Victor Licata (c. 1912– December 4, 1950), also known as the Dream Slayer,[1] was an American mass murderer who used an axe to kill his family in Ybor City, Tampa, Florida, on October 16, 1933.

The killings, which were reported by the media as the work of an "axe-murdering marijuana addict", were adduced as prima facie evidence that there was a link between recreational drugs, such as cannabis, and crime.

[2][3] Recent research has revealed that marijuana was never referenced in any of Licata's psychiatric reports nor was it considered a contributing factor in the homicides.

On October 17, 1933, the Tampa Bay Times wrote: W. D. Bush, city chief detective, said he had made an investigation prior to the crime and learned the slayer had been addicted to smoking marijuana cigarettes for more than six months.

[5]However, a day later the Chief of Tampa Police Department downplayed the role the drug had in the murders, although he pledged himself to the cause of marijuana prohibition: Maybe the weed only had a small indirect part in the alleged insanity of the youth, but I am declaring now and for all time that the increasing use of this narcotic must stop and will be stopped.An October 20, 1933, editorial on page six of the Tampa Morning Tribune was entitled "Stop This Murderous Smoke".

[10] Evidence shows that a year before the murders, Tampa police had filed a petition to have Licata institutionalized for mental illness.

[4] Mental illness ran in the Licata family, and prison psychiatrists speculated that he had inherited his insanity from his parents who were first cousins.

[4] The case served to inspire media depictions of normal people driven to criminal insanity by the "evil weed" such as the notorious 1936 exploitation film Tell Your Children (a.k.a.

The foremost proponent of the Licata story was Harry Anslinger, Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics from 1930 until 1962, who abused the case to insist that marijuana usage caused insanity and criminality.

[13][14] Anslinger reused the story during his testimony at the Congress hearings for the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937:[15] It was an unprovoked crime some years ago which brought the first realization that the age-old drug had gained a foothold in America.

It has the backing of ... the United States Treasury Department, including the Bureau of Narcotics, through which Uncle Sam fights the dope evil.

He told rambling stories of being attacked in his bedroom by "his uncle, a strange old woman and two men and two women," whom he said hacked off his arms and otherwise mutilated him; later in the dream, he saw "real blood" dripping from an axe.

In this chart, Munch anonymously referenced the Licata killings, stating, "Murdered his father, mother, sister, and two brothers with an ax, while under the influence of marihuana.