The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America's First Serial Killer

by Hollandsworth, Skip

  Townsend’s burglary conviction is recorded in “Convict Record Texas State Penitentiary,” case number 3846.

  Jimmy Phillips moving to Georgetown and remarrying later in life comes from the author’s interview with Donna O’ Donnell, Phillips’s granddaughter from his second marriage.

  Information on Moses Hancock comes from his obituary in the Waco Times Herald on March 25, 1919, and the author’s interviews with his great-grandson Richard S. Bagby.

  Swain as the “Midnight Murderer” is from the Austin Daily Statesman, August 24, 1888. Swain’s move to Houston is noted in his obituary in the Houston Chronicle, December 20, 1904.

  Tobin’s house destroyed is from the Austin Daily Statesman on November 30, 1888.

  Nalle as boomer is from the Austin Daily Statesman, December 5, 1888.

  Dr. Johnson’s death is from the Austin Daily Statesman on April 10, 1889. Mrs. Johnson’s death is from the Austin Daily Statesman on July 2, 1889.

  Wooldridge’s biographical information comes from Overbeck’s “Alexander Penn Wooldridge” in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly.

  Wooldridge pushing the idea of a dam in early 1888 is from the Austin Daily Statesman on January 1, 1888, January 4, 1888, January 6, 1888, March 7, 1888, and March 19, 1888.

  Wooldridge pushing the idea again, promoting the dam as an electric plant, is from the Austin Daily Statesman on August 3, 1889, September 1, 1889, September 3, 1889, October 27, 1889, October 30, 1889, and November 12, 1889. More details about Wooldridge’s proposal come from Sevcik’s “Selling the Austin Dam: A Disastrous Experiment in Encouraging Growth” and Suhler’s “Significant Questions Relating to the History of Austin, Texas, to 1900.” Information on arc lamps around the country is from Freeberg’s The Age of Edison, pp. 47–70.

  “Citizens Against Nalle” is from the Austin Daily Statesman on November 30, 1889. McDonald and aldermen winning their elections by a handy majority is from the Austin Daily Statesman on December 1, 1889.

  The plan developed for the dam is from the Austin Daily Statesman, March 29, 1890, and March 30, 1890. The bond vote and celebration are from the Austin Daily Statesman, May 6, 1890.

  The decision to get lights from Detroit is from the Austin Daily Statesman, “How Tower Lights Came to Be Here,” January 1933. The size of the moon lamps and towers is from Starr’s History of Travis County and Austin, p. 132. Trying to prevent cowboys from shooting out the lamps is from Galloway’s “Moonlight Memories” in Texas Highways, May 1995, pp. 12–15.

  The arc lamps being turned on is from the Austin Daily Statesman, May 4, 1895, and May 8, 1895.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Helpful sources detailing the impact of the arc lamps on Austin life were the Austin Daily Statesman on December 14, 1968, and March 26, 1939; Weems’s Austin: 1839–1989, p. 25; Southwell’s “A Social and Literary History of Austin from 1881 to 1896,” p. 95; Jones’s Life on Waller Creek, p. 146; the Austin Chamber of Commerce’s “The Story of Austin’s Famous Tower Lights”; and Humphrey’s Austin: An Illustrated History, pp. 60, 77–76, 129–30.

  “No taxes and no Negroes” is from Southwell’s “A Social and Literary History of Austin from 1881 to 1896,” p. 14.

  Lucy retiring is from the Austin Daily Statesman, February 6, 1927.

  Chenneville at the Merchants Police and Southern Detective Association is from the Austin Daily Statesman, March 1, 1904.

  Details on Given’s death are from the Austin Daily Statesman on August 26, 1886, and August 28, 1886; the San Antonio Daily Express on August 27, 1886, and August 18, 1886; and the 1886 New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, p. 14. Denton at the new sanitarium is from Starr’s History of Travis County and Austin, p. 243.

  Among the histories studied were Maxey’s The History of Texas to 1893; Thrall’s A Pictorial History of Texas: From the Earliest Visits of European Adventurer to A.D. 1885; Bancroft’s History of North Mexican States and Texas, vol. 2, 1801–1889; Wooten’s A Comprehensive History of Texas 1685 to 1897; Brown’s History of Texas from 1685 to 1892; and Pennybacker’s A New History of Texas for Schools.

  The alienists’ meeting about the Midnight Assassin and “moral insanity” is from the Dallas Morning News, May 23, 1892, and Halttunen’s Murder Most Foul, pp. 216–39.

  Krafft-Ebing’s theories are from his Psychopathia Sexualis with Especial Reference to the Antipathic Sexual Instinct, pp. 351–59.

  The Henry Holmes information comes from Larson’s Devil in the White City.

  The Myrtle Hornsby Callan interview was conducted by the author on April 19, 2002, with follow-up telephone interviews.

  Ghost references come from the Callan interview; Barkley’s History of Travis County and Austin, p. 332; and from the Austin Daily Statesman, February 28, 1935.

  Rebecca Ramey still wandering the streets is from the Austin Daily Statesman, August 28, 1888.

  Jim Crow coming early is based on Humphrey’s Austin: A History of the Capital City, pp. 35–39; Barr’s Reconstruction to Reform, Texas Politics, 1876–1906, pp. 192–99; and Mears’s Grace Will Lead Me, pp. 99, 138–39. After Carrington’s loss, no black aldermen being elected until 1971 is from Humphrey’s Austin: A History of the Capital City, p. 35.

  Whitman details come from Colloff’s “Ninety-Six Minutes” in the Texas Monthly, August 2001, p. 104.

  EPILOGUE

  Moonlight tower landmark designation comes from “City of Austin Historic Landmark Inventory,” Moonlight Towers File C14h–74–028; and City of Austin, Texas, “Ordinance Designating Certain Moonlight Towers as Historic Landmarks,” August 6, 1975.

  The author’s interview with Dorothy Larson was conducted in January 2000.

  The story in Texas Monthly was “Capital Murder,” July 2000.

  The author’s interviews with Peyton Abbott were conducted in September 2002 and September 2011, with follow-up phone calls.

  Townsend’s escape comes from “Convict Record Texas State Penitentiary,” case number 3846, “Escape: July 13, 1895.”

  The author’s interview and follow-up phone calls with Lois Douglas took place in June 2002.

  The Eugene Burt information is taken from Daniell’s “The Jurisprudence of Insanity, with Especial Reference to the Case and Trial of Eugene Burt,” pp. 2–24.

  The Black Elk information came in part from Casson’s Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, p. 190, and Neihardt’s Black Elk Speaks.

  Shirley Harrison lays out her theory in Jack the Ripper: The American Connection.

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