Ed Ranks 19th Century American Serial Killers

Wow, really? This got dark. Why on earth would anyone rank these?  Am I trying to justify that “it’s okay” because everyone who was murdered would be dead already by now? Not really. This is not an okay ranking at all. But I’m doing it anyway.

From the Topps "Racist Asshole"
trading card collection

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7. "Wild" Bill Longley

 A ruthless, racist gunfighter who self-claims to have killed 32 people, most of whom were obviously minorities, especially ex-slaves. But as a drunken, gambling criminal – he also killed others in robberies. He fled to South Dakota and joined the army where he could continue killing – as killing Native Americans was sort of the army’s thing. But lacking discipline, he deserted (twice) and fled back to his native Texas where he continued to kill. The killing of one of those people, a childhood friend, was what would eventually lead to his arrest and hanging. This sounds like a terrible person, right? Well, from 1958 to 1960, CBS aired a television show about him called “The Texan” where he’s depicted as THE HERO fighting lawlessness in the Ol' West. Which makes that TV show the second most offensive and horrible CBS TV show of all time, coming in right after "Young Sheldon."

6. Servant Girl Annihilator 

19th Century writing is AWESOME.

 Wow, what a TERRIBLE name (coined by O. Henry [the short short-writer, not to be confused with the chocolate bar], who lived in Austin at the time of the murder spree). Yikes. This unidentified serial killer and axe murderer abducted, raped and murdered seven women from their bedrooms at night between 1884 and 1885 in Austin, Texas. Alone with those seven women was one man, presumably the husband of one of the women. Various and inconsistent eyewitness accounts were given about the murderer and his race, with accusations that he was a Malay or Black, or maybe someone hiding their skin tone by covering themselves in soot. The murders stopped after Nathan Elgin, a 19-year old cook, was killed by police while attempting to assault a woman with a knife in February 1886. So he’s been identified as the most likely culprit.

5. Boone Helm

AKA the Kentucky Cannibal. You can see what direction we’ll be going here. Apparently Helm wanted to join the California Gold Rush in 1850, but when his partner backed out on him, he murdered him and voyaged West alone. Along the way, he started murdering and eating people. I can see why this part of traveling West was left out of “The Oregon Trail” video game for elementary school kids. Eventually, Helm met up with a team of six other people and confided his history with them. But then poor weather conditions on their way West led to them dying one-by-one. You know, except for Helm. Who, presumably, ate his companions. He was rescued and brought to Salt Lake City, but quickly had to flee to San Francisco. There he continued to kill the people he befriended, and moved on afterwards to Oregon, Texas and Montana. In that last location he was finally arrested and hanged. It’s believed he killed between 8 and 24 people. What an ass.

4. The Bloody Benders

This is not a cover band where everyone dressed up like Bender from "Futurama." Instead, the Bender Family (John, Elvira, Kate and John Jr.) ran a bed & breakfast and general store along the Great Osage Trail in Labette County, Kansas. Truth and legend about the Benders is hard to distinguish, but they were apparently an immigrant family with thick accents that practiced all sorts of crazy spiritualist religious stuff. They might not have even been a family of related people - but just a group of immigrants who pretended to be a family. Weary travelers who needed a place to stay though that this inn would be a great rest stop. It wasn’t. About 12 or so different travelers that decided to stay at the Bender’s inn never left alive. Most appear to have been bashed in the head with a hammer, followed up by having their throats slit. After people went to investigate what happened to their loved ones who vanished, and THOSE people went missing too, eventually the authorities caught on and went to investigate. The Benders had fled, but dead bodies were found buried all over their property. Their eventual fate is really unknown. There are various legends that they were tracked down and killed by posses of vigilantes. But the mysterious nature of their eventual fate has left a cultural impact, and they have been depicted in multiple fictionalized tales.

3. Liver-Eating Johnson

Yes, this serial killer gets a STATUE DEDICATED TO HIM.

John Jeremiah Garrison Johnston was a mountain man in the Old West. According to legend, after his Native American pregnant wife was killed by a member of the rival Crow Nation tribe, he went on an insane vendetta against the tribe where he scalped and killed more than 300 members of the Crow Nation over a 25 year period. Oh yeah, and he ate their livers. Hence the name.  Really, this guy doesn’t seem ALL THAT TERRIBLE in comparison to the others, right? He just wanted to get some vengeance for the murder of his wife. I guess you can say he took it a bit far. It happens. Is the 300 number true? Probably not. Still, points for the nickname.

2. Jolly Jane Toppan 

She seems nice.

#feminism #girlpower Jane Toppan was just your average, ordinary Irish immigrant nurse in Massachusetts except for the fact that she’s on this list and thus is an insane serial killer. Despite growing up in a rough childhood at an orphanage, by 1885 she started working at Cambridge Hospital where she was popular and beloved (hence “Jolly Jane”). There she began to befriend sick and elderly patients… you know… the types who already have a high mortality rate and if they died nobody would think much about it because they were sick and old. She decided to play around with their prescribed doses of drugs. You know, just to see what would happen. Science stuff. She moved to Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was fired after a lot of her patients died, and moved back to Cambridge. There she was fired too for administering opiates in a reckless manner (some things never change!). But this was all just her warming up. After that she became a private nurse and really started ramping up the murder in 1895. She killed her landlord, his wife, her foster system, more elderly patients, their spouses, their children, etc.  She was arrested in 1901 and confessed to 31 murders. She is quoted as saying that her ambition was "to have killed more people—helpless people—than any other man or woman who ever lived." Well, at least she set goals.

1. H. H. Holmes

This could honestly be ANY 19th Century guy.

I won’t linger too long on Herman Webster Mudgett, AKA Dr. Henry Howard Holmes (even though I could) because he’s already pretty famous. The New York Times best-seller novel “The Devil in the White City” is about him, and it’s been optioned to become a movie, perhaps starring Leonardo DiCapro. But the long story short on this one: He’s obviously not a real doctor, and decided that the 1893 World's Colombian Exposition (World’s Fair) in Chicago would be a great way to churn up business. His business being murdering people. With a large number of itinerant people needed to help build a city-within-a-city in Chicago for the World’s Fair (as well as the associated prostitutes and other people who would come into town to "service" those other itinerant workers), it easy for all those people to just vanish. And so H.H. Holmes began to build a murder hotel. A giant hotel, complete with secret incineration rooms, designed simply so that he could murder people in it. But poor, itinerant workers weren’t the only people Holmes liked to kill. Wealthier people with land and property were also good targets. His plan was simple – befriend people, get named in their life insurance policies (or will), murder them, and then get the money. He would also sell the skeletons of murder victims to medical institutions for EVEN MORE MONEY!. This business was so booming that he even used some land he inherited from someone he murdered to begin the process of opening up a SECOND murder hotel in Ft. Worth, Texas (he never was able to build it though). But you can only murder so many people and collect on their insurance before State Farm goes, “Hey! WAIT A MINUTE! This guy is on the insurance policy of a LOT of brutally murdered people!” He was arrested and hanged in Philadelphia. He confessed to 27 murders, but there are estimates that he might have killed over 230. Which means “Jolly Jane” Toppan wasn’t even close with her paltry 31 kills.