts, famous
for the 17th century witch trials.
There, on the hot afternoon of July 18, 1922, he came across a
12-year-old boy walking alone on the west side of town. "You will find
that I have consistently followed one idea through all my life," he said
later, "I preyed upon the weak, the harmless and the
unsuspecting." The boy's name was
George Henry McMahon who lived at 65 Boston Street in Salem. He had spent most
of the day in a neighbor's restaurant until the owner, Mrs. Margaret Lyons,
asked George to run an errand. "About 2:15 I sent him to the A&P store
for the milk, giving him fifteen cents," she later told the court. Little
George left the restaurant and walked up Boston Street. About an hour later,
another neighbor, Mrs. Margaret Crean, saw George walking up the avenue with a
stranger. "In the afternoon of July 18th, while sitting in front of a
window in my home, I saw a boy and a man walking up the avenue. The man was
dressed in a blue suit and wore a cap," she said later. That man was Carl
Panzram. "The boy's name I didn't know," Panzram said years later,
"He told me he was eleven years old. He was carrying a basket or pail in
his hand. He told me he was going to the store to do an errand. He told me his
aunt ran this store. I asked him if he would like to earn fifty cents. He said
yes." Panzram walked with McMahon to the nearby store where inside, he was
even brazen enough to speak with the clerk. A few minutes later, Panzram
convinced the child to go for a trolley ride.
About a mile from where they boarded the car, they exited the trolley in
a deserted section of the town. "I grabbed him by the arm and told him I
was going to kill him," Panzram said in his confession. "I stayed
with the boy about three hours. During that time, I committed sodomy on the boy
six times, and then I killed him by beating his brains out with a rock. I had
stuffed down his throat several sheets of paper out of a magazine." He then covered the body up with tree
branches and hurried out of town. "I left him lying there with his brains
coming out of his ears," he said. But as he fled the wooded area where he
left McMahon's body, two Salem residents passed by. They took notice of the
strange man, who was carrying what appeared to be a newspaper, walking quickly
away. He seemed nervous and a little frantic. But the two witnesses continued
on their way. Immediately after the murder, Panzram headed back toward New
York. McMahon's body was found three days later on July 21. The Salem police
and the surrounding communities formed possess and detained any strangers they
came upon. Several men, including a local pedophile that had attacked several
Salem children, were arrested as suspects.
The murder was headline news for weeks but it would remain unsolved for
many years. Until the day in 1928 when those same two witnesses would see
Panzram again while he was in custody for another murder in Washington, D.C.
They would have no trouble identifying him as the man they saw on the
sweltering afternoon of July 18, 1922, just yards away from where the battered
body of George Henry McMahon was found.
After he
left Salem, Massachusetts, Panzram returned to the Westchester County area and
continued to look for a suitable boat. In early 1923, he managed to rent an
apartment in Yonkers, New York, using his alias, John O'Leary. He got a job as
a watchman at the Abeeco Mill Company at 220 Yonkers Avenue and claimed to have
met a boy named George Walosin, 15, while he worked at the mill. "I
started to teach him the fine art of sodomy but I found he had been taught all
about it and he liked it fine," he later wrote. "River Pirate"
Panzram is arrested on the morning of June 29, 1923 while his boat is moored
off Nyack, NY. During the early summer of 1923, Panzram made his way back to
Providence, Rhode Island where he stole a yawl out of one of the many marinas
around the bay. By then, he was an accomplished sailor who had navigated the
seas in dozens of countries in all sorts of weather conditions. The boat was a
fine craft, 38 feet long and outfitted with all the best equipment. He set sail
for Long Island Sound, an area that he knew well and where he felt comfortable.
Panzram docked at New Haven for weeks at a time and would go out at night,
cruising the streets for victims to rob and rape. Over the next few weeks, he
burglarized homes and boats in Connecticut. He stole jewelry, cash, guns and
clothes. Off Premium Point in the City of New Rochelle, New York, he broke into
a large yacht that was moored a distance off shore. He stole a .38 caliber
handgun from the galley and when he checked the papers on board, he found that
the Police Commissioner of New Rochelle owned the vessel. In June 1923, he
sailed the yawl up the Hudson River to Yonkers where he docked overnight.
There, he picked up George Walosin, and promised the boy that he could work on
the yacht during his trip upriver. On Monday, June 25, 1923, the boat cruised
out of the Yonkers dock due north, toward Peekskill, and later that night,
Panzram sodomized the boy.
They sailed 50 miles upriver to Kingston where Panzram moored the
yacht in a small bay off the Hudson River. He quickly repainted the hull and
changed the name on the stern. Then he ventured on shore and visited the local
hangouts to find a buyer. Soon a young man agreed to come on board to check out
the boat. Panzram took the buyer out to the yacht on the night of June 27 where
they had a few drinks together. But the man had other things on his mind.
"There he tried to stick me up but I was suspicious of his actions and was
ready for him," Panzram said. He shot the man twice in the head, using the
same gun that he had stolen from the Police Commissioner's boat. He then tied a
metal weight onto the body and threw the man overboard. "He's still there
yet as far as I know," Panzram confessed later. The very next morning,
Panzram and his passenger, George Walsoin, who had witnessed the killing,
sailed out of the bay heading downriver. They docked that same day in
Poughkeepsie. Panzram went on shore and stole a quantity of fishing nets worth
more than $1,000. They set sail again and cruised across the river to Newburgh.
After the boat dropped anchor, George jumped ship and swam to shore. He
eventually made his way back to Yonkers the next day and told the police about
being sexually assaulted by Panzram. Yonkers police alerted all the Hudson
River towns to be on the lookout for "Captain John O'Leary" who was
sailing a 38-foot yacht downriver. Cops still did not know that the boat was
stolen out of Providence. Panzram made it as far as the village of Nyack. He
secured the yawl at Peterson's Boat Yard and bedded down for the night. But
Nyack cops were vigilant and on the morning of June 29, 1923, they boarded the
yacht and arrested Panzram. He was charged with sodomy, burglary and robbery.
The next day, Yonkers Detectives John Fitzpatrick and Charles Ward motored
upriver on a municipal ferry to pick him up. He was placed in the Yonkers City
jail awaiting court appearance. On his arrest card, "O'Leary" listed
his occupation as "seafarer." He said he was born in Nevada and gave
his age as 40. On the night of July 2, 1923, he tried to break out of the city
jail with another prisoner, Fred Federoff. They attempted to pry the window
bars out of their frames by digging into the masonry using a part of a bed.
They were caught when guards made a routine inspection of their cells. "As
a result of an attempt by one of five men in the city prison to break out of
jail, John O'Leary, alleged river pirate, is in solitary confinement locked up
in a cell," the Yonkers Statesman reported on July 3.
Panzram then turned to his lawyer
for help. "I got a lawyer there, a
Mr. Cashin. I told him the boat was worth five or ten thousand dollars and that
I would give him the boat and the papers if he got me out of jail," he
said. His attorney arranged for bail and a few days later Panzram was released.
He never came back. When Cashin went to register the boat, it was discovered
that it was stolen. The police immediately confiscated the yacht and Cashin
lost the posted bail. Panzram had conned his own lawyer. Larchmont was a quiet,
well-groomed village on the south shore of Westchester County a few miles from
the Connecticut state line. During the 1920s it was famous for its beautiful
shoreline and exclusive country clubs where the upper echelon of New York City
society would gather on weekends. They could watch the yacht races or shop at
village stores, a world away from the frenzied pace of Manhattan's crowded and
gritty streets. Panzram had been to Larchmont before. In June 1923, he stole a
boat from the Larchmont marina belonging to Dr. Charles Paine. The boat was
found a short time later off the coast of New Rochelle; Panzram lost rudder
control and smashed the craft onto the rocks.
On the night of August 26, 1923, Panzram broke into the Larchmont train
depot on Chatsworth Avenue. Using an axe he found outside, he shattered a large
window and crawled inside. He found dozens of suitcases which belonged to
passengers for the next day's train. As he was rifling through the baggage, a
Larchmont cop, Officer Richard Grube, who was making his early morning rounds,
happened to come by. "I went around to different windows and I saw him
kneeling in front of the stove in this depot with an open trunk in front of him
and I covered him with a gun," Grube told reporters. But Panzram didn't
hesitate. The Portchester Daily Item described what happened next: "John
O'Leary, a giant in stature and was armed with a murderous looking axe. The
officer immediately grappled with O'Leary and after a fierce struggle in the
dark, disarmed him and placed him under arrest." He was brought to the
police station on Boston Road where he identified himself as John O'Leary. After he confessed to previous break-ins, he
was charged with three additional burglaries. In village court the next
morning, Judge Shafer set bail at $5,000 and remanded Panzram to county jail
pending grand jury action. As he sat in the village jail, Panzram told cops he
was an escaped prisoner from Oregon where he was serving a 17-year sentence for
shooting a police officer. Panzram said a lot of things. Maybe too many. Some
cops called him a "chiseler," a man who admits to crimes he didn't
commit so he will be moved somewhere else.
Part IV:
Larchmont police sent
telegrams of inquiry to Oregon. On
August 29, Larchmont Police Chief William Hynes received this reply from Warden
Johnson Smith of the Oregon State Penitentiary: "Jeff Baldwin is wanted
very badly in Oregon his was a noted case that attracted considerable attention
all over the Pacific Coast and we are very anxious to send an officer for him
at the earliest possible moment." Panzram was known as "Jeff
Baldwin" in Oregon and still had more than 14 years left on his sentence.
There was even a $500 reward for his capture, which Panzram tried to collect
for his own arrest. "O'Leary told the police here that since he
volunteered all the information as to his escape from prison, he wished to
claim the $500 himself," The Standard Star reported. Panzram realized that
his future prospects were limited. He knew that Oregon wanted him badly, and he
either had to escape or face decades in prison. During his recent trip to the
city of Kingston and the upper Hudson, he had committed numerous burglaries and
robberies, some of which were never discovered. While he was held in the
Larchmont jail, Panzram wrote a letter to a mysterious "John Romero"
in Beacon, New York, which was directly across the river from Newburgh where
George Walosin jumped ship. "This will probably be the last you ever hear
from me," he wrote. "I expect to go to jail for the balance of my
life so you see I can lose no more. I have never said anything to anyone about
you but bear this fact in mind if I should talk and tell what I know I can and
will put you away for a long time." Panzram demanded Romero send him $50
right away and he would forget "all I know." He said that the boat
was lost but Romero "could still cash in on the Newburgh deal" and he
signed the letter "Capt. John K. O'Leary." The money never arrived and police never
found Romero. Panzram remained in custody.
13. The Trial of Carl Panzram
A few weeks later, he was
indicted by the grand jury for the Larchmont burglary. "I at once saw that
I could be convicted so I immediately saw the prosecuting attorney and with him
made a bargain," he said later. He cut a deal with the DA's office in
which he would receive a lighter sentence in exchange for a plea of guilty. But
it was not to be. "I kept to my side of the bargain but he didn't. I
pleaded guilty and was immediately given the limit of the law, five years. At
once I was sent to Sing Sing." But he didn't stay long. Men like Panzram,
who were hardened criminals and difficult to control, were routinely sent to
upstate Clinton Prison, where they were out of the mainstream prison population
and at the mercy of an unusual group of guards who had grown accustomed to
hostile inmates. American prisons
during the early part of the 20th century were horrifying places to spend even
a little time. Conditions at some institutions were worse than bad. They were barbaric. Places like Sing-Sing in
New York, Florida's infamous torture camps and Georgia's chain gangs
exemplified the widespread abuse in America 's prisons. There was no national,
unified standard on how to treat, rehabilitate or care for convicts. The
concept of punishment and deterrence, though unproven and rarely studied, was
widely accepted in the penal system. Most times, it was left up to the wardens
to formulate and carry out a workable policy of conduct toward convicts. In
some jails, this could be a good thing. In others, it could be very bad.
Prisons were the autonomous kingdoms of the wardens, who frequently resorted to
beatings, whippings, solitary confinement and even torture to control their
prison populations. Such a place was Upstate New York's Clinton Prison, better
known as Dannemora, the hell hole, the place of no-return and America's most
brutal, repressive prison institution. Panzram was taken to Dannemora, just 10
miles from the Canadian border, in October 1923. Like in many other prisons of
its time, the guards carried steel-tipped canes that were used to prod and
sometimes beat the convicts into submission. Panzram was stripped naked, and
whatever possessions he had were confiscated. There was no talking back to
these guards and no disrespect from convicts was tolerated. The staff at Dannemora was unique. Many of
the guards were related due to several generations of prison employees, mostly
French-Canadians, who were raised and still lived in the surrounding area. As a
result, their methods of supervision and attitudes toward the convicts were
passed on to each successive generation and perpetuated by decades of
repression and abuse. Life was brutally hard for the inmates, who worked under
the crushing yoke of successive generations of guards. In their view, inmates
were animals who deserved the harshest treatment. Many of the prisoners
suffered mental breakdowns. And those who did were simply carted across the
courtyard and dumped into the State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, whose
corridors were filled with deranged, forgotten inmates, lost in a sea of
bureaucracy and appalling neglect. It was the last stop before hell. Within a few weeks, Panzram devised a
firebomb to burn down the workshops. But some of the guards found the device
and dismantled it. Later, he tried to kill one of the guards by attacking him
as he slept in a chair. "I hit him on the back of the head with a 10 pound
club," he said later, "It didn't kill him but he was good and sick
and he left me alone after that." The work was long, hard and very
tedious. The food was greasy slop, unfit for animal consumption. Panzram made
his first attempt at escape within a few months. He climbed one of the prison
walls and immediately fell 30 feet below onto a concrete step. He broke both legs and ankles. His spine was
also badly injured. He received no medical attention for his injuries. He was
carried into a cell and dropped on the floor.
"I
was dumped into a cell without any medical attention or surgical attention
whatever. My broken bones were not set. My ankles and legs were not put into a
cast. The doctor never came near me and no one else was allowed to do anything
for me. At the end of 14 months of constant agony, I was taken to the hospital
where I was operated on for my rupture and one of my testicles were cut
out." But still, he did not change his ways. Shortly after his operation,
Panzram was caught committing sodomy on another inmate. He was thrown into
solitary where he was virtually ignored by prison staff: “I suffered more agony
for many months. Always in pain, never a civil answer from anyone, always a
snarl or a curse or a lying, hypocritical promise which was never kept.
Crawling around like a snake with a broken back, seething with hatred and a
lust for revenge, five years of this kind of life. The last two years and four
months confined in isolation with nothing to do except brood. I hated everybody
I saw." He began to make elaborate plans on how to kill as many people as
he could. He wanted to blow up a railroad tunnel while a train was passing
through and send poison gas into the wreck. He wanted to dynamite a bridge in
New York and then rob the dead and injured as they lay dying on the ground. The
Panama Canal would suffer the same fate if Panzram had his way. But his most
elaborate plan, and the one he was sure would kill the most people, was his
plot to poison the water supply and kill everyone in the Village of Dannemora.
"I finally thought of a way to kill off the whole town: men, women,
children, and even the cats and dogs," he wrote later. He wanted to drop a
large quantity of arsenic into a stream that fed into a reservoir. In July
1928, after serving five long, hard years, Panzram was discharged from
Dannemora. Permanently crippled by lack of medical attention and lost in the
depths of madness, he was sent out into an unsuspecting world again.
After his
release, Panzram was consumed by revenge for the way he was treated at
Dannemora. Within two weeks, he committed a dozen burglaries and killed at
least one man during a robbery in Baltimore.
By the time he was arrested and delivered to the Washington D.C. , jail, Panzram was a fearsome sight. He
stood 6 feet tall, 200 pounds of muscle, meanness and a burning hatred for
everything human. He had a large tattoo of a boat's anchor on his left forearm,
another anchor with an eagle and the head of a Chinese man on his right
forearm, and two eagles on his massive chest with the words “LIBERTY and
JUSTICE" tattooed underneath their wings. His eyes were steel gray and he
wore a thick, black mustache that covered his top lip giving his face the
appearance of a perpetual sneer. At booking, he gave his real name for the
first time in years. During his first few days in the D.C. jail, he made
several remarks about killing children, which were noticed by guards. Inquiries
were made in other states, and word came back from several jurisdictions that
he was a hunted man. At the Washington, D.C., jail at this time was a
26-year-old rookie guard, the son of a Jewish immigrant, who was hired that
year. His name was Henry Lesser. As Panzram was processed through the booking
procedure, Lesser asked him what his crime was.
"What
I do is reform people," said Panzram without a smile. Over the next few
weeks, the young guard took notice of the odd looking man who rarely talked to
anyone. Never one to stay in one place for very long, Panzram attempted to
escape by slowly chipping away at the concrete surrounding the metal bars in
his cell window. But one of the other prisoners informed the warden. Panzram
was removed from his cell and brought to an isolated area. He was handcuffed
around a thick wooden pole and a rope was tied to his handcuffs. The guards
then hoisted him up so that just his toes were touching the ground and his arms
were lifted beyond his shoulders. He was left this way for a day and a half. He
cursed his own parents for giving him life and screamed that he would kill
everyone if given the chance. The guards beat him until he was unconscious and
left him tied to the post all night. At some time during that night, Panzram
admitted to the murders of several young boys and told the guards how much he
enjoyed it. Soon the word got out and the press caught onto the story of a
sadistic killer in the local jail who was confessing to lots of murders. The
Washington Post reported on October 28, 1928, that Panzram confessed to the
murder of 14-year old Alexander Luszzock, a Philadelphia newsboy last August
and also that of 12-year-old Henry McMahon of New Salem, Connecticut. Each day
that went by, Panzram told more and more. "If that ain't enough," he
said, "I'll give you plenty more. I've been all over the world and I've
seen everything but hell and I guess I'll see that soon." For some reason,
prison guard Henry Lesser took pity on the angry man whom everyone else hated.
He befriended Panzram by giving him a dollar to buy cigarettes and extra food.
This act of kindness meant a great deal to Panzram, for he was unaccustomed to
even the smallest gesture of compassion. The two men became friends and
confided in one another. Soon, Panzram agreed to write his life story for
Lesser. And so, over the next few weeks, while Lesser supplied pencil and
paper, Panzram wrote down the details of his twisted life of hate, depravity
and murder. Renowned psychologist Dr.
Karl Menninger later said the manuscript "proceeds to an unflinching
self-analysis in which the prisoner spares neither himself nor society. No one
can read this manuscript in its entirety without an emotional thrill." Beginning on the farm in rural Minnesota
where he was born, Panzram told the brutal story of his life. 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," he said, "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, 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. Panzram 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).
Part V:
But it
wasn't only his life he wrote about. 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. Panzram, ever the outlaw, could
never acclimate to a prison environment. Despite his many years in jails across
the country, he was unable to conform to institutional rules or obey staff
commands. Even with the knowledge that physical torture would frequently be the
result of such infractions, Panzram was uncooperative and violent. After his
escape attempt and subsequent handcuffing to a post, he assaulted three guards
when he was removed from his cell upon which "it was necessary to strike
him with a blackjack in defense of the three officers." Again he was
handcuffed to the post. As a result the reporting officer wrote: "this
prisoner called the Captain of the Watch a 'God damned son of a bitch' and
stated he would like to knock the Captain in the back of the head." More
punishment followed. But the slow and massive wheels of justice were turning.
Later that same month on October 29, an arrest warrant for Panzram arrived at
the D.C. jail. It was a murder indictment 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!" His trial for the burglary and house breaking
charges opened on November 12, 1928. Panzram 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, Panzram dragged his fingers across his neck
giving the sign of a slit throat. The message was clear: "This is what
will happen to you!"
14. The Death of Carl Panzram
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 Walter McCoy sentenced him to 15 years
on the first count and 10 years on the second to run consecutively. Panzram
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.
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. As the warden read him the rules of the institution, Panzram stood quietly
in front of the desk with an attitude of indifference. When the warden
finished, the prisoner looked him squarely in the eye and said, "I'll kill
the first man that bothers me." The warden called for the guards and had
Panzram, inmate #31614, removed to his cell. Panzram was considered too psychotic
to mix with the general prison population. In a handwritten letter to the
warden dated March 26, 1929, Panzram 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".
He 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, Panzram 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 last released from the hole, Panzram told other prisoners to
stay away from Warnke because he was going to die soon. When he next wrote his
friend Lesser, he said a new job was in the works. "I am getting all set
for a change," he wrote. "It won't be long now." On June 20,
1929, Panzram 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 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. By the time his trial began, Panzram
was well known in law enforcement circles, and rumors of his lust for raping
and killing children were widespread. His story had already appeared in dozens
of newspapers, including the Topeka Times, the Boston Globe and The
Philadelphia Inquirer. In March 1929, he wrote a letter to the deputy warden:
"I understand there are a number of charges against me. Several for murder
and one for being an escaped convict from Oregon. Will you please let me know
how many warrants there are against me, where they are from and what
charges?" On April 16, 1930, the Chicago Evening American reported:
"Despite the fact he boasted of killing twenty-three persons -- that he
would like to kill thousands and then commit suicide -- Panzram is sane to the
extent that he knows right from wrong." Authorities in Salem ,
Philadelphia and New Haven were actively preparing criminal cases against Panzram
while he remained in solitary at Leavenworth. Throughout this period, Panzram
kept up his correspondence with Lesser and wrote a series of letters about his
life in Leavenworth. He complained often about the lack of reading material but
praised the quality of food. He said
that being in prison made him feel more "human" and less like the
animal he thought he was. 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. 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.
Panzram 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." Panzram 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. During the 1920s, a
family of enlightened educators and intellectuals, led by Dr. Karl Menninger, a
Harvard graduate and one of the pioneers of modern psychology, were building a
clinical dynasty in Topeka, Kansas. Menninger was fascinated with Sigmund
Freud's concepts of psychoanalysis. By 1930, he was already involved in
research on the subject when he learned of Panzram's case and his consuming
hatred for humanity. During the trial, the court requested Menninger's
assessment of the defendant's sanity. On the morning of April 15, in a small
office inside the courthouse in Topeka, a meeting between the two men was
arranged under court supervision.
Panzram was brought into the room at 8:30 a.m. Thick, heavy chains
were wrapped around his arms and hands, a stiff iron bar clasped to each ankle.
He was only able to walk a half-step at a time. Three federal guards encircled
the prisoner. Panzram sat down in the chair, scowling, and stared at Dr.
Menninger. "Good morning, Mr. Panzram," said Dr. Menninger. The
prisoner huffed at the doctor and turned his head without saying a word. He
glanced around as if to measure his chances of escape, and Dr. Menninger had
the feeling that, given the opportunity, Panzram would kill everyone in the
room just to get out the door. His chains rattled as he shuffled in his seat
and the guards inched a little closer. "I want to be hanged and I don't
want any interference by you or your filthy kind," he said. "I just
know the more about the world and the essential evil nature of man and don't
play the hypocrite. I am proud of having killed off a few and regret that I
didn't kill more!" Dr. Menninger
tried to get Panzram to talk about his life but he refused and became angrier
and more impatient by the minute.
"I
am saying I am responsible and I am guilty and the sooner they hang me the
better it will be and gladder I will be. So don't you go trying to interfere
with it!" The interview was terminated, and Panzram shuffled out of the
room. The next day, April 16, Menninger wrote a letter to Warden T. B. White.
In it he asked to interview Panzram again: "For purely scientific purposes
I should like to look into the case of Carl Panzram a little more in detail.
His case was an extraordinary one as you know and I am very interested in
finding out what the earlier evidences of his mental instability were."
But Warden White refused further access. To no one's surprise, Menninger blamed
Panzram's adult hostility on the treatment he received as a child in the
Minnesota state reform school at Red Wing. Menninger recognized the
psychological damage that had been done to Panzram at an early age and later,
when he wrote about the case, said “that the injustices perpetrated upon a
child arouse in him unendurable reactions of retaliation which the child must
repress and postpone but which sooner or later come out in some form or
another, that the wages of sin is death, that murder breeds suicide, that to
kill is only to be killed."
Part VI:
The last
person to be legally executed in Kansas before 1930 was William Dickson in
1870. Though others were sentenced to death since Dickson, all of the capital
punishment cases were commuted by a succession of governors. State executions
were finally abolished in 1907. But the most famous death sentence handed out
in the history of the state was to Robert Stroud, the so-called "Birdman
of Alcatraz." He was sentenced to death for the murder of a prison guard
on March 26, 1916. Stroud was on death
row at Leavenworth with Panzram, and at times the two men conversed. Stroud,
like Panzram, was also sullen, maniacally egocentric, a true misanthrope who
seldom spoke to anyone, even during his later years at Alcatraz. He spent his
time battling the system, filing appeals and making endless demands on prison
staff for his research. Both men had little to say to one another but carefully
studied the progress of their gallows construction, which was clearly visible
outside the cellblock windows. (A pimp in civilian life, who killed one of his
prostitute's customers in 1906 in Juneau, Alaska, Stroud would eventually
escape the gallows but remain in prison until he died in 1963.) For Panzram,
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."
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. "Few persons in the assemblage appeared
under emotional strain," one reporter later wrote. "Here they
come!" yelled someone in the crowd.
Panzram'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 spit 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. Panzram
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.
The
Sunday Star later reported, "A hangman's noose at Leavenworth, Kansas,
this morning snuffed out the life of Carl Panzram, a man who swore he hated all
humanity with a consuming passion." The article described the doomed man's
last few minutes and said he was "the most criminally minded man in
America." Robert Stroud later wrote
that Panzram was restless the night before the execution. "All night long
that last night he walked the floor of his cell," he said, "singing a
pornographic little song that he had composed himself." 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". Panzram had a vivid idea of why he was the way he
was. When Dr. Menninger wrote again about his case, he made the following
observation: "I have never seen an individual whose destructive impulses were
so completely accepted and acknowledged by his conscious ego," he said in
Man Against Himself (1938). Given his early childhood abuses and physical
tortures inside America’s prisons, it was no surprise to Panzram that he became
a criminal. "Is it unnatural that I should have absorbed these things and
have become what I am today, a treacherous, degenerate, brutal, human savage,
devoid of all decent feeling. Without conscience, morals, pity, sympathy,
principle or any single good trait? Why am I what I am?" he asked. His writings show a man of some intelligence
and introspection, a self-revelation that few killers achieve despite years of
reflection in the slow-moving world of today's Death Row.
Unlike
Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, Carl Panzram was not a sexual sadist or a lust
murderer in the classical sense. He was simply an unrepentant killer whose
motivational factors were surely inflamed by acts of torture and sexual abuse
at an early age. Maybe somewhere along
the line it could have been different.
Maybe he could have been someone other than he was. No one will ever
know. But his litany of crimes is truly astonishing. And yet, through the
murder and mayhem, it is not impossible to see the faint glow of understanding.
Not forgiveness, of course, but just a token acknowledgement of the winds that
produced the storm. Maybe he was just a man who gave what he got in life. The
relic of a violent era where times were hard and the nation's prisons were
brutal, repressive institutions that taught little except survival.
In 1922,
when he was held prisoner at the Washington, D.C., city jail, detectives
questioned Panzram about McMahon's murder in Salem, Massachusetts.
15. His Final Statement
"I
hate all the f***ing human race," he said, "I get a kick out of
murdering people."
He is
buried in row #6, grave #24, forever in the shadow of Leavenworth's ominous
prison walls.
-
Bird
