A Monday Murder Mystery...!

Today we travel back in time a bit to look at another murder mystery from Texas' past!

Any crime like this is disturbing, but the fact that it took place in Texas just bothers me a lot. Guess that's the case with any unsolved crime in your home state. These crimes seemed to be exceedingly brutal, even for those times!

Servant Girl Annihilator

Since the first “Unsolved Murders” list ended with a vicious serial killer lets keep that format. Mollie Smith is presumed to be the first victim of the “Servant Girl Annihilator”, a serial killer who was active in the Austin, Texas area in 1884 to 1885. Pre-dating Jack the Ripper’s killing spree by almost 4 years, the viciousness of his attacks left the public hysterical, and some even tried to tie the two series of murders together as the work of one killer. At least 7 young women’s deaths are attributed to the Annihilator, who not only raped his victims, but bludgeoned or slashed them to death. Sometimes the murder weapon was an axe, and several victims were stabbed by some sort of spike in the ears or the face. The killers habit was to drag his victim from her bed while she slept, and because of this method on at least two occasions the victim’s male bed mate was attacked as well, resulting in the bludgeoning death of Orange Washington. Numerous arrests were made up to this point, but lack of evidence or airtight alibis lead to the release of all suspects.

By September of 1885 The Servant Girl Annihilator had attacked 8 people, leaving 5 dead. Things were quiet for a few short months, then a change of M.O. On Christmas Eve, 1885, not 1 but 2 well to do white women were dragged from their respective beds, raped and axed to death. The husbands of each of these women were arrested and placed on trial. Through the infantile beginnings of forensic science, each man was proven innocent of the crimes and acquitted. The murders stopped and no one was ever convicted for them.

Back to the Ripper murders, which took place in Whitechapel, London, England in 1888. One suspect, who rarely gets mentioned by Ripperologists, was a Malay cook calling himself Maurice, a man who had threatened to kill Whitechapel prostitutes but who had then disappeared. In 1885 he had been employed at the Pearl House, a small hotel, in Austin, Texas. The information was confirmed, and it was ascertained that the cook had left the premises in January 1886. The Servant Girl murders had ended just weeks earlier and most of the victims resided not far from the Pearl House.

When you consider just how many murders and other crimes went unsolved from the past right up to the present, it's scary! I understand that many can't be solved very quickly, but it seems to me that the numbers are growing larger every day!

Coffee out on the patio this morning. There's a gentle breeze blowing and that helps to cool things down!