Credit: Dangerous Minds / Public Domain

I only have the same limited knowledge of New Orleans as any tourist who’s only spent a week there, but one thing I do know is the city’s love of jazz music.

That’s not simply because it’s a cultural pastime carried by centuries of the city’s inhabitants, either. It gets tourists to flock to the city from around the world, which accounts for a third of New Orleans’ GDP.

To be clear, I’m not saying this to downplay the city’s connection to jazz music. Quite the opposite, in fact. Jazz is an art form that offers a sense of liberation in many ways, especially important to African-American communities. However, it is always worth remembering that it’s not that deep. Lest you become someone like Ryan Gosling’s character from La La Land, at best, or at worst, someone like the mysterious Axeman of New Orleans.

On the night of Tuesday, March 19th, 1919, the dancehalls, bars and clubs of New Orleans were packed to capacity, with jazz music playing to all hours. This sounds like nothing new for the city, except there was a strange atmosphere in the air. People danced, yes, but out of desperation and fear. This was because, for the past year, the New Orleans Axeman had been terrorising the city.

Four people had been killed, and a further three were horribly wounded at the hands of someone who always used the same modus operandi. He would break into the home of his target, then attack them specifically with an axe found on the site. He wasn’t always successful in murdering his targets, but no one had fully escaped him without harm, and no one had got a good look at who he actually was beyond a vague description of a tall, dark man.

Authorities were perplexed by the case. The entire city lived under a constant fear of who the Axeman would come for next. Then on March 13th, 1919, the strangest thing happened. In true Jack the Ripper/Zodiac killer fashion, a letter was sent to all the local newspapers in New Orleans. It was purportedly from the Axeman, one who talked about himself with quite an absurd loquaciousness. Framing himself as a demon from Hades itself that could strike at any moment.

Especially on March 19th, except for one thing. He wrote, “At 12:15 (earthly time) on next Tuesday night, I am going to pass over New Orleans. In my infinite mercy, I am going to make a little proposition to you people. Here it is: I am very fond of jazz music, and I swear by all the devils in the nether regions that every person shall be spared in whose home a jazz band is in full swing at the time I have just mentioned.” Thus, when the night came, he watched the entire city (in his weirdly charming words) “jazz it out” and didn’t kill anyone out of respect for his bargain.

Now, as is the case nearly every time a serial killer sends a letter to the authorities, this almost certainly wasn’t him. It gets even more suspicious when you realise that a local musician, Joseph John Davilla, released a song written about that night very soon afterwards, cashing in on the whole ordeal. He swore blind that he had written the song at home that night as a way of keeping the Axeman at bay.

However, more often than not, that isn’t how complicated jazz tracks like ‘The Mysterious Axman’s Jazz (Papa, Didn’t Scare Me Now)’ get written. They take time. The kind of time you can also spend getting your degree in English literature to good use and writing a scary letter that preys on mass hysteria to local newspapers. Get everyone hepped up on jazz and fear, then write a novelty song that cashes in on both.

No one ever caught the Axeman, but it sure looks like we know who cashed in on it.