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months.
    As would be expected of a story in which imagination has replaced fact, the land once occupied by the Benders is said to be haunted by the ghosts of their victims.
    THE SERVANT GIRL ANNIHILATOR
    The American writer O. Henry is perhaps best remembered today for The Gift of the Magi, a Christmas tale featuring Jim and Della, a young couple with no money. As the holiday approaches, Della sells her long tresses to a wigmaker so that she might buy a platinum chain for Jim’s watch. Meanwhile, Jim sells his watch and uses the money he receives to buy a set of jewelled combs for Della’s hair. The moral is difficult to miss: material possessions, whether bejewelled or made from platinum, are of little value when compared to love. It is a heart-warming, sentimental story, typical of the author’s work. How odd, then, that this very same man has the distinction of having provided a nickname for one of the first American serial killers, the Servant Girl Annihilator.
    O. Henry’s epithet, provided to friends working at the Austin Daily Statesman, was one of several used to describe the murderer who terrorized Texas between 1884 and 1885. Another name was the Austin Axe Murderer. Neither was entirely apt, but both continue to be used to this day for a killer who was never caught.
    The Servant Girl Annihilator began his bloody work on the cold New Year’s Eve of 1884. His first victim, a 25-year-old live-in ‘negro servant’ named Mollie Smith, was found next to the outhouse of the home in which she was employed. Wearing only a nightdress, she had been raped and bludgeoned to death. The murder weapon, an axe covered in Mollie’s blood, was discovered inside the outhouse. No one in the house proper had heard anything. Indeed, all had appeared peaceful until Walter Spencer, Smith’s common-law husband, had awoken from his usual night’s sleep in great pain. He discovered a deep cut across his face. The bedroom he and Mollie shared was in bloody disarray and his ‘wife’ was gone. Spencer’s cries for help awoke the rest of the house.
    In the early morning hours, the local marshal led a pack of bloodhounds through the snow-covered streets of Austin. It was a horrible way to usher in the New Year.
    Though Austin was then a small city – fewer than 25,000 lived within its limits – murder was not entirely unknown there. Still, the savagery displayed in Mollie Smith’s death was big news indeed. Suspicion settled quickly on Smith’s former lover, a black man named William Brooks. An all-white coroner’s jury ignored Brooks’ alibi and witnesses, concluding that he was probably guilty of the crime. Eventually, the ex-boyfriend was released due to lack of evidence.
    Five months later, on 6 May, another black woman, Eliza Shelley, was murdered. A 30-year-old cook, Shelley lived with her three children in a cabin on the property of her employer, L. B. Johnson. It was Johnson’s wife who, hearing Shelley’s screams, sent her niece to check on the children. The girl found the family cook lying dead on the cabin floor, her skull very nearly split in two. Shelley’s nightgown was raised, exposing most of her body. Bloody footprints of a barefooted man trailed from the awful scene.
    This time, there had been a witness. The victim’s 8-year-old son spoke of seeing a man enter the cabin. This unknown figure pushed the boy away and threw a blanket over him. Falling asleep, he’d seen nothing further, and had even slept through his mother’s screams. Upon waking the next morning, he was blissfully unaware of her fate.
    False leads
    Again, the authorities cast around for suspects. A mentally handicapped 19-year-old was arrested, seemingly for no other reason than that he had no shoes. When his feet were measured and shown to be of a different size to those of the killer, he was released. An acquaintance of the Shelleys was also held, for no other reason than that the two had been seen arguing.
    The murderer struck again 17