0:02

Hi, everybody. You come here weekly to learn about huge headline making cases of the past, but did you know that this show wouldn't exist?

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If it weren't for my firstborn podcast, accused, accused from USA today and the Cincinnati Enquirer is an investigative podcast that uses my skills as a journalist to dig deep into cases that police say are solved, but others disagree and not just the suspects.

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Season four looks at the 1994 murder of a loving grandmother in her Ohio hotel room.

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The man convicted Elwood Jones has been on death row for nearly 30 years for a crime.

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He says he didn't commit. We re-examine all the evidence, interview witnesses and experts and find paths.

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Police didn't pursue follow accused season for the impending execution of Elvin Jones on apple podcasts, Amazon music, or you can binge all seven episodes ad for you by subscribing to wondering plus an apple podcast or the wonder app Cincinnati, Enquirer, and USA today.

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Subscribers can also listen early in ad-free by going to accuse podcast dot Some crimes are so heartbreaking or shocking that they earn the label crime of the century.

1:18

But

1:18

the

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stories

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that

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made

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headlines

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in

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decades

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past

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necessarily

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remembered

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today.

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I'm

1:26

Amber

1:26

Hunt,

1:26

a

1:26

journalist

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and

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author. And in each episode of this show Alexander and a case that's maybe lesser known today, but was huge when it happened.

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This is crimes of the century.

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The

1:43

first

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time

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sailor

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Carl

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pans

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Ram

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was

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mentioned

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in

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any

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U

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S

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newspaper. He was presented as an attention seeker, even a joke, one headline read Tara arrested here, confesses killings.

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There were quotation marks around the word confesses because authorities thought he was a blowhard talking shit.

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A wire story began quote, although inclined to doubt his confession that he had murdered two boys and had robbed the new Haven home of chief justice, William Howard Taft at $40,000 in jewels in 1920 district police said today that they would question Carl pantry 38 C man, further regarding his amazing tale and quote, it wasn't that Pam drum seemed too kind to have committed crimes.

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In fact, he was in jail awaiting trial for serious crimes, sodomy, burglary robbery attempted escape, but the supposed confession he gave was so outlandish.

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So brutal that authorities thought he might just be a depressed dude trying a new version of suicide by cop, and then police verified one detail, none another.

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And when you know it, someone did Rob former president William Tufts, new Haven home back in 1920, the stolen jewels were probably only worth a few grand rather than $40,000.

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His pan drum had bragged eight years later, but still at lined up, which was terrifying because pans Ram's full confession had barely begun Crimes.

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grand forks. Minnesota still had that new city smell.

4:59

And when Charles L pans Ram was born there on June 28th, 1891, the city had formed just across the border from the Dakota territory in the late 1880s as a trading center.

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After the civil war, the Dakotas would split into two states in 1889 east grand forks was closest with North Dakota.

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After the divorce, as anyone who's lived in that part of the country can attest.

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It can be beautiful there, but it can also be bleak pans.

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Ram's childhood fell consistently in the latter category nicknamed curl.

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He was the youngest of six children, two immigrant parents.

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His father, John was a veteran of the Franco pressure Moore who had come to America, looking for riches.

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Instead he ended up with his family on a nearly barren chunk of land that author Genoviva Ortiz describes is a straight up dirt farm.

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By the time pan dream was born.

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His mother Lizzie was in her forties and often sick sometimes too weak to pay any attention to her crying child.

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When pans Ram turned to the country was in the grips of the panic of 1893, a severe economic collapse triggered by word that two huge national employers were struggling.

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The Philadelphia and Redding railroad and the national cordage company.

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People well panicked and rushed to take their money out of banks, which led to the failure of hundreds of banks.

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Plus the failure of wall street, brokerage houses, businesses and manufacturers couldn't open because they had no money to pay workers or buy materials.

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The unemployment rate blew past 10% nationwide while the acute panic ended in November, 1893, the economic depression that followed it lasted for long years, most years were not kind to John pans Ram who in turn was not kind to his family.

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He was the kind of man who beat his wife and kids while quoting scripture and Downing scotch.

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So maybe it's not a surprise That

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it didn't take long for Carl to find trouble.

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This Is Todd. a PhD who delves into mental health topics on his YouTube channel with nearly a million subscribers.

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He dedicated an episode to pan drum in August of 2020 Time,

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around the age of five or six, he was already stealing and lying pathologically, Which

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he was of course beaten, which wasn't much of a deterrent by the way.

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There's a reason it fell out of fashion to beat your kids.

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It doesn't work when Carl was eight.

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John left the family altogether, his oldest three kids soon moved out to leaving mom, Lizzie with her remaining daughter and youngest two sons to work on the dirt farm curl heated, this The

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abuse, and they got the hard work, you know, and they kept them out in the fields.

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After the sun went down, This

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is Henry lesser, a prison guard who got to know Carl pretty well back in 1928 here, lessors being interviewed decades later in a program hosted by San Diego state university around the same time his dad ditched the family curl landed himself in a bit of legal trouble.

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I was arrested for drunk and disorderly in 1899.

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So My

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son is eight and this blows my mind.

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The year after this arrest, Carl suffered an ear infection that morphed into a mastoiditis, a serious bacterial infection affecting the bony air cells and the mastoid bone behind the ear.

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We don't see this much anymore because your infections are typically treated with antibiotics nowadays.

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So they don't often mutate further Carl's did however, and the infection was life-threatening.

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His family was too poor to get good medical care.

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So according to Ortiz's the butcher of humanity, his mother Lizzie attempted a rudimentary surgery on her son.

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As he lay on the kitchen table, shocker, it went poorly.

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He would need a second surgery conducted by, you know, an actual doctor, but that didn't help much either.

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Well in the rural area, G chat sought was a general practitioner, you know, and perhaps on the unsanitary conditions.

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And now this wasn't well-known at the time, but mastoiditis was more serious than it even seemed.

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That's because if the infection spreads from that mastoid bone, it can reach the brain causing meningitis or abscesses.

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Those in turn could cause permanent brain damage.

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And there was evidence that Carl never fully healed from the infection is afterwards, Whether this infection is even worth mentioning is up for debate, but we'll return to that later.

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What's not debatable is that Carl path of destruction was being forged before he was even a teenager.

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He drank, he stole, he hit and soon he'd be doing far, far worse.

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I'll pause here for a content warning books about this man's crimes often referenced sodomy, but I want to be crystal clear that this isn't a violation of prudish sexual norms.

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The issue isn't the type of sex he liked.

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The issue is that he viciously forced that sex onto people, both men and women though, men more often, and sometimes even little boys to keep this from being impossible to stomach.

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I won't get detailed about these rapes, but I also don't want to sanitize it the way I've seen other writers do.

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He might be charged with sodomy and a lot of these cases, but make no mistake the crime he was actually accused of.

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And to which he glowingly confessed was raped, which he claims he learned all about.

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Thanks to his first stint in reform school, which came in 1903 when he was 11, He

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was arrested again in 1903 for being drunk and incorrigible.

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So disorderly just wasn't going to cut it anymore.

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He was arrested again in 1903 for being drunk and incorrigible that same year, he would steal a revolver from the house of one of his neighbors.

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And he would be sent to the Minnesota state training school in Redwing Minnesota.

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This was a juvenile detention facility Already

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at home. Carl had been subjected to harsh punishment from his mother, Lizzie, who was very much in the spare.

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The rod spoil the child camp, but it was apparently child's play compared to what he would endure it red wing.

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And he was there. He was not only beaten and tortured, but was the victim of repeated Those

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assaults included rape years later, has an adult curl would write an autobiography of sorts from which comes a of what we know about him, which could mean that some of it, at least as bullshit.

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I'm not sure I trust this guy as a reliable narrator, but enough of it has been confirmed that we can be comfortable.

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He was at least in the same zip code as the truth by his own writing.

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He said that what he endured at this reform school change the course of his life and not for the better it was there that I

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began to learn about. Man's inhumanity to man, That

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terrifying voice is actor John DiMaggio, no relation to baseball, great.

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And Simon and Garfunkel muse Joe in 2011, John DiMaggio, best known as the voice of bender on Futurama served as pan drums, voice in an indie film that relied heavily and creepily on pans.

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Ram's own writings Started

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me off by trying to beat the Christian religion.

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And to me, the consequences were that the more they beat with me, the more I hated them and that damn religion, This

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audio is obviously so over the top, it's kind of cringy.

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It's useful because it's pan drums on words.

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But really, as far as we know, pan drums sounded more like a Fargo character and then Satan incarnate.

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In fact, it's more likely that he did, because if he sounded like DiMaggio makes him sound, no one would have ever let him near them much less in close enough proximity to hurt them anyway.

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Well in that reform school, what he endured was nothing short of brutal.

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He started fantasizing about revenge to that end.

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He committed his first arson burning one of the red wing buildings to the ground though.

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The deed was never formally pinned on him.

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He got away with it and in fact was released back home soon after declared reformed by those in charge.

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According to Carl though, I

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had been taught by the Christians how to be a hypocrite.

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I'm sorry, I just can't with this performance here's engineer, extraordinary Garrett, Tiedemann reading pans, Rams writings.

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Instead I made up my mind that I would Rob burn, destroy and kill everywhere I went and everybody I could, as long as I Lived.

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And so once he was released, Carl

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continued to commit thefts and he was drinking heavily.

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By this point, he tried to kill a teacher.

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What they revolve her Page

14:13

14. He ran away from home.

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He'd hopped, freight trains and steal from other passengers, Rob hobo camps, then hop another freight train.

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Supposedly a group of vagrants befriended him on one of these trains, offered him food and friendliness, and then they beat and gang raped him.

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So we see here, Carl was quite violent, but he was also the victim of The

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cycle has fascinated historians and sociologists who studied the guy because of the whole nurture versus nature debate.

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Maybe Carl would have been a violent piece of shit regardless, or maybe I

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came the extreme version of those who Committed

14:51

Against him. Hard to say regardless, it probably doesn't mean much to his victims.

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And there were a lot of them, Just a quick break crimes.

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pans, Rams, a long list of victims started accruing while he was still in that reform school, which is when he began beating and raping anyone.

16:46

He could dominate his fury.

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He said was directed at those who beat and raped him.

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But since he clearly couldn't overpower those people Preyed

16:55

on the week, the harmless and the unsuspecting, those are harmed were weaklings either mentally or physically On

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the occasions he did target someone capable of fighting back.

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He would befriend them, lying to them to get their trust and then lead them into a trap.

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Then when they were either asleep or drunk or otherwise helpless, he would attack seldom.

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Do you hear someone brag?

17:18

So heartily about attacking the weak, but pans Ram boasted without remorse.

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He said he learned at a very young age when he was this reformed school, Minnesota that might make Stripe, right?

17:31

I think he felt he had a right to take it out on anybody, which is a horrible thing.

17:36

You have, he felt he had it right there.

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I am.

17:41

Pam's Ram's first kill was according to him.

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While in that first reform school, there's no record of who it was.

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All we is that pans Ram described.

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The boy is maybe 12 years old and he apparently got away with a crime after he ran away from home and got assaulted by that group of vagrants.

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He committed burglary in Montana, landing him in another reform school.

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There again, the worst he behaved, the more he was beaten, the more he was beaten, the worst he behaved in 1905.

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He and a fellow inmate named Jimmy Benson escaped that school and then joined forces on the outside.

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Benson taught pans Ram.

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How to most effectively rod people during a stickup in return pantry taught Benson the fine art of arson, the two headed east together and wreaked as much havoc as they could manage.

18:33

Sometimes it was to benefit themselves like when they stole money from church donation boxes.

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While other times it was just to be jerks like when they cut holes in the bottom of box cars so that the harvested wheat being transported inside would spill out.

18:51

As though the trains were leaving breadcrumb trails across the country.

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The duo spent about a month together before splitting somewhere around North Dakota.

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By then they had committed too many crimes to count pans Ram.

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Wasn't sure what to do next.

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Then he got what must've felt was an ingenious idea.

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He decided to enlist in the military.

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The idea hit him when he encountered in our army recruiter while searching for food and Helena Montana.

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He

19:20

figured

19:20

that

19:20

the

19:20

army

19:20

might

19:20

be

19:20

a

19:20

place

19:20

where

19:20

his

19:20

bent

19:20

toward

19:20

violence

19:20

might

19:20

be

19:20

embraced

19:20

rather

19:20

than

19:28

punished. He was only 16 at the time, too young to legally join.

19:32

So he lied about his age, which wasn't hard because by this time he was a tall beefy young man who'd been knocked around by life a bit and looked older than he was.

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It didn't take long for pans Ram to realize that he and the army might not gel after all, see his superiors had the audacity to give him orders and assign them jobs right after he got his uniform and army haircut, he was assigned to scrub the outhouses and he flat out refused.

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Then when a superior handed him a copy of the articles of war pants Ram destroyed it, that got them in trouble for a week.

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And then he stole a bunch of stuff.

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I was only in the army a month or two, and I got three years in the U S military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Interesting

20:19

side note, William Howard Taft was at this point, us secretary of war.

20:24

And in that position, he got final say over pants, Ram sentencing, apparently pans Ram took note in his later writings, pans Ram bemoaned his treatment in prison Part

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was to load my iron ball an 18 pound hammer, a pick and a shovel and a six foot iron crowbar all into a wheel barrel and March behind the line of cons, three months to the rock query.

20:46

And there worked for eight and a half hours in the hot Kansas sun bust and big rocks, but all that treatment did one good thing for me, the harder they worked made the strongest.

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Again, keep in mind. That is bad-ass is this guy tries to make himself sound.

21:00

He targeted the vulnerable and weak Pans Ram was discharged from the Leavenworth prison in 1910.

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By this time William Howard Taft had ascended to the presidency for the single term he would serve pan DRAM mean, well said he himself had become the spirit of meanness personified.

21:21

Soon after he was arrested in Texas, while riding a top, a mail train with two pistols under the pseudonym, Jeff Davis, he was convicted of vagrancy.

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He served 65 days before he escaped next.

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He was arrested in Fresno, California for stealing a bike for that.

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He got four months in jail.

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It was about this time that he had started committing more rapes than he could count.

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He said he attacked men of all races, all ages tall, short didn't matter.

21:53

He wrote that his only from criterion was that they were human beings that he wasn't arrested for those isn't surprising.

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I guess for starters, he killed some of the victims after assaulting them.

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But even those who survived didn't seem to speak up.

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It's still difficult today for men to report having been assaulted.

22:14

I can't imagine how stigmatized they would have felt in the early 19 hundreds, especially when at that time, the act forced upon them was illegal in all 50 states, but burglaries were reported plenty and pans DRAM seemed to be fairly sloppy at them.

22:32

He was arrested for some in Historia, Oregon, to which he agreed to plead guilty in exchange for leniency, but after pans or him entered his plea, prosecutors reneged on their end of the deal, this perturbed tantrum.

22:46

So he managed to get himself out of his cell, locked his fellow prisoners inside of theirs, plug the locks.

22:53

So no one could get in or out and trash the jail.

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Eventually he landed behind bars in Salem, Oregon.

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You might be wondering how he was in and out of so many places.

23:05

Well, he Used

23:06

an alias much of the time.

23:09

People had no idea that the guy arrested in 1905 for burglary was the same guy arrested in 1910 with two pistols.

23:17

Had they pieced it together.

23:18

Maybe a judge along the way would have hit him with a harder sentence or a warden.

23:23

Might've kept a better eye on him, especially considering how many jails and prisons he'd escaped.

23:28

But swapping identities back in this era was pretty easy peasy.

23:33

And so his cycle continued through most of the 19 teens, He

23:39

escaped was arrested again for another crime incarcerated, and then he was released.

23:44

Then he was incarcerated in Oregon.

23:47

Again, he helped another inmate escape from the Oregon state penitentiary and that prisoner killed the word.

23:54

Carl would escape from that prison in 1917, he was recaptured and he escaped again in 1918, by selling through the bars.

24:04

I imagined this caused the prison to reconsider their Hexall for every prisoner policy.

24:09

There's always that one guy who ruins hacksaws for all, for everyone else.

24:13

Even when he wasn't trying to escape.

24:15

Pan DRAM was far from a model prisoner.

24:18

Now after his 1918 escape, BN DRAM said he decided to take a show on the road.

24:25

He traveled to some 31 countries in south America, Europe and Africa, and on each new continent, he visited.

24:32

He left a trail of rape and murder victims.

24:35

Considering that world war one was coming to a close at this time.

24:40

It's not surprising that those victims went largely unnoticed in the summer of 1920 pans.

24:47

Ram ended up in new Haven, Connecticut, where he broke into a house that happened to belong to William Howard Taft.

24:53

By this point, Taft had been voted out of the white house seven years earlier and was poised to become appointed chief justice of the Supreme court.

25:02

By the way, he's the only person who has served in both roles.

25:05

At least as of this recording, Evidently

25:08

Taft had a lot to steal.

25:09

Carl took Bond's jewelry and a semi-automatic pistols, specifically a 45 caliber Colt M 1911 Pan's

25:19

Ram estimated he stole some $40,000 in jewelry and bonds.

25:23

Plus another three grand in cash.

25:25

With that cash. He bought a yacht called the Acosta.

25:28

He was so low on board for a few days, but Len decided he should hire some help.

25:35

Whenever I saw a couple who were about my size and seemed to have money, I would hire them to work on my yacht.

25:39

I always promised big pay and easy work, the got with something else.

25:46

And when something like this, he would hire the men to work, ply them with alcohol while on board, then rape them, Rob them and shoot them in the head with Taft's gun no less before throwing their bodies overboard.

25:59

They're there yet 10 of them. And no one had a clue nor would they have had pan drum opted.

26:06

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The truth started to surface in 1928.

27:35

At this point 37 year old Carl pan drum had been in and out of reform schools and prisons his entire life.

27:44

In that time, he said just two people showed him any noteworthy kindness.

27:49

The first was in Oregon jail warden named Charles Murphy nicknames, Spud Murphy decided that maybe pans Ram wasn't as tough as he seemed and just needed some compassion to that end.

28:02

He granted pan drum unsupervised outings.

28:05

If pans Ram agreed to return willingly at the agreed upon time, the idea was that interesting pans DRAM would that freedom would help.

28:14

Well, the fury that rage within him and at first it seemed to work pans Ram would leave tool around doing God knows what all day and then return at day's end.

28:25

But then Hans Ram got drunk and failed to show up certain that Spud Murphy would turn on him.

28:33

Pans Ram ran rather than show up late.

28:35

It took a week for the sheriff and some deputies to track them down.

28:39

And when they did, he tried to kill them.

28:42

According to Henry lesser in an interview from the 1970s, He

28:47

had a gun and the anger, the sheriff didn't go off.

28:51

And then he was very remorseful.

28:53

After, after he was taken back to the prison, he had fuel feelings about doing this, the Spud Murphy.

29:00

So that's about the only time normally I trusted in Murphy Murphy had done so much for now.

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Pantry I'm stunned cost Murphy. His career Henry lesser was the second guy to supposedly show him Pinus.

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Lesser was a new prison guard.

29:18

When he met pantry who had a reputation, I

29:22

happened here. It was a approach south wing, where I was working at time.

29:28

It would seem to be a very interesting person.

29:30

And a first opportunity.

29:32

I went past the cell and kept talking to him.

29:36

He seemed to be friendly.

29:39

And I asked him, what was his racket?

29:44

And he said, how do you know of a Lesser

29:47

plate things? Cool. And basically said, I don't know.

29:50

I just have a feeling. Despite pan drams, rough exterior.

29:53

He was A

29:55

Husky man.

29:56

He walked with a Limp.

29:57

Lester said he seemed nice enough.

30:00

But soon after this encounter pans, DRAM tried to escape the prison and failed.

30:04

His punishment was outright torture.

30:08

He

30:08

was

30:08

tied

30:08

by

30:08

his

30:08

arms

30:08

to

30:08

a

30:08

supportive

30:08

beam

30:08

and

30:08

dangled

30:08

inches

30:08

off

30:08

the

30:08

ground

30:08

for

30:15

hours. It was so harsh that the warden instructed the prison doctor to check on the prisoner every hour to make sure he was still alive.

30:23

This lasted all night, two nights in a row in between stints of torture pans Ram was kept in the death row wing of the prison, even though he hadn't at that point, been sentenced to die.

30:36

The worst charge he faced was burglary.

30:41

I was told about the torture of pants Ram, and I always hit the ceiling.

30:45

I was greatly distressed about it.

30:47

I felt he was a man in the clutches of the law and they had no right to do what they did.

30:53

Lester said, he knew that pans Ram had no money to buy anything from the canteen.

30:57

So he recruited one of his friends who worked on the death row wing to pass along a dollar to pantry him the idea being that it would allow pan DRAM to buy himself some smokes or candy.

31:08

When the guards slipped hand tram the dollar, he made a point to say it came from Henry lesser.

31:14

And he apparently I got very excited and use a great many experts is said, what the hell are you trying to do?

31:21

Kill me. Christ sakes.

31:23

God entrusted me. Send me a dollar, cut it out with you.

31:27

And this man assured him that that had happened.

31:33

Pans Ram. Who'd had such an antagonistic relationship with guards.

31:37

His whole life asked the intermediary how long Lester had been a guard, not long.

31:42

He was told maybe nine months to a year.

31:46

And I told him, we're waiting these here another year.

31:49

You only have, it'd be just as bad as the rest of them Believed

31:52

wholeheartedly in treating the prisoners like human beings.

31:56

Even if they had done in human things, his philosophy was that they deserved respect.

32:01

He shook their hands.

32:03

He chatted with them. Amiably he did the same with pan DRAM who remember at this point was in prison for burglary.

32:10

Surely he was known to be violent because of his escape attempts and run ins with guards and cellmates.

32:15

But the extent of his crimes was a complete mystery until lessor encouraged him to share his full story.

32:24

I felt He had a story to tell.

32:26

I had an idea that you had something to tell us.

32:29

And I encouraged him to write his autobiography and he, the Muir, he said, Jesus Christ.

32:35

I can't do that. What the school without sixth grade never written.

32:40

I said, you started started.

32:43

I encouraged. I took a couple of weeks until he finally started writing The

32:49

two devised the system.

32:50

After writing 10 to 20 pages, pan drum would leave a bundle of papers on the bar of his cell, which lesser would retrieve when making his overnight rounds.

33:00

Every stack he received lessor would smuggle out to read.

33:04

And it wasn't more than a Week,

33:05

10 days while I felt I had something Worthwhile.

33:08

But before lessor could contemplate what to do with the writings, pans Ram felt he should fess up to some of his crimes.

33:15

That's when he stepped forward to confess that he killed a young boy, little Henry McMann in Salem, Massachusetts Henry had last been seen July 18th, 1922, walking down Highland street with a stranger, one of his classmates and the classmates mother spotted the little boy holding hands with a burly man.

33:38

They'd never seen before because the two were walking in the direction of a swimming hole.

33:43

Authorities feared Henry had drowned when his mother reported that he never came home that night, they drain the swimming hole to no avail.

33:51

Then three days after Henry disappeared, another boy was picking berries in a swamp with his mother.

33:58

When the two spotted a body partially concealed by the underbrush.

34:02

What pans Ram had done to the child was beyond brutal.

34:07

He raped the boy, choked him to unconsciousness.

34:10

Then beat him in the head with a rock until he was dead.

34:16

I left him laying there with his brains coming out of the Sears.

34:19

A few days later, he attacked another boy and new Haven that one, he strangled with a belt after assaulting him while newspapers did report a murder matching those descriptions in 1923, the victim was never identified.

34:34

And then pan DRAM confessed to another slang that of a boy in Philadelphia, that victim was 14 year old newsboy, Alec whose decomposed body had been discovered in August of 1927, justice pans Ram had described Alex body had been wrapped in a blanket and left near the riverfront.

34:55

The ones dubious news stories shifted one read quote.

35:00

After days of skepticism in which pan DRAM was believed by headquarters detectives to be, but a crazy liar.

35:08

Washington authorities were convinced that the strange eight black man crouching in his cell must be telling the truth and quote, and his confessions pan drum wrote quote, I hate the whole human race and would like to kill everybody.

35:24

He also said I have been going around murdering people for the past 18 years.

35:29

And I think it's time someone murdered me.

35:31

He also said he'd once hatched a plan to kill thousands of people by poisoning the water of a reservoir.

35:38

Another time he said he had imagined rigging a bomb at a busy train station to take out hundreds at a time in November, 1928, finally facing trial for the burglary that brought him into Henry Lesser's orbit pan DRAM would serve as his own attorney, which as we all know is always a great idea.

35:59

According to the wire story quote, and acting as his own attorney, he threatened one witness with death and broke into a long speech declaring.

36:08

I don't have any faith in man, God or the devil.

36:11

I've executed several people in my time and will execute more and quote.

36:16

He was sentenced to 25 years and all pans Ram confessed to 21 murders and claimed some 1200 rapes.

36:26

He would be tried for none of them.

36:29

Rather

36:29

in

36:29

1929,

36:29

he

36:29

attacked

36:29

the

36:29

foreman

36:29

of

36:29

the

36:29

prison

36:29

laundry

36:29

with

36:29

a

36:29

flat

36:29

iron

36:29

bludgeoning,

36:29

47

36:29

year

36:29

old

36:29

R

36:29

E

36:29

Warren

36:29

key

36:29

to

36:40

death. Then he chased around his fellow inmates until another guard overpowered him.

36:45

The incident seemed to kick off on rest at the prison less than two weeks later.

36:51

Prisoners mounted in the insurrection that well quickly quashed left one inmate dead and three others injured.

36:58

It was for Warren key's murder.

37:00

That pans Ram finally went down.

37:02

He was convicted and sentenced to death, a judgment.

37:06

He didn't bother to argue.

37:08

In fact, he said he wanted to die.

37:10

So it pissed him off. When a group called the society for the abolishment of capital punishment, tried to intervene to save his life.

37:18

He wrote them a terse letter, which read in part I've

37:22

deliberately and intentionally made my choice.

37:24

I choose to die here now by being hanged by the neck until I am dead.

37:28

I look forward to that as a real place and a big relief to me.

37:32

I prefer that I die that way.

37:35

And if I have a soul and if that soul should burn in hell for a million years still, I prefer the tool lingering, agonizing death and some prison dungeon or a padded cell on a madhouse Pan's

37:47

Ram got his wish on September 5th, 1930.

37:51

He was led from his cell to the gallows at Leavenworth.

37:54

As officers tried to cover his head with a black hood, he said to have spat and the executioners face.

38:01

Then he complained that his killing was taking too long to the executioner.

38:06

He said, hurry it up.

38:08

You who's your bastard. I could hang a dozen men while you're screwing around, or maybe he said he could kill a dozen men accounts.

38:15

Very anyway, lesser held on to pans, Rams notes and letters with plans to eventually release them in book form as a cautionary tale about how prison systems brutality can turn men into monsters.

38:30

But publishers of the day found it too shocking to revolting.

38:35

And it would take 40 years before the writings would be published when they were, it was this part of the book killer, a journal of murder by Thomas E goddess and James Long.

38:47

The book would be turned into a TV movie in 1995 with actor Robert, Sean Leonard portraying lessor and James Woods is pan drum.

38:55

I haven't seen it today.

38:59

Pans Ram is reputed to be the evilest serial killer in American history.

39:04

It's hard to say if that reputation would have been born without his own self aggrandized writings, regardless.

39:11

One of the biggest mysteries about him is whether he would have turned out as awful, a person as he was.

39:18

If he hadn't been exposed to so much brutality and his youth lesser didn't think so.

39:24

In fact, he believed it's possible.

39:26

Pan drums, childhood bout of mastoiditis.

39:29

Might've been to blame for his behavior.

39:33

It's an infection in the brain among other things that could have had something to do with this type of tantrums.

39:38

You know, getting excited, losing his head, saw that as assaults and so on, Possibly

39:44

Pan's Ram for one probably would have co-signed that theory because that guy never took responsibility for anything he did.

39:52

When you read his confession, this stands out.

39:55

It was always someone else's fault.

39:58

Everyone else was to blame for the choices he made today.

40:02

Pans Ram remains buried in the old Leavenworth prison graveyard, his tombstone bearing only his prison number To research this story.

40:21

I read this jerks writing as well as a lot of contemporary news coverage.

40:25

I also read the book, the butcher of humanity, the true story of Carl pans Ram, a product of hatred and vengeance by Genoviva Ortiz.

40:33

Special thanks to guaranteed him in for stepping in front of the mic to read pants, Rams writing in a normal human voice Cramps of the centuries is a production of the obsessed network to learn more about it shows, go to obsess network.com.

40:54

This case was researched and written by me, Amber Hunt, and produced by guaranteed women.

40:59

Steve Tipton edited the script.

41:02

Original music is by Bruce Hunt and Andrew Higley.

41:05

Other music comes from blue dot sessions and universal music productions.

41:09

If you like us, help us out by rating and reviewing us on apple podcasts for more information, or to recommend a case go to century's pod.com on Instagram and Twitter.

41:19

We're at century's pod and check out our cramps, the centuries podcast, Facebook page.

41:24

Hey, everybody. You come here weekly to learn about huge headline making cases of the past, but did you know that this show wouldn't exist if it weren't for my first born podcast accused. Accused from USA TODAY in the Cincinnati Enquirer is an investigative podcast that uses my skills as a journalist to dig deep into cases that police say are solved, but others disagree and not just as the suspects. Season four looks at the nineteen ninety four murder of a loving grandmother in her Ohio hotel room. The man can did, Elwood Jones, has been on death row for nearly thirty years for a crime. He says he didn't commit. We reexamine all the evidence, interview witnesses, and experts and find pads, leased in Pursuit. Follow a Q season four, the impending execution of Albert Jones on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or you can binge all seven episodes ad for you by subscribing to wonder plus an Apple Podcasts or the wonder app. Since that inquiry in USA TODAY's subscribers also listen early and add free by going to accused podcast dot com. Some crimes are so heartbreaking or shocking that they earn the label, crime of the century. But the stories that made headlines and decades past aren't necessarily remembered today. I'm Amber Hunt, a journalist and author. And in each episode of this show, I'll examine a case that's maybe lesser known today, but was huge when it had a bit. This is crimes of the centuriespod first time, sailor Carl Panzram was mentioned in any U. S. Newspaper. He was presented as an attention seeker, even a joke. One headline read, Tara arrested here confesses killings. There were quotation marks around the word confesses because authorities thought he was a blow hard talking shit. A wire story began, quote, although inclined to doubt his confession that he had murdered two boys and had robbed the new haven home of chief justice William Howard Taft of forty thousand dollars in jewels in nineteen twenty, district police said today that they would question Karl Panzram thirty eight Seaman further regarding his amazing tale, end quote. It wasn't that Panzram too kind to have committed crimes. In fact, he was in jail awaiting trial for serious crimes, sodomy, burglary, robbery, attempted escape. But the supposed confession he gave was so outlandish, so brutal, that authorities thought he might just be a depressed dude trying a new version of suicide by cop. But then police verified one detail, then another. And wouldn't you know it? Someone did. Rob former president William Taft new Haven home back in nineteen twenty. The stolen jewels were probably only worth a few grand rather than forty thousand dollars as Panzram had bragged eight years later, but still it lined which was terrifying because Panzram full confession had barely begun. Crimes. The century is a sponsored by helix centuriespod is sponsored by Helix sleep. I love to I love to sleep. I consider naps part of my writing process and even though that sounds pretentious, it kinda true. I write like garbage if I haven't had a good night's sleep, which is why I love my customized Helix mattress. Helix sleep lets you find the perfect mattress for how you sleep. You take a quick quiz that just takes two minutes to complete and matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for You take a quick quiz that just takes two minutes to complete and matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you. Why go to all that Why go to all that trouble? Because everyone's unique and helix knows that they have plenty of models, soft medium firm, but also ones that are great for cooling you Because everyone's unique and Helix knows that they have plenty of models soft medium firm, but also ones that are great for cooling you down if you sleep hot, and even Helix plus for plus sized folks. I took the Helix Squiz and was matched to a desk luxe because I'm a side and back sleeper and I like a mattress that's comfy, but still supportive. So if you to eat to sleep better, you can take the quiz or the mattress, your match to and try it So if you do need to sleep better, you can take the quiz, order the mattress you match to, and try it out. Risk-free for a hundred nights, a chip free and has a 10 year out risk free for a hundred nights. It's chip free and has a ten year warranty. He looked at us Helix is awesome and I'm not the only one who thinks so. Helix has over twelve thousand five star reviews. Go to helix sleep dot com slash COTC, take their two minute sleep quiz and get matched to the customized mattress of your dreams. Helix is offering up to $200 off all mattress orders and two free pillows for our listeners@helixsleep.com slash COTC Helix is offering up to two hundred dollars off all mattresses orders and two free pillows for our listeners at helix sleep dot com slash C0TC. East Grand forks. Minnesota still had that new city Minnesota still had that new city smell when Charles Ep6 Panzram was born there on June twenty eight, eighteen ninety one. The city had formed just across the border from the Dakota Tower territory in the late eighteen eighties as a trading center after the civil war. The Dakotas would split into two states in eighteen eighty nine, East Grand Forks was closest with North Dakota after the divorce. As anyone who's lived in that part of the country can attest, it can be beautiful there. But it can also be bleak. Panzram childhood fell consistently in the latter category. Nicknamed Karl. He was the youngest of six children to immigrant parents. His father John was a veteran of the Franco Prussian war who had come to America looking for riches. Instead, he ended up with his family on a nearly barren chunk of land that author, Genevieve Ortiz, describes his a straight up dirt farm. By the time Panzram was born, his mother Lizzie was in her forties and often sick sometimes too weak to pay any attention to her crying child. When Panzram turned two, the country was in the grips of the panic OF eighteen ninety three, A SEVERE ECONOMIC CLAPS triggered BY WORD THAT TWO HUGE NATIONAL EMPLOYERS WERE STRUGGLING. The Philadelphia Running Railroad and the National Cordage Company. People, well, panicked and rushed to take their money out of banks which led to the failure of hundreds of banks plus the failure of Wall Street brokerage houses. Businesses and manufacturers couldn't open because they had no money to pay workers or buy materials. The unemployment rate blew past ten percent cent nationwide. While the acute panic ended in November eighteen ninety three, the economic depression that followed it last four long years. Those years were not kind to John Panzram who in turn was not kind to his family. He was the kind of man who beat his wife and kids while quoting scripture and downing Scotch. So maybe it's not a surprise That it didn't take long for Carl to find It didn't take long for Karl to find trouble. This is Todd Grande, a PhD who delves into mental health topics on his YouTube channel with nearly a million subscribers. He dedicated an episode to Panzram in August of twenty twenty. Sometime around the age of five or six, he was already stealing and lying pathologically. For which, he was of course beaten. Which wasn't much of a deterrent. By the way, there's a reason it fell out of fashion to beat your kids. It doesn't work. When Carl was eight, John left the family altogether. His oldest three kids soon moved out too, leaving mom Lizzie with her remaining daughter and youngest two sons to work on the dirt farm. Carl heeded this. He was abused, and he got the hard work, you know, and they cut them off in the fields. Half of the sun went down. This is Henry Lester, a prison guard who got to know Karl pretty well back in nineteen twenty eight. Here, Lester's being interviewed decades later in a program hosted by San Diego State University. Around the same time his dad ditched the family, Carl landed himself in a bit of legal trouble. Carl was arrested for drunk and disorderly in eighteen ninety nine. So eight years old. My son is eight and this blows my My son is eight and this blows my mind. The year after this arrest, Karl suffered an ear infection that morphed into mastoiditis, a serious bacterial infection affecting the bony air cells and the mastoid bone behind the ear. We don't see this much anymore because ear infections are typically treated with antibiotics nowadays, so they don't often mutate further. Carls did, however, and the infection was life threatening. His family was too poor to get good medical care So according to Ortiz's book, The Butcher of Humanity, his mother, Lizzie, attempted a rudimentary surgery on her son, as he lay on the kitchen table. Shocker, it went poorly. He would need a second surgery conducted by, you know, AN ACTUAL DOCTOR, BUT THAT DIDN'T HELP MUCH, EITHER. THIS WOULDN'T Well in the rural area, G chat sought was a general practitioner, you know, and perhaps on the unsanitary IN RURAL AREA, CHANCE IT WAS A JEREL PACTICIA, YOU KNOW, AND PEPPS ON THE UNSADRIED CONDITIONS. NOW THIS WASN'T WELL KNOWN AT THE TIME BUT MASTROID DIRUS WAS MORE SERIOUS THAN IT EVEN SEEMED. That's because if the infection spreads from that mastoid bone, it can reach the brain causing meningitis or abscesses. Those in turn could cause permanent brain damage, and there was evidence that Karl never fully healed from the WELL, THIS AFTERWAS, YEAH, THIS CHARGE WAS HERE. Reporter: WHETHER THIS INFECTION IS EVEN WORTH MENTIONING IS UP FOR DEBATE, BUT WE'LL RETURN WITH THAT LATER. What's not debatable is that Karl Panzram path of destruction was being forged before he was even a teenager he drank, he stole, he hit, and soon he'd be doing far far worse. I'll pause here for a content warning. Books about this man's crimes often reference Saudi. But I wanna be crystal clear that this isn't a violation of prudish sexual norms The issue isn't the type of sex he liked. The issue is that he viciously forced that sex onto people. Both men and women, though men more often, and sometimes even little boys. To keep this from being impossible to stomach, I won't get detailed about these grapes, but also don't want to sanitize it the way I've seen other writers do. He might be charged with sodomy in a lot of these cases But make no mistake, the crime he was actually accused of and to which he glowingly confessed was rape. Which he claims he learned all about things to his first stint in reform school, which came in nineteen o three when he was eleven. It was arrested again in nineteen o three for being drunk and incorrigible, so disorderly just wasn't gonna cut it anymore. It was arrested again in nineteen o three for being drunk and incorrigible. That same year, he would steal a revolver from the house of one of his neighbors. And he would be sent to the Minnesota State Training School. In Redwing, Minnesota, this was a juvenile detention facility. Already at home, Karl had been subjected to harsh punishment from his mother, Lizzie, who was very much in the east spare of the rod, spoiled the child camp. But it was apparently child's play compared to what he would endure at Redwing. When he was there, he was not only beaten and tortured, but was the victim of repeated assaults. Those assaults included rape. Years later, as an adult, CURL would write in autobiography of sorts from which comes a lot of what we know about him, which could mean that some of it at least is bullshit. I'm not sure I'd trust this guy as a reliable narrator, but enough of it has been confirmed that we can be comfortable. He was at least in the same zip code as the truth. By his own writing, he said that what he endured at this reform school changed the course of his life and not to the better. It was there that I began to learn about man's inhumanity to man. That terror verifying voice is actor John DeMaggio, no relation to baseball great, and Simon and Garth Funkel Muse, Joe. In two thousand eleven, John DiMaggio, best known as the voice of Bander and Futurama, served as Panzram voice in an indie film that relied heavily and creepily on Panzram own writings. They started me off by trying to beat the Christian religion Ep6 me. The consequences were that the more they beat them with me, the more I hated them in that damn religion. This audio is obviously so over the top it's kind of cringey. It's useful because it's Panzram own words. But as far as we know, Pandram sounded more like a Fargo character than Satan and Garnet. In fact, it's more likely that he did because if he sounded like DiMaggio makes him sound, no one would have ever let him near them. Much less and close enough proximity to hurt them. Anyway, while in that reform school, what he endured was nothing short of brutal. He started fantasizing about revenge. To that end, he committed his first arson burning one of the Redwing buildings to the ground though the deed was never formally pinned on him. He got away with it and in fact was released back home soon after declared reformed by those in charge. According to Karl, though I'd been taught by the Christians how to be a hippochristic. I'm sorry, I just can't with this performance here's engineer, extraordinary Garrett, Tiedemann reading pans, Rams sorry. I just can't with this performance. Here's engineer extraordinaire Garrett Teederman reading Panzram' writings instead. I made up my mind that I would rot burned. Stroy and kill everywhere I went and everybody I could as long as I lived. And so once he was released Karl continued to commit thefts, and he was drinking heavily by this point. He tried to kill a teacher with a revolver. Page 14. He ran away from he ran away from home. He'd hop freight trains and steal from other passengers, rob Hobo camps, then hop another freight train. Supposedly a group of vagrants befriended him on one of these trains, offered him food and friendliness, and then they beat and gang raped him. So we see here that Karl was quite violent, but he was also the victim of violence. This cycle has fascinated historians and sociologists who studied the guy because of the whole nurture versus nature debate. Maybe Carl would have been a violent piece of shit regardless. Or maybe He became the extreme version of those who committed crimes against him. Hard to say regardless, it probably doesn't mean much to his Hard to say, regardless It probably doesn't mean much to his victims, and there were a lot of them. Just a quick break. crimes. The centuries as sponsored by cerebral cerebral is an online mental health service that offers prescription medication, counseling and therapy for anxiety, depression, ADHD, insomnia, and of the centuries is sponsored by cerebral. Cerebral is an online mental health service that offers prescription med vacation, counseling, and therapy for anxiety, depression, ADHD, insomnia, and more. 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Karl Panzram long list of victims started accruing while he was still in that reform school, which is when he began beating and raping anyone he could dominate. His fury, he said, was directed at those who beat and raped him, but since he clearly couldn't over power those people. Appraid upon the weak, the harmless, and the unsuspecting. Those are harmed were weaklings either mentally or physically. On the occasions, he did target someone capable of fighting back. He would befriend them, lying to them to get their trust, and then lead them into a trap. Then when they were either asleep or drunk or otherwise helpless, he would attack. Seldom do you hear someone brag so hardly about attacking the weak, but Panzram boasted without remorse. He said he learned at very young age when this reform school, Minnesota that might make strides. right? I think he felt he had a right to take it out on anybody, which is a horrible he felt he had a right to take it out on anybody. This is a horrible thing, but he had it. He felt he had it. Like, he had it. But Panzram first kill was according to him while in that first reform school. There's no record of who it was. All we know is that Panzram described the boy as maybe twelve years old. And he apparently got away with a crime. After he ran away from home and got assaulted by that group of migrants, he committed burglary in Montana landing him in another reform school there. Again, the worse he behaved the more he was beaten, the more he was beaten, the worse he behaved. In nineteen o five, he and a fellow inmate named Jimmy Benson, escaped that school, then joined forces on the outside. Benson taught Panzram how to most effectively rob people during a stick up. In return, Panzram taught Benson, the fine art of arson. The two headed east together and wreaked as much havoc as they could manage Sometimes it was to benefit themselves, like when they stole money from church donation boxes. While other time it was just to be jerks, like when they cut holes in the bottom of box cars so that harvested wheat being transported in side would spill out as though the trains were leaving bread crumb trails across the country. The duo spent about a month together before splitting somewhere around North Dakota. By then, they had committed too many crimes to count. Panzram wasn't sure what to do next. Then he got what must have felt was an ingenious idea. He decided to enlist in the military. The idea hit him when he encountered an army recruiter while searching for food in Helena, Montana He figured that the army might be a place where his bent toward violence might be embraced rather than punished. He was only sixteen at the time, too young to legally join, so he lied about his age, which wasn't hard because by this time, he was at tall, beefy young man who'd been knocked around by life a bit and looked older than he was. It didn't take long for Panzram to realize that he and the army might not gel after all. See, his superiors had the audacity to give him orders and to sign him jobs. Right after he got his uniform and army haircut, he was assigned to scrub the outhouses, and he flat out refused. Then when a superior handed him a copy of the articles of war, Panzram destroyed it. That got him in trouble for a week, and then he stole a bunch of stuff. Was only in the army a month or two, and I got three years in the US military prison at Fort Lebanon, Kansas. Interesting side note, William Howard Taft was at this point, us secretary of side note, William Howard Taft was, at this point, US Secretary of War, and in that position, he got final say over Panzram sentence. Apparently, Panzram took note. In his later writings, Panjram bemoaned his treatment in prison. My part was load my iron ball, an eighteen pound hammer, a pick and a shovel and a six foot iron crowbar all into a wheelbarrow in March behind the line of cons three months to the rock quarry. And there worked for eight and a half hours and the hot gassed in big rocks. But all that treatment did one good thing for me, the harder they work made, the stronger I got. Again, keep in mind that as bad ass as this guy tries to make himself sound, he targeted the vulnerable and weak. Panzram was discharged from the Lebanon Grisly in nineteen ten. By this time, William Howard Taft had ascended to the presidency for the single term he would serve. Panzram said he himself had become the spirit of meanness personified. Soon after, he was arrested in Texas while riding atop a male train with two pistols. Under the pseudonym Jeff Davis, he was convicted of vagancy. He served sixty five days before he escaped Next, he was arrested in Fresno, California for stealing a bike. For that, he got four months in jail. It was about this time that he had started committing more rapes than he could count. He said he attacked men of all races all ages, tall, short, didn't matter. He wrote that his only firm criterion was that they were human beings. That he wasn't arrested for those, isn't surprising, I guess. For starters, he killed some of the victims after assaulting them, but even those who survived didn't seem to speak up. It's still difficult today for men to report having been assaulted. I can't imagine how stigmatized they would have felt in the early nineteen hundreds, especially when at that time, the act forced upon them was illegal. In all fifty states. But burglaries were reported plenty, and Panzram seemed to be fairly sloppy at them. He was arrested for some in Historia, Oregon, to which he agreed to plead guilty in exchange for leniency. But after Panzram entered his police prosecutors were nipped on their end of the deal. This perturbed. Panzram, so he managed to get himself out of his cell, locked his fellow prisoners inside of theirs, plugged the locks so no one could get in or out and trash the jail. Eventually, he landed behind bars in Salem, Morgan. You might be wondering how he was in and out of so many places, Well, he used an alias much of the time. People had no idea that the guy arrested in nineteen o five for burglary was the same guy arrested in nineteen ten with two pistols. Had they pieced it together? Maybe a judge along the way would have hit him with a harder sentence or a warden might have kept better eye on him, especially considering how many jails and prisons he'd escaped. But swapping identities back in this era was pretty easy peasy, and so his cycle continued through most of the nineteen teens. He escaped was arrested again for another crime incarcerated, and then he was escaped was arrested again for another crime, incarcerated, and then he was released. Then he was incarcerated in Oregon again. He helped another inmate escape from the Oregon State penitentiary, and that prisoner killed the warden. Carl would escape from that prison in nineteen seventeen he was recaptured and he escaped again in nineteen eighteen by selling through the bars. I imagine this cause the prison to reconsider their hacksaw for every prisoner policy. There's always that one guy who ruins hacksaw's for all for everyone else. Even when he wasn't trying to escape, Panzram was far from a model prisoner. Now after his nineteen eighteen escape, Panzram said he decided to take a show on the road. He traveled to some thirty one countries in South America, Europe, and Africa and on each new continent he visited, he left a trail of rape and murder victims. Considering that World War one was coming to a close at this time. It's not surprising that those victims went largely unnoticed. In the summer of nineteen twenty, Panzram ended up in New Haven, Connecticut, where he broke into a house that happened to belong to William Howard Taft. By this point, Taft had been voted out the White House seven years earlier and was poised to become appointed chief justice of the supreme court. By the way, he's the only person who has served in both roles at least as of this recording. Evidently, Taft had a lot to steal. Carl took bonds, jewelry, and a semi automatic pistol, specifically a forty five caliber colt m nineteen eleven. Panzram he stole some forty thousand dollars in jewelry and bonds, plus another three grand in cash. With that cash, he bought a yacht called the Acasta. He was solo onboard for a few days, but then decided he should hire some help. Whenever I saw a couple who were about my size and seemed to have money, I would hire them to work in my yacht. I always promised big pay and easy work. I got with something else. And when something like this, he would hire the men to work, apply them with alcohol while on board, then rape them, rob them, and shoot them in the head with TAF's gun no less before throwing their bodies overboard. They're there yet. Ten of them. And no one had a clue nor would they have had Panzram opted to keep quiet. Temp for a break. Crimes of the centuries is sponsored by club. I don't love to shave, but I do love to feel smooth, which is why I hate dull razors that cause Nicks and Lee I don't love to shave, but I do love to feel smooth, which is why I hate dull razors that cause nicks and leave bumps. This is why Athena Club's razor is perfect for me. 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In that time, he said just two people showed him any noteworthy kindness. The first was in Oregon jail warden named Charles Murphy, nicknamed Spud. Murphy decided that maybe Panzram wasn't as tough as he seemed and just needed some compassion. To that end, he granted Panzram unsupervised outings if Panjram agreed to return willingly at the agreed upon time. The idea was that entrusting Panzram without freedom would help dwell the fury that rage within him. And at first, it seemed to work. Panzram would leave tool around doing god knows what all day and then return at day's end. But then, Panzraim got drunk and failed show up. Certain that Spud Murphy would turn on him, Panzram ran rather than show up late. It took a week for the sheriff and some deputies to track him down. And when they did, he tried to kill them. According to Henry Lesser in an interview from the nineteen in seventies. He He had a gun and the anger, the sheriff didn't go had a gun, and he ended up with a sharp didn't go off. And then he was very, very most go after after he was taken back to the prison and fuel feelings, you know, about doing this, the spot Murphy. So that's about the only time you guys doing. Normally, I feel the trust had been Murphy had done so much for you. Panzram stunt cost more his career. Henry Lesser was the second guy to supposedly show him kindness. Lesser was a new prison guard. When he met pantry who had a reputation, when he met Panzram, who had a reputation? I happen to hear that there was AAAAA south wing where I was working at that time. Seem to be very interesting person. And first opportunity. I went past the cell and kept talking to I went past the cell and got talking to him He seemed to be friendly. And I asked him, what was his racket? And he said, how do you know? Have a racket? Leslie played things cool and basically said, I don't know. I just have feeling despite Panzram rough exterior. He was a husky man he walks with a limp. Lester said he seemed nice enough, but soon after this encounter, Panzram tried to escape the prison and failed. His punishment was outright torture. He was tied by his arms to a supportive beam and dangled inches off the ground for hours. It was so harsh that the warden instructed the prison doctor to check on the prisoner every hour to make sure he was still alive. This lasted all night two nights in a row. In between stints of torture, Panzram was kept in the death row wing of the prison even though he hadn't, at that point, been sentenced to die. The worst church he faced was burglary. I was told about the the torture of Panzram and I always hit the ceiling. I was greatly distressed about it. I felt he was a man in the clutches of the law and they had no right to do what they did to him. Lasser said he knew that Panzram had no money to buy anything from the CANTINE. SO HE RECRUITED ONE OF HIS FRIENDS WHO WORKED ON THE DEATH ROEING TO PASS ALONG A Dollar TO Panzram. THE IDEA BEING that it would allow Panzram to buy himself some smokes or candy. When the guards slip Panjram the dollar, he made a point to say it came from Henry Lesser. And he apparently got very excited, and he was great many exporters. Said, what the hell are you trying to do? Give me Christ's sixth, God, interested me, send me a darwala, you. And this man assured him that that had and this man assured him that that happened. Panzram, who'd had such an antagonistic relationship with guards his whole life, asked the intermediary how long Lester had been a guard. Not long. He was told maybe nine months to a year. And passed around, we told him, wait wait until another year, you only have gonna be just as bad as the rest of them. But lesser believed wholeheartedly in treating the prisoners like human beings, even if they had done in human things. His philosophy was that they deserved respect. He shook their hands, he chatted with them. Amiably he did the same with pan DRAM who remember at this point was in prison for amiably. He did the same with Panzram, who remember at this point, was in prison for burglary, sure he was known to be violent because of his escape attempts and run ins with guards and cellmates, but the extent of his crimes was a fleet mystery. Until lesser encouraged him to share his full story. I felt he had a story tell. I had an idea that he had something to tell us. And I encouraged him to write his autobiography and he's a mule he said, Jesus, I can't do that. I went to school about six grade. I've never written. And I said, you started started encouraged it. It took couple of weeks until he finally started writing. The two devised the two devised a system After writing ten to twenty pages, Panzram would leave a bundle of papers on the bar of his cell, which lesser would retrieve when making his overnight rounds. Every stack he received, lesser, would smuggle out to read. It wasn't more than a week, ten days, but I felt I had something worthwhile. But before lesser could contemplate what to do with the writings, Panzram felt he should fess up to some of his crimes. That's when he Ep6 forward to confess that he killed a young boy, little Henry McMahon in Salem, Massachusetts. Henry had last been seen July eighteenth nineteen twenty two, walking down Highlands Street with a stranger. One of his classmates and the classmates mother spotted the little boy holding hands with a burley man they'd never seen before. Because the two were walking in the direction of a swimming hole, authorities feared Henry had drowned when his mother reported that he never came home that night. They drained the swimming hole to no avail. Then three days after Henry disappeared, another boy was picking berries in a swamp with his mother when the two spotted a body, partially concealed by the underbrush. What Panzram had done to the child was beyond brutal, He raped the boy, choked him to unconsciousness, and then beat him in the head with a rock until he was dead. I left him laying there with his brains coming out of his ears. A few days later, he attacked another boy and new Haven that one, he strangled with a belt after assaulting him while newspapers did report a murder matching those descriptions in 1923, the victim was never few days later, he attacked another boy in New Haven. That one he rangled with a belt after assaulting him. While newspapers did report a murder matching those descriptions in nineteen twenty three, the victim was never identified. Then, Panzram confessed to another slang, that of boy in Philadelphia. That victim was fourteen year old newsboy Alex Uzaki, whose decomposed body had been discovered in August of nineteen twenty seven. Just as Panzram had scribe, Alex's body had been wrapped in a blanket and left near the riverfront. The once dubious news stories shifted. One red, quote, after days of skepticism in which Panzram was believed by headquarters detectives to be, but a crazy liar, Washington authorities were convinced that the strange Ep6 like man crouching in his cell must be telling the truth. And, quote, in his confessions, Panzram wrote, quote, I hate the whole human race and would like to kill everybody. He also said, I have been going around murdering people for the past eighteen years, and I think it's time someone murdered me. He also said he'd once hatched plan to kill thousands of people by poisoning the water of a reservoir. Another time, he said he had imagined rigging a bomb at a busy train station to take out hundreds at a time. In November nineteen twenty eight, finally facing trial for the burglary that brought him into Henry Lesser's orbit, Panzram would serve as his own attorney, which, as we all know, is always a great idea. According to the Wire story, quote, enacting as his own attorney, he threatened one witness with death and broke into a long speech declaring I don't have any faith in man, god, or the devil. I've executed several people in my time and will execute more and quote. He was sentenced to 25 years and all pans Ram confessed to 21 murders and claimed some 1200 he was sentenced to twenty five years. In all, Panzram confessed to twenty one murders and claimed some twelve hundred rapes. He would be tried for none of them. Rather, in nineteen twenty nine, he attacked the foreman of the prison laundry with a flat iron pledging a forty seven year old RE warranty to death. Then he chased around his fellow inmates until another guard overpowered him. The incident seemed to kick off unrest at the prison. Less than two weeks later. Prisoners mounted in the insurrection that well quickly quashed left one inmate dead and three others prisoners mounted in the insurrection that while quickly quashed, left one inmate dead, and three others injured. It was for warn Keith's murder that Panzram finally went down. He was convicted and sentenced to death, a judgment he didn't bother to argue. In fact, he said he wanted to die. So it pissed him off when a group called the Society for The Abolishment of Capital Punishment, tried to intervene to save his life. He wrote them a cursed letter which read in part. I have deliberately and intentionally made my choice. I choose to die here now by being hanged by the neck until I am dead. I look forward to that as a real place and a big relief to me. I prefer that I die that way. And if I have a soul and if that soul should burn in l for a million years still. I prefer that to a lingering, agonizing death, and some prison dungeon, or a padded cell in a madhouse. Panzram got his wish. On September fifth nineteen thirty, he was led from his cell to the gallows at Lebanon, As officers tried to cover his head with a black hood, he said to have spat in the executioner's face. Then he complained that his killing was taking too long. To the executioner, he said, hurry it up. You who's your Yahu's your bastard. I could hang a dozen men while you're screwing around or maybe he said he could kill dozen men accounts very. ANYWAY, LESTER HELD ON TO Panzram NOTES AND LETTERS WITH PLANS TO EVENTUALLY RELEASE THEM book form as a cautionary tale about how prison systems brutality can turn men into monsters. The publishers of the day found it too shocking, too revolting, and it would take forty years before the writings would be published. When they were, it was as part of the book killer a journal of murder by Thomas e Gavis and James Long. The book would be turned into a TV movie in nineteen ninety five with actor Robert Sean Leonard portraying Lesser and James Woods is Panzram. I haven't seen it. today. Pans Ram is reputed to be the evilest serial killer in American Panjram is reputed to the evilest serial killer in American history. It's hard to say if that reputation would have been borne without his own self aggrandizing writings. regardless. One of the biggest mysteries about him is whether he would have turned out as awful, a person as he one of the biggest mysteries about him is whether he would have turned out as awful a person as he was if he hadn't been exposed to so much brutality in his youth. Lesser didn't think so. In fact, he believed it's possible Panzram childhood bout of mastoiditis might have been to blame for his behavior. It could have been this infection. The brain among other things that could have had something to do with his type of tantrums and, you know, getting excited losing his head and so on and his assults. And so on. Possibly. Panzram for one probably would have cosigned that theory because that guy never took responsibility for anything did. When you read his confession, this stands out. It was always someone else's fault. Everyone else was to blame for the choices he made. Today, Panzram remains buried in the old Lebanon Grisly graveyard. His tombstone, bearing only his prison number, To research this story, I read this Stuart's writing as well as a lot of contemporary news coverage. also read the book The butcher of humanity, the true story of Karl Panzram, a product of hatred and vengeance by Geneva Ortiz. Special thanks to Garatida men for stepping in front of the mic to readpants writing in a normal human voice. Chrome's of the centuries is a production of the obsessed now network. To learn more about its shows, go to obsessed network dot com. This case was researched and written by me Amber Hunt and pre reduced by Garrett Teederman. Steve Tipton edited the script. Original music is by Bruce Hunt and Andrew Hegley, other music comes from blue dot sessions and universal music productions. If you like us, help us out by rating and reviewing us on Apple Podcasts for more information to recommend a case, go to century's pod dot com. On Instagram and we're at century's pod and check out our Crams the Centuriespod Facebook page.