Are killers born, or created? That is the age-old question, and one with many sides, opinions, and examples. The case of Carl Panzram lends credence to the created argument. Panzram was an American serial killer, pederast, arsonist, robber, and burglar in the early 1900’s.
Carl Panzram was born on June 28, 1891 in East Grand Forks, Minnesota. He was one of eight children born to East Prussian immigrants, Johann “John” Gottlieb Panzram and Mathilda Elizabeth “Lizzie” Bolduan Panzram. His family owned a farm, where he and his siblings were forced to work from a very young age.
Fortunately for the Panzram children, truancy laws were being enacted across the United States, and it wasn’t long before school attendance became compulsory for the children of Minnesota. As expected, John and Lizzie were not happy about losing their labor to school, so they made the decision to force them to work the fields throughout the night, ensuring the work around the farm was still getting done.
According to Carl Panzram, he would get just two hours of sleep per night, before having to report to school.
As if the forced labor on top of schooling wasn’t hard enough, the Panzram children also faced harsh punishments from their parents. Discipline often ranged from being chained up, to being starved.
Carl Panzram adapted as best he could, and by the age of five or six, he was a pathological liar. Theories suggest the lies started as a means to avoid punishment, before becoming second nature to the boy. He also became a thief. His behavior escalated after his father left, abandoning him and his siblings.
In 1899, at the age of 8, Panzram was arrested and charged in juvenile court with being drunk and disorderly. At age 11, he was arrested and jailed for being drunk and “incorrigible,” a term indicating his behavior was not able to be corrected or improved. He could not be reformed. And they were right. Shortly after his second arrest, he stole cake, apples and a revolver from a neighbor’s home.
Having already been arrested twice, and no doubt causing other troubles within the home, his parents sent him to the Minnesota State Training School. Hoping for a reformed son, the school left him even more disturbed.
According to Carl Panzram’s autobiography, on the day of his arrival he was taken into an office by a male staff member. He was instructed to strip naked so he could be examined. “He examined my penis and rectum, asking me if I had ever committed fornication or sodomy or had ever had sodomy committed on me or if I had ever masturbated.”
He was repeatedly beaten, tortured, and raped by staff members in the school. There was a room dubbed “the paint shop” by the children, due to leaving the room “painted” with bruises and blood. If what he said was true, then he did the world a service on July 7, 1905, when he burned the school down. He was never caught.
Just because the Minnesota State Training School had burned down, did not mean Panzram was in the clear. After he stole money from his mother, he was sent to Red Wing Training School, and subsequently “paroled” in January 1906.
His troubles were not over though. He had become an alcoholic and a thief. He didn’t want to commit himself to doing hard physical labor on the farm, and convinced his mother that he wanted to become a priest. Believing his lies, she sent him to the nearby Immanuel Lutheran Church. There, he threatened to kill a Lutheran cleric with a revolver.
He ran away from home, choosing to live the life of a drifter. He traveled via train cars, burning down buildings and robbing innocent people along the way. It was during one of his rides in a train car that he was reportedly gang raped by a group of “hobos”. Panzram later stated that the incident left him “a sadder, sicker, but wiser boy… I made up my mind that I would rob, burn, destroy and kill everywhere I went and everybody I could as long as I lived.”
In 1908, he was caught stealing once again, and this time ended up being sent to Montana State Reform School. He quickly grew a reputation, and became the target of one particular officer. Not willing to be a victim, he beat the guard with a heavy wooden board, and was subsequently locked up and more carefully guarded.
Panzram wanted out, and didn’t wait to be released. Along with Jimmie Benson, another inmate, he escaped. Together the two began a crime spree of burglaries and robberies, focusing the majority of their attention on churches, which they then burned down.
The two eventually split up and for unknown reasons, Panzram joined the US Army. Almost immediately he found himself in trouble. He refused to perform his work detail and was impossible to control. He was always drunk. In April 1908 he broke into the quartermaster’s building where he stole around $80 worth of supplies and attempted to run. He didn’t make it far.
Carl Panzram was arrested and on April 20, he received a court-martial and was sentenced to three years confinement at the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. During his transport he was shacked inside of a cattle car on the train and given no food or water for the 1,000 mile trip.
“I was a pretty rotten egg before I went there, but when I left there, all the good that may have been in me had been kicked and beaten out of me.”
After his release in 1910, at age 19, Panzram continued his downward trajectory. For the next several years, he drifted from state to state, committing acts of burglary, arson, and rape, always targeted at men. Using various identities, he was caught, found guilty, and sent to various prisons.
By this time, Carl Panzram had become a target of interest for many women. With his strong physical stature, muscular body, dark hair and brooding eyes, he paid them no attention. In his autobiography, Panzram wrote that he was “rage personified” and would often rape men whom he had robbed.
In the summer of 1911, he had made his way to California and took on the name “Jefferson Davis”. After he was caught stealing a bicycle, he was arrested and sentenced to six months in county jail. He would not serve his time, escaping after only thirty days.
After his escape he hopped on a train boxcar as he had done so many times before. Except this time he encountered a “railway Detective” or “railway brakeman”. Panzram was able to disarm him before forcing him to rape a hobo at gunpoint. Then he threw them off the train.
In 1913, using the alias “Jack Allen”, he found himself jailed once again, having been arrested in The Dalles, Oregon for highway robbery, assault, and sodomy. He escaped after just two to three months.
Taking the alias “Jeff Davis”, he continued robbing, assaulting and raping before being arrested in Harrison, Idaho. He escaped and went back on the run, eventually getting arrested in Chinook, Montana – where he used the alias, “Jefferson Davis”. He was sentenced to one year in prison for burglary to be served at Deer Lodge.
While serving time in Deer Lodge, he found he had a friend on the inside. Jimmie Benson had also been arrested and jailed. Together the pair hatched a plan for escape. Panzram was able to get out, Jimmie was not due to a last minute transfer. His freedom didn’t last long, and he was arrested again a week later for burglary, using the alias “Jeff Rhoades”. An additional year was added to his original sentence for the escape.
Inmates found him intimidating and kept their distance.
This time he served out the entirety of his sentence and was released on March 3, 1915. He once again took to the rails, riding trains from location to location, living off of whatever he could steal.
On June 1, 1915, he found himself in Astoria, Oregon. There he broke into a house and stole what he could. He could have gotten away with it, but was once again arrested when he attempted to sell some of the items. He used the alias “Jeff Baldwin” and was sentenced to seven years in prison, to be served at the Oregon State Penitentiary.
The warden, Harry Minto, reportedly believed in harsh treatment of inmates. He was fond of beatings and isolation. Discipline included whipping, hosing, beating, starving, and isolation. Panzram wrote that he swore he “would never do that seven years and I defied the warden and all his officers to make me. The Warden swore I would do every damned day or he would kill me.”
Later that year, he helped fellow inmate Otto Hooker escape from the prison. While attempting to evade capture, Hooker killed the warden, no doubt elating the prison inmates.
During his time in the prison, Panzram was disciplined multiple times for insubordination, among other things, spending 61 days in solitary confinement. And, as you may have guessed, he escaped once again, on September 18, 1917. Unfortunately he didn’t make it far, and after two shootouts, he was recaptured and returned to prison.
On May 12, 1918 he somehow managed to saw through the bars of his cell with a hacksaw blade before jumping over the prison walls. He hopped on a train heading east, and shaved his moustache to alter his appearance. He found himself in New York City and took on the name “John O’Leary”.
In New York, he joined a number of unions and even got a Seaman’s Identification Card, which allowed him to join a crew on a ship. He boarded the James S. Whitney and traveled to Panama. There he found something new to steal. Small boats.
With the help of another sailor, he tried to steal a small boat. Unfortunately, his accomplice got drunk and wound up killing everyone on board and was arrested. Panzram avoided arrest and moved on from Panama and traveled to Peru where he took on a job in a copper mine. He worked in the mine until the workers went on strike, at which time he moved on to Chile.
Over the next several months, he traveled to Port Arthur, Texas, London, England, Glasgow, Scotland, Paris, France, and Hamburg, Germany. In the summer of 1920 he returned to the United States. In August he found himself in New Haven, Connecticut. There, he broke into the home of the then-Secretary of War (and later US President) William H. Taft. Panzram believed Taft was responsible for his previous imprisonment in Fort Leavenworth.
Among the things stolen, he had a large amount of jewelry, bonds, and even took Taft’s Colt .45-caliber handgun. Using the money he made from selling stolen goods, he bought a yacht, the Akista, and began touring along the East River. He burglarized other yachts he encountered. He raped and killed those he came into contact with, dumping their bodies in the ocean.
In New York, he lured sailors away from local bars, got them drunk, raped them, and killed them using Taft’s gun. He tied heavy rocks to their bodies before he dumped them near Execution Rocks Lighthouse. This went on for about three weeks before the people grew suspicious. It was then that he decided to move on, taking two sailors with him and heading down the coast of New Jersey to Long Beach Island.
Panzram may have had his plans, but mother nature had hers. A huge gale hit the yacht as they sailed, smashing it into the rocks and it ultimately sank. He was able to swim to shore, making it to the beaches north of Atlantic City. As for the sailors, it is believed that they also made it to shore and escaped.
He resumed traveling by land, and found himself in Connecticut. There, while using the alias “John O’Leary” he was arrested for burglary and possession of a loaded handgun. He was sentenced to six months in jail, which he served in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Not one to stay still, Panzram stowed away on a ship heading to Africa. When he arrived in Angola he took on a job as a foreman of an oil rig for Sinclair Oil Company. An oil rig he later burned down out of spite. He later confessed to having raped and killed a young boy, he believed to have been 11-years-old. He wrote, “His brains were coming out of his ears when I left him and he will never be any deader.”
Days later, he met up with six local guides, who were to take him on a crocodile hunting expedition. Once the crocodiles appeared, he shot the men and threw their bodies to the crocodiles.
He fled to the Gold Coast where he began robbing farmers. Panzram made his way to the Canary Islands, but found there wasn’t anything worth stealing there. His next move was to stow away on another ship, this one heading for Lisbon, Portugal. But then he discovered that local authorities were aware of his crimes in Africa and were on the lookout for him.
He made his way back to the United States where he continued to rob, burn down buildings, rape, and kill. He managed to steal a yacht belonging to the police chief of New Rochelle, New York. He picked up a 15-year-old boy named George Walosin and promised him a job on the boat, but instead sodomized him.
On June 27, near Kingston New York, Panzram found himself face to face with a man he claimed was attempting to rob him. He used a .38-caliber pistol to kill him before tossing his body into the river.
The next day, he docked in Poughkeepsie, New York and proceeded to steal $1,000 in fishing nets. Meanwhile Walosin made his escape and went to police where he reported that he had been sexually assaulted. Immediately an alert went out for “Captain John O’Leary” and on June 29, “John O’Leary” was arrested.
He tried to escape from jail, but ended up agreeing to trade his lawyer a boat in return for bail money. His lawyer bailed him out, only to discover the promised boat had been a stolen boat. Panzram skipped bail and went on the run.
On July 18, 1922, he came across 12-year-old George Henry McMahon. McMahon spent most of the day at a neighbor’s restaurant until the owner asked him to run an errand.
Panzram walked with the boy, all the way to the store. He chatted with the store clerk, and then set his sights back on the boy. He convinced McMahon to go for a trolley ride. They ended up in a deserted part of town and he quickly ushered him to a secluded area. There he spent the next three hours sodomizing the boy before beating him to death with a rock.
On August 9, 1923, he spotted a young boy begging for money. Panzram pulled a knife on him before dragging him off into the woods where he sodomized him. When he was finished, he used the boy’s own belt to strangle him before sodomizing him again.
A couple of weeks later, on August 26, 1923, he broke into the Larchmont train depot. He began searching suitcases, taking whatever he could when he was spotted by an officer. There was a struggle, but the officer won, placing Panzram under arrest.
Once again, he used the alias “John O’Leary” and even confessed to additional break-ins. He was charged with four counts of burglary. He made a deal with the District Attorney’s office to plead guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence. He pled guilty, but the DA reneged on the deal, and Panzram was sentenced to five years.
He was sent to Sing Sing prison, but being a challenging prisoner, they transferred him to Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York where guards were more accustomed to dealing with difficult prisoners, specifically hardened criminals.
Clinton Correctional Facility was known to inmates as “Dannemora, the Hell Hole” and was considered one of the most brutal facilities in the nation. Prisoners were treated like animals and suffered at the hands of the guards. Numerous prisoners snapped, and found themselves being transferred to the State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.
Within months, Panzram was ready to escape. He tried to firebomb the workshops. He tried to kill a guard. In the end, he found himself at the top of one of the outer walls. But he never made it any further. He fell 30 feet onto the concrete. He survived, but broke both of his legs, and ankles, as well as injuring his spine.
“I was dumped into a cell without any medical attention or surgical attention whatsoever. My broken bones were not set. My ankles and legs were not put into a cast… The doctor never came near me and no one else was allowed to do anything for me. At the end of 14 months of constant agony, I was taken to the hospital where I was operated on for my rupture and one of my testicles was cut off.”
After his operation, he was witnessed sodomizing a fellow inmate. He was thrown into solitary confinement where he served out the remainder of his incarceration. “I suffered more agony… Always in pain… Crawling around like a snake with a broken back, seething with hatred and a lust for revenge. Five years of this and of life. That last two years and four months confined in isolation with nothing to do except brood… I hated everybody I saw.”
Carl Panzram was once again a free man in July 1928. He continued the life he was accustomed to, committing several robberies, and even killed a man in Baltimore.
On August 30, 1928, he was once again arrested – this time for a burglary he had committed in Washington, D.C. During his interrogation he confessed to having killed three boys earlier that month. Authorities made some inquiries, and found that he was telling the truth, and was wanted in several jurisdictions.
They officially had a serial killer in custody, and Panzram was convicted and sentenced to 25-years to life. He was sent back to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary where he warned the warden, “I’ll kill the first man that bothers me.” The warden didn’t heed his warning, and Panzram was assigned to work in the prison laundry room.
Robert Warnke was the foreman of the prison laundry room, and was known to bully and harass the other prisoners. Panzram warned Warnke to back off multiple times, but he didn’t listen. On June 20, 1929, he beat Warnke to death with an iron bar.
This time Panzram was convicted of murder and given a death sentence. He refused all appeals, and even responded to offers from death penalty opponents and human rights activists who wanted to intervene by writing, “The only thanks you and your kind will ever get from me for your efforts on my behalf is that I wish you all had one neck and that I had my hands on it.”
While on death row, Panzram met rookie guard Henry Lesser. Lesser, the son of a Jewish Immigrant, approached him and asked what his crime was. Panzram told him that he reformed people.
Over the next several weeks, Lesser continued to be drawn to him, and even gave him $1.00 so that he could buy cigarettes and extra food. Panzram was astonished. The two developed a friendship of sorts, and Lesser even convinced him to write down his life story.
Lesser provided him all the writing materials he needed, and he wrote his life story, 20,000 words with precise details of the atrocities he suffered as well as the crimes he committed. He denied having any remorse for his actions and even began with, “In my lifetime I have murdered 21 human beings, I have committed thousands of burglaries, robberies, larcenies, arsons and, last but not least, I have committed sodomy on more than 1,000 male human beings. For all these things I am not in the least bit sorry.”
Carl Panzram was hanged on September 5, 1930. When officers tried to place the customary black hood over his head, he spat in the executioner’s face. When asked if he had any last words, he said, “Yes. Hurry it up, you Hoosier bastard; I could kill a dozen men while you’re screwing around!”
He was buried in the Leavenworth Penitentiary Cemetery, where his grave is marked only with his prison number, 31614.
“All of my associates, all of my surroundings, the atmosphere of deceit, treachery, brutality, degeneracy, hypocrisy and everything that is bad and nothing that is good. Why am I what I am? I’ll tell you why. I did not make myself what I am. Others had the making of me.”
Carl Panzram
If you liked this story, I’d recommend Javed Iqbal, Strangled, Dismembered, and Burned.
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