In the pre-dawn hours of May 23, 1918, New Orleans grocer Joseph Maggio and his wife were murdered in bed by a prowler who chiseled through their back door, used Joseph's ax to strike each victim once across the skull, then slit their throats with a razor to finish the job. Maggio's brothers discovered the bodies and were briefly held as suspects, but police could find no evidence of their involvement in the crime and both were soon released. A few blocks from the murder scene, detectives found a cryptic message chalked on the sidewalk. It read: "Mrs. Maggio is going to sit up tonight just like Mrs. Toney." Police could offer no interpretation, so the press stepped in. The New Orleans States reported a "veritable epidemic" of unsolved ax murders in 1911, listing the victims as Italian grocers named Cruti, Rosetti (killed with his wife), and Tony Schiambra (whose spouse was also murdered). Over seven decades, half a dozen authors have accepted the report as factual, relying on the "early" crimes to bolster this or that proposed solution in the case. Unfortunately, none of them saw fit to look beyond the headlines, or they might have learned the truth and spared themselves embarrassment. Examination of contemporary documents reveals that no such crimes were noted in newspaper obituaries, coroner's records, or police homicide reports for the year 1911. In fact, no Crutis or Schiambras died that year from any cause, while the death of Mary Rosetti -- a black woman -- was blamed on disease. Ironically, there were unsolved ax murders in Louisiana during 1911, claiming a total of sixteen lives, but the victims were all black and none were killed in New Orleans. On June 28, a baker delivering bread to the grocery of Louis Besumer found a panel cut from the back door. He knocked, and Besumer emerged, blood streaming from a head wound. Inside the apartment, Besumer's "wife" -- Anna Lowe, a divorcee -- lay critically wounded. She lingered on for seven weeks, delirious, once calling Besumer a German spy and later recanting. On August 5 she died, after naming Besumer as her attacker, prompting his arrest on murder charges. (Nine months later, on May 1, 1919, a jury deliberated all of ten minutes before finding him innocent.) Returning late from work that evening, August 5, Ed Schneider found his pregnant wife unconscious in their bed, her scalp laid open. She survived to bear a healthy daughter, but her memory of the attack was vague, at best. A hulking shadow by her bed, the ax descending -- and oblivion. On August 10, sisters Pauline and Mary Bruno woke to sounds of struggle in the adjacent room occupied by their uncle, Joseph Romano. They rushed next door to find him dying of a head wound, but they caught a glimpse of his assailant, described in official reports as "dark, tall, heavy-set, wearing a dark suit and a black slouch hat." The rest of August was a nightmare for police, with numerous reports of chiseled doors, discarded axes, lurking strangers. Several of the latter were pursued by vengeful mobs but always managed to escape. At last, with time and the distraction of an armistice in war-torn Europe, the hysteria began to fade. On March 10, 1919, the scene shifted to Gretna, across the river from New Orleans. A prowler invaded the home of Charles Cortimiglia, helping himself to the grocer's own ax before wounding Charles and his wife, killing their infant daughter. From her hospital bed, Rose Cortimiglia accused two neighbors, Iorlando Jordano and his son Frank, of committing the crime. Despite firm denials from Charles, both suspects were jailed pending trial. Meanwhile, on March 14, the Times-Picayune published a letter signed by "The Axman." Describing himself as "a fell demon from the hottest hell," the author announced his intention of touring New Orleans on March 19 -- St. Joseph's night -- and vowed to bypass any home where jazz was playing at the time. "One thing is certain," he declared, "and that is that some of those people who do not jazz it (if there be any) will get the ax!" On the appointed night, already known for raucous celebration, New Orleans was even noisier than usual. The din included numerous performances of "The Mysterious Axman's Jazz," a song composed for the occasion, and the evening passed without a new attack. On May 21, the Jordano trial opened in Gretna. Charles Cortimiglia did his best for the defense, but a jury believed his wife, convicting both defendants of murder on May 26. Frank Jordano was sentenced to hang; his elderly father drew a term of life imprisonment. And still the raids continued. Grocer Steve Boca was wounded at home on August 10,1919, his door chiseled through, the bloody ax discarded in his kitchen. On September 3, the Axman entered Sarah Laumann's bedroom through an open window, wounding her in bed, dropping his weapon on the lawn outside. Eight weeks later, on October 27, grocer Mike Pepitone was murdered at home; his wife glimpsed the killer, but offered detectives no helpful description. On December 7, 1920, Rose Cortimiglia publicly confessed to perjury in the Jordano trial, explaining that she blamed her neighbors for the slaying out of spite and jealousy. Both prisoners were pardoned and released, unconscious of events that had unfolded five days earlier, in California. On December 2, Joseph Mumfre, late of New Orleans, was ambushed and shot to death on a Los Angeles street corner. His female assailant, veiled and dressed in black, was identified as the widow of Mike Pepitone. At her murder trial, resulting in a ten-year sentence, she would finger Mumfre as the slayer of her husband -- and, by implication, as the Ax Man. Homicide investigators scoured Mumfre's record and discovered he was serving time in jail, for burglary, during the Ax Man's hiatus from August 1918 to March 1919. Various authors have noted that Mumfre was also locked up between 1911 and early 1918 -- thus implying a connection with the nonexistent "early" murders -- but the suspect's motive still remains a mystery. In 1973, author Jay Robert Nash "solved" the case by calling Mumfre a Mafia hit man, allegedly pursuing a long vendetta against "members of the Pepitone family." The explanation fails when we recall that only one of eleven victims -- the last -- was a Pepitone. Likewise, speculation on a Mafia extortion plot against Italian grocers overlooks the fact that four victims were non-Italians, while several were unconnected with the grocery business. At this writing, the Ax Man's case remains a mystery.