Starting in 1918 and over a period of 18 months, the city of New Orleans was haunted by a serial killer known as "The Axeman." The Axeman was the personification of the bogeyman, only attacking at night and was rumored to be responsible for 12 attacks and six deaths. To make this mystery even more chilling, he seemed to only creep on his victims while they slept. Oddly enough, The Axeman never used his own tools and only used what he could find in the victim's house, usually an ax, which he then would leave at the scene of the crime.
The majority of the Axeman's victims were Italian immigrants or Italian-Americans, leading many citizens of New Orleans to believe that the crimes were ethnically motivated. Many media outlets drew frenzy from this aspect of the crimes, even suggesting Mafia involvement despite the pure lack of evidence.
Other crime analysts have suggested that the Axeman killings were related to sex and that the murderer was perhaps a sadist specifically seeking female victims. Other theories include that the Axeman killed male victims only when they blocked his attempts to murder women, supported by cases in which the woman of a household was murdered but not the man. A less likely theory is that the serial killer committed the murders in an attempt to promote jazz , suggested by a letter that the murderer himself was rumored to write which stated that he would spare the lives of those who played jazz in their homes. The Axeman was never identified, and the murders remain unsolved.