We're in the final stages of completing 'Dem Dry Bon'z, our sequel about serial murders in North Dakota and Montana. Despite the fact that our story is an urban fantasy, Stoney and I have woven the story with substantial history regarding the beginnings of the age where serial killers were first recognized and studied. Below is a clipping from the Decatur Herald of October 6, 1888. The article was written during the Whitechapel Fiend's (a.k.a. Jack the Ripper's) murder spree. Very rarely does one read about or see in movies the perception of the London police that the Ripper might have learned his deadly trade in Austin, Texas. There were many similarities between Austin's Midnight Assassin, who killed eight women and wounded many other Austin residents, with the Ripper. There clearly were many differences, such as the Midnight Assassin's penchant for leaving witnesses alive but with often with head wound so severe that they were unable to testify as to something so simple as the race of the killer. However, the English at first could not conceive that a true Britain was capable of such savagery. The Austin murders of 1885-1886 were touted as the training ground for an American fiend loose in London. Cowboys and Indians who were still in country after working for Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, were hauled in for interrogation. One of the Indians was Black Elk, whose memoir Black Elk Speaks became a classic. Foreigners and Jews figured highly on the list of police suspects. This ham-handed approach to solving crimes matched what Austin tried just a few years earlier.
The Austin authorities had a penchant for rounding up the "usual suspects" every time the Assassin struck. In this case the "usual suspects" were exclusively black men and poor whites. Interrogation consisted of being manacled to an iron ring attached to the floor and being beaten severely. None of the black men who endured this torture ever admitted to the crimes. Some were interrogated more than once and most were under almost constant surveillance. Eventually an election year came along and charges were made. Three men (all the husbands or boyfriends of victims) were tried. Two of the men were severely wounded by axe blows to the head by the murderer and the state attempted to convince the juries that each had killed his companion and then wounded himself to cover the crime. One man was convicted but the verdict was overturned on appeal as the prosecution presented no proof that the defendant actually did the crime.
The Assassin and the Ripper crimes never were solved. In an age where criminology was in its infancy, law enforcement floundered in the darkness of its own incompetence. These tragedies call out to us through the centuries. What kinds of monsters do such things? We still are trying to figure that out as the descendants of Jack the Ripper, the Midnight Assassin, Dr. H.H. Holmes, and too many others still walk among us, They remind us that not all nightmares happen during sleep.
The Austin authorities had a penchant for rounding up the "usual suspects" every time the Assassin struck. In this case the "usual suspects" were exclusively black men and poor whites. Interrogation consisted of being manacled to an iron ring attached to the floor and being beaten severely. None of the black men who endured this torture ever admitted to the crimes. Some were interrogated more than once and most were under almost constant surveillance. Eventually an election year came along and charges were made. Three men (all the husbands or boyfriends of victims) were tried. Two of the men were severely wounded by axe blows to the head by the murderer and the state attempted to convince the juries that each had killed his companion and then wounded himself to cover the crime. One man was convicted but the verdict was overturned on appeal as the prosecution presented no proof that the defendant actually did the crime.
The Assassin and the Ripper crimes never were solved. In an age where criminology was in its infancy, law enforcement floundered in the darkness of its own incompetence. These tragedies call out to us through the centuries. What kinds of monsters do such things? We still are trying to figure that out as the descendants of Jack the Ripper, the Midnight Assassin, Dr. H.H. Holmes, and too many others still walk among us, They remind us that not all nightmares happen during sleep.
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