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strangled. On July 10, 1998, Butts inside the Williams home (and many other homes, as County Superior Court Judge Hal Craig rejected the well) had been identified on several bodies. Further, vic-latest appeal for a new trial in Williams’s case, based tims Middlebrooks, Wyche, Cater, Terrell, Jones, and on suppression of critical evidence 15 years earlier.
    Stephens all supposedly bore fibers from the trunk liner Judge Craig denied yet another new-trial motion on of a 1979 Ford automobile owned by the Williams fam-June 15, 2000.
    9
    “AX Man of New Orleans”
    “AX Man of New Orleans”
    vived to bear a healthy daughter, but her memory of the In the predawn hours of May 23, 1918, New Orleans attack was vague, at best. A hulking shadow by her grocer Joseph Maggio and his wife were murdered in bed, the ax descending—and oblivion.
    bed by a prowler who chiseled through their back door, On August 10, sisters Pauline and Mary Bruno woke used Joseph’s ax to strike each victim once across the to sounds of struggle in the adjacent room occupied by skull, then slit their throats with a razor to finish the their uncle, Joseph Romano. They rushed next door to job. Maggio’s brothers discovered the bodies and were find him dying of a head wound, but they caught a briefly held as suspects, but police could find no evi-glimpse of his assailant, described in official reports as dence of their involvement in the crime and both were
    “dark, tall, heavy-set, wearing a dark suit and a black soon released.
    slouch hat.”
    A few blocks from the murder scene, detectives The rest of August 1918 was a nightmare for police, found a cryptic message chalked on the sidewalk. It with numerous reports of chiseled doors, discarded read: “Mrs. Maggio is going to sit up tonight just like axes, and lurking strangers. Several of the latter were Mrs. Toney.” Police could offer no interpretation, so pursued by vengeful mobs but always managed to the press stepped in. An article in the New Orleans escape. At last, with time and the distraction of an States cited a “veritable epidemic” of unsolved ax mur-armistice in war-torn Europe, the hysteria began to ders in 1911, listing the victims as Italian grocers fade.
    named Cruti, Rosetti (allegedly killed with his wife), On March 10, 1919, the scene shifted to Gretna, and Tony Schiambra (whose spouse was also reportedly across the river from New Orleans. A prowler invaded slain). Over nine decades, half a dozen authors have the home of Charles Cortimiglia, helping himself to the accepted that report as factual, relying on the “early”
    grocer’s own ax before wounding Charles and his wife crimes to bolster this or that supposed solution in the and killing their infant daughter. From her hospital bed, case. Unfortunately, the initial report was so garbled Rose Cortimiglia accused two neighbors, Iorlando Jor-that it bore little resemblance to fact.
    dano and his son Frank, of committing the crime.
    Local records reveal that a victim named Cruti was Despite firm denials from Charles, both suspects were murdered at home in August 1910, followed one month jailed pending trial.
    later by a vicious ax assault on Joseph and Conchetta Meanwhile, on March 14, the Times-Picayune pub-Rissetto. (Joseph survived his wounds and blamed the lished a letter signed by “The Axeman.” Describing crime on an unidentified burglar.) The only coroner’s himself as “a fell demon from the hottest hell,” the report on a Rosetti in 1911 involved Mary Rosetti, a author announced his intention of touring New Orleans black woman whose death was ascribed to dysentery.
    on March 19—St. Joseph’s Night—and vowed to
    Meanwhile, New Orleans journalists ignored the June bypass any home where jazz was playing at the time.
    1911 ax attacks on a couple named Davi. (The wife sur-
    “One thing is certain,” he declared, “and that is that vived in that case.) Anthony Sciambra and his wife some of those people who do not