That night all of the city's dance halls were filled to capacity, and professional and amateur bands played jazz at parties at hundreds of houses around town.

Well, as I am cold and crave the warmth of my native Tartarus, and it is about time I leave your earthly home, I will cease my discourse.

Hoping that thou wilt publish this, that it may go well with thee, I have been, am and will be the worst spirit that ever existed either in fact or realm of fantasy.

However, true crime writer Michael Newton searched public, police and court records in New Orleans and Los Angeles, as well as newspaper archives, and failed to find any evidence of a man named "Joseph Monfre" (or a similar name) having been assaulted or killed in Los Angeles.

[4] According to scholar Richard Warner,[7] the chief suspect in the crimes was Frank "Doc" Mumphrey (1875–1921), who used the alias Leon Joseph Monfre/Manfre.

On May 23, 1918, Joseph Maggio, an Italian grocer, and his wife Catherine were attacked while sleeping inside their apartment on the corner of Upperline and Magnolia Streets.

The killer wrote a message on the nearby pavement reading, "Mrs. Maggio will sit up tonight just like Mrs. Toney", theorized to be a reference to Anthony and Joanna Sciambra, Italian greengrocers who were attacked (Johanna fatally) in 1911.

A complete search of the premises was not performed after the bodies were removed, yet the bloodstained razor was later found on the lawn of a neighboring property.

[10] Police ruled out robbery as motivation for the attacks, as money and valuables left in plain sight were not stolen by the intruder.

[11] The razor was found to belong to Joseph's brother Andrew, who owned a barber shop on Camp Street.

His employee, Esteban Torres, told police that Andrew had removed the razor from his shop two days prior to the murder, explaining that he had wanted to have a nick honed from the blade.

[12] Andrew became the police chief's prime suspect in the crime, yet was released after investigators were unable to break down his statement, as well as his account of an unknown man who was supposedly seen lurking near the apartment prior to the murders.

[14] The couple were discovered the following morning, alive but critically injured, by bakery wagon driver John Zanca, who had come to the grocery to make a routine delivery.

[16] Almost immediately, police arrested Lewis Oubicon, a 41-year-old African American man who had been employed in the grocery just a week before the attacks.

No evidence existed which could have proved Oubicon guilty, yet police arrested him nonetheless, stating that he had offered conflicting accounts of his whereabouts on the morning of the attack.

[15] Lowe became the center of a media circus as she continually made scandalous and often false statements relating to both the attacks and the character of Besumer.

After Besumer fell under suspicion of espionage following the discovery of foreign-written letters in his possession, Lowe told police that she thought he was a German spy, resulting in his immediate arrest; he was released two days later.

The windows and doors of the couple's apartment appeared to have not been forced open, and authorities came to the conclusion that the woman was most likely attacked with a lamp that had been on a nearby table.

[18] On August 10, 1918, Pauline and Mary Bruno awoke to the sound of a commotion in the adjoining room where their elderly uncle, Joseph Romano, resided.

The assailant was fleeing the scene as they arrived, yet the girls were able to distinguish that he was a dark-skinned, heavy-set man who wore a dark suit and slouched hat.

The murder created a state of extreme chaos in New Orleans, with residents living in constant fear of an Axeman attack.

[16] John Dantonio, a then-retired Italian detective, made public statements in which he hypothesized that the man who had committed the recent murders was the same who had killed several individuals in 1911.

[19] On the night of March 10, 1919, Italian immigrant Charles Cortimiglia and his family – wife Rosie and infant daughter Mary – were attacked in their residence on the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Second Street in Gretna, Louisiana, a New Orleans suburb.

Upon gaining full consciousness, Rosie made claims that Jordano and his 18-year-old son, Frank, were responsible for the attacks.

Charles vehemently denied his wife's claims, yet police nonetheless arrested the Jordanos and charged them with the murder.

Upon regaining consciousness, Boca ran to the street to investigate the intrusion, and found that his head had been cracked open.

[21] On the night of October 27, 1919, the wife of Mike Pepitone was awakened by a noise and arrived at the door of her husband's bedroom just as a large, axe-wielding man was fleeing the scene.