Andy Ojeda thought all this was strange. As the States police reporter, Ojeda followed the course of the investigation carefully. He’d hung around Charity for days, talked to doctors, and kept tabs on the recovery of the Cortimiglias. He had been under the distinct impression that Rosie and Charlie had no idea who’d put them in the hospital. Hearing about Frank’s arrest Friday night, he was at Charity first thing Saturday morning. If the Cortimiglias were implicating Frank Jordano, he wanted to hear about it firsthand.
When Andy Ojeda saw him, Charlie was not really up for an interview. He could barely speak and answered most of Ojeda’s questions with a nod or shake of his head. “They’ve arrested Frank Jordano because you said he struck you with the axe,” began the reporter. “Did Jordano hit you?” Charlie just shrugged his shoulders.
“Do you know who hit you?” asked Ojeda. He had to repeat his question several times. Again, Charlie only managed a shrug. Finally, slightly exasperated, Ojeda said, “You don’t know who hit you, do you?” Charlie struggled to answer, and Ojeda leaned over him so he could hear the words: “I don’t know.”
“Did you see the face of the man who hit you?” pressed Ojeda. Charlie shook his head no. Asked if he saw the attacker’s face, Charlie shook his head again.
“Was the man who hit you tall or short?”
“Big,” mumbled Charlie.
This exchange exhausted Charlie, and Ojeda decided that would be all he could get out of him today. He left Charlie and headed across the hospital yard to the women’s ward to see Rosie. Entering the ward, he found the charge nurse and asked if Mrs. Cortimiglia was up to answering questions. The nurse led him to Rosie’s cot where she lay sleeping. Gently waking her, the nurse told her she had a visitor. Rosie opened her eyes and looked at the reporter.
“How are you feeling?” he asked her.
“I’m feeling all right,” she answered.
“Mrs. Cortimiglia, who hit you?”
Rosie hesitated, and then said softly, “I don’t know, but I believe my husband did.”
Ojeda thought that was nonsense. He had just seen what condition Charlie was in. He hadn’t beaten anyone with an axe.
“Who hit your baby?” he asked. She looked at him like she didn’t know she had a baby.
“I don’t know,” she responded again.
Ojeda let Rosie go back to sleep. He had gotten what he came for.
On his way out of the hospital, Ojeda spoke with Dr. Landry, who told him that he thought it likely they would both recover. “I will not vouch for the condition of their minds, however,” added Landry. “It may leave both permanently with faulty minds.” He thought it was far too soon to have much confidence in anything either patient said.
Ojeda left Charity with the conviction that neither Cortimiglia could identify the attacker. What were the Gretna authorities up to?
The next Sunday, March 16, the Times-Picayune published an unusual letter. It had arrived at the paper two days before, handwritten in clear, distinct script. The letter purported to be from the Axeman himself:
Hell, March 13, 1919
Editor of the Times-Picayune, New Orleans:
Esteemed mortal: They have never caught me and they never will. They have never seen me, for I am invisible, even as the ether which surrounds your earth. I am not a human being, but a spirit and a fell demon from hottest hell. I am what you Orleanians and your foolish police call the axman.
When I see fit, I shall come again and claim other victims. I alone know whom [sic] they shall be. I shall leave no clue, except perhaps my bloody ax, besmeared with the blood and brains of he whom I have sent below to keep me company.
If you wish you may tell the police to be careful not to rile me. Of course, I am a reasonable spirit. I take no offense at the way in which they have conducted their investigations in the past. In fact, they have been so utterly stupid so as to amuse not only me, but His Satanic Majesty, Francis Joseph [the Austro-Hungarian emperor who had died three years before], etc. But tell them to beware. Let them not try to discover what I am, for it were better that they never were born than for them to incur the wrath of the axman. I don’t think that there is any need of such a warning, for I feel sure that your police will always dodge me, as they have in the past. They are wise and know who to keep away from all harm.
Undoubtedly you Orleanians think of me as a most horrible murderer, which I am, but I could be much worse if I wanted to. If I wished to I could pay a visit to your city every night. At will I could slay thousands of your best citizens, for I am in close relationship with the Angel of Death.
Now, to be exact, at 12:25 o’clock (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 the people. Here it is:
I am very fond of jazz music and I swear by all the devils in the nether regions, [sic] that every person shall be spared in whose house a jazz band is in full swing at the time I have just mentioned. If everyone has a jazz band going, well, then so much the better for the people. One thing is certain and that is some of those persons who do not jazz it on Tuesday night (if there be any) will get the ax.
Well, as I am cold and crave the warmth of my native Tartarus, and as it is about time that I have left your homely earth, I will cease my discourse. Hoping that thou wilt publish this, that it may go well with thee, I have been, am and will be the worst spirit that ever existed either in fact or the realm of fancy.
The Axman.
The real killer didn’t send this letter. It was too well-written and too sophisticated to have been composed by the working-class Axeman. It also echoed several alleged Jack the Ripper letters sent in the fall of 1888 during his reign of terror in London. One was posted, like the Axeman’s letter, “From Hell.” Another, the so-called “Dear Boss” letter, ridiculed the efficacy of the police: “I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they won’t fix me just yet. I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track.” The writer of the Axeman letter was well-educated and literate enough to have had some familiarity with details of the Jack the Ripper story, not to mention such elements of classical mythology as Tartarus. Maybe he didn’t expect his joke to be taken seriously. Despite its macabre subject, the letter has a lofty, theatrical quality that doesn’t sound like a genuine attempt to imitate a murderous maniac. The mocking tone of the letter made light of the genuine threat and very real fears created by an all-too-real killer. It was in the spirit of those who felt free to turn the murders into a joke, such as the creators of the Piggly Wiggly ad that used the Axeman to advertise self-service grocery shopping, and the party hosts (who sound like frat boys) who responded to the murderous threat by inviting the Axeman to a stag party. Surely the staff at the Times-Picayune realized this was a practical joke. That the letter wasn’t printed until two days after it arrived suggests the possibility of a degree of hesitation. But like other Orleanians who had nothing to fear from a killer of immigrant grocers, the newspaper editors could afford to find the idea of an epistle-writing demon from hell amusing.
If not the real Axeman, who then wrote the letter?
Someone who stood to gain from the prank was local musician and businessman Joseph John Davilla. The thirty-five-year-old songwriter had his own music publishing company and had had success with hits such as “Why Do You Leave Me, Sweetheart” and “There’s Something I Like About You.” “Give Me Back My Husband, You’ve Had Him Long E-Nuff” had been his biggest hit, reaching a national audience. Written for vaudeville star Sophie “The Last of the Red-Hot Mamas” Tucker, it was what was known in that racist age as a “coon novelty song.”
Now, he claimed, the Axeman’s letter had inspired another novelty song, “The Mysterious Axman’s Jazz (Don’t Scare Me, Papa).” As much businessman as artist, Davilla recognized an opportunity when he saw it, even if it meant composing a theme song for a killer. The sheet music wasn’t available on Tuesday, the “Axeman’s”
appointed night, but Davilla kept interest piqued by planting little advertisements in the Times-Picayune: WAIT—WATCH THE AXMAN’S JAZZ and COMING MYSTERIOUSLY, THE AXMAN’S JAZZ. And he hired a ragtime piano player to play the song continuously as he was pulled up and down Canal Street in a wagon.
Davilla turned everything to his advantage. He was clever enough to get the Times-Picayune to let him use a cartoon that ran in the paper on Saint Joseph’s Day, the day after the Axeman’s supposed advent. It showed a woman and her frightened family anxiously playing “The Mysterious Axman’s Jazz” on various instruments in a desperate attempt to stave off the killer. Davilla made it the cover of his sheet music. Copies sold by the thousands at twenty-five cents apiece, and the tune could be heard from one end of the city to the other for months. If one man stood to profit from the “Axeman’s” letter to the Times-Picayune, it was J. J. Davilla.
The Times-Picayune cartoon that ran on Saint Joseph’s Day, the day after the Axeman’s supposed advent. J. J. Davilla quickly adopted it as the sheet music cover of his song “The Mysterious Axman’s Jazz.”
Nowhere did the so-called Axeman letter mention “Saint Joseph’s Day,” but the time he demanded that jazz bands be playing—“12:25 o’clock (earthly time) on next Tuesday night” (the evening of March 18)—was the first hour of March 19, Saint Joseph’s Day. That timing would have had special significance for the Italian community, the target of the Axeman. It was a particularly nasty touch.
Given Saint Joseph’s special significance for Sicilians, Saint Joseph’s Day was an important holy day for New Orleans’s Italian population, a feast day of thanksgiving and charity, and a welcome respite from the fasting and penance of Lent. The devout built altars decorated with candles and flowers and around a statue of the saint heaped foods of every description—fish, vegetables, bread, cakes, pastries—everything except meat. Dried fava beans were included for luck.
On the morning of Saint Joseph’s Day, Saint Mary’s Italian Church was packed for a solemn high mass. After the congregation returned to their homes, a little ritual was enacted. Three children representing the Holy Family entered the home and sampled the food on the altar. Then the feasting could begin. Saint Joseph’s Night was a time for parties—galas, receptions, dances, and fancy dress balls for all of New Orleans. The sound of jazz bands could be heard all over the city.
The night designated for jazz by the “Axeman,” the night of March 18, Italians would be busy preparing for the next day’s feast. To try to frighten the Italian population on that particular night was a cruel twist on an already tasteless joke.
Not a few in New Orleans used the letter to the Times-Picayune as an excuse for jollification. From dozens of house parties and late-night cafés jazzy sounds floated out as merrymakers laughingly congratulated each other for avoiding the “fell demon from hottest hell.” No doubt there were some who didn’t want to admit a fear of the Axeman but for whom the syncopated beat of a jazz band was a welcome comfort.
Most of the city ignored it, despite later legends to the contrary. The idea of an axe murderer demanding to be appeased with jazz bands was too silly to be taken seriously.
Some people were genuinely frightened, the poor and superstitious, who might not even have been able to read the letter in the newspaper but who might have heard the city humming with the news—“The Axeman is coming!” With four dead in less than a year—five if they believed Mrs. Lowe had been an Axeman victim—it’s no wonder that some panicked. Families banded together for the night, hoping for safety in numbers; fathers loaded shotguns and kept them within easy reach until dawn. Italian immigrants, including grocers who had cause to feel especially vulnerable, likely dominated their number. Pity the poor schoolboy piano or banjo players forced to jazz it up in improvised bands through the night to protect their families from the music-loving demon.
Not everyone sophisticated enough to realize the Axeman letter was a hoax found it funny. An editorial in the Herald roundly castigated the Times-Picayune for not “think[ing] of the great amount of harm it has done to the ignorant classes who are superstitiously inclined and believed to a certain extent that this ax-man would visit certain families who did not have a jazz band.” The editorial also thought tasteless the cartoon the paper ran the next day, the cartoon Davilla used to such effect as the cover of his sheet music: “We fail to see the joke.”
Frank Jordano probably didn’t see the joke either. Saint Joseph’s Day, the day he’d planned to get married, found him locked in the Gretna city jail.
Three days after her brother’s arrest, Lena Jordano watched through tears as her father was taken from his grocery by the police. Like Frank, Iorlando Jordano was charged with murder and pleaded not guilty. Sheriff Marrero and Chief Leson now announced that the Cortimiglias had identified not only Frank but Iorlando as one of their attackers.
It is difficult to understand how Sheriff Marrero and Chief Leson could have convinced themselves that the mild-mannered, elderly, arthritic grocer would kill a toddler who called him Grandpa. Their fixation on the Jordanos can be attributed, in part at least, to their ignorance about serial killers. Since the term has existed for over fifty years, it’s easy to forget how counterintuitive is the idea of killing with no discernible motive. Such depravity was something completely beyond the experience of the small-town police chief and the machine-politician sheriff. While Superintendent Mooney was confident that the Axeman attacks were the work of a deranged fiend, he couldn’t convince everyone, even in his own department. Some New Orleans police officers continued to believe that the Axeman attacks could be blamed on Italian vendettas.
Marrero and Leson didn’t know anything about serial killers, but they understood—or thought they understood—the vendetta. It was an all-purpose way of explaining violence among Italian immigrants. Barely a year before, an Italian farmworker had been found bleeding to death on the levee, shot and stabbed as the result of a quarrel with another Italian over a girl. This was the vendetta. For Sheriff Marrero and Chief Leson, one Italian killing another over a business dispute was easy to fathom. The Jordanos had quarreled with the Cortimiglias. Neighbors whispered that Frank had been overheard boasting that their competitors wouldn’t last long. Convinced by circumstantial evidence, sure of their guilt, the sheriff and police chief were determined to convict the killers even if they had to manufacture the evidence to do so.
Even so, why insist that the old man was involved? If the police had evidence that Frank threatened the family, why did that implicate his father?
Perhaps a clue can be gleaned from reports about the crime scene. Because the bolt on the kitchen door seems to have been located high above the open panel, and not in easy reach, several police officers speculated that the killer hadn’t simply extended his arm through the door after removing the panel but had actually squeezed through the hole to open the door from the inside. Later events would demonstrate that even someone as big as Frank could wedge his head and shoulders through the hole, so for a smaller accomplice such a feat might have been possible. It was pretty obvious that 275-pound Frank hadn’t stuffed himself through the opening into the kitchen, but his father had a much smaller build.
Whatever their reasoning, the authorities of the city of Gretna and Jefferson Parish had made up their minds: Frank and Iorlando Jordano were guilty. Now, how were they going to prove it?
The Cortimiglias’ claims implicating the Jordanos were made only in front of police, not in the presence of reporters or physicians. To Dr. Landry, Rosie always denied that she knew who hit her. Medical personnel at the hospital, in fact, continued to insist that nothing the couple said could be relied upon yet. Not only was their mental condition affected by their head injuries, but the opiates they were given for pain also made their mental state unreliable. Reporters who went to see him discovered that Charlie would answer “yes” to anything he was asked.
“Did Frank Jordano attack you with an axe?” one inquired.
“
Yes,” responded Charlie.
“Are you a Frenchman?” asked another.
“Yes,” came the reply.
A few days after authorities claimed that Rosie had identified Frank as her attacker, she told her doctors that she didn’t know if the man was white or black.
In fact, the so-called statements given by the Cortimiglias consisted of agreeing to highly leading questions when they probably had little idea of what they were saying:
Q: “Did Frank Jordano hit you with the axe?”
A: “Yes.”
Q: “Was Iorlando Jordano with Frank Jordano at the time he made the axe attack on you?”
A: “Yes.”
Even Sheriff Marrero admitted that Charlie “was unable to give details” but admitted to no doubts about the arrests. “I am confident we have the right men and that the Cortimiglias will recover to tell the complete story of the attack made upon them,” Sheriff Marrero assured reporters.
Frank and Iorlando’s arrest was greeted with general approval in Gretna. Popular sentiment was not on their side. Charlie Cortimiglia was an agreeable, energetic young man who was well liked in the community. Everybody knew about the quarrel over the store—if they hadn’t before, they did now—and that the deadly assault occurred shortly after the Cortimiglias had moved into their new place. The murder had badly shaken the people of Jefferson Parish, and, like the sheriff and police chief, many people found it easier to believe in revenge as a motive than they did a homicidal maniac.
Feelings against the Jordanos were so strong that some began clamoring for a special session of the grand jury to consider the case immediately. But since the chief witnesses were still in the hospital and likely to remain there for some weeks, District Attorney Rivarde vetoed the idea. It would have to wait for the regular session of the grand jury, he said, which would convene in early May.
The Axeman of New Orleans Page 17
