A century ago, two waves of horrific serial axe murders swept the American South,

both ultimately unsolved. In all, some 69 people were killed, most of them entire families.

Reporters openly associated the murders with Louisiana Voodoo, as if they were some pagan ritual sacrifice.

Is that really the best explanation?

We're going to find out today on Skeptoid.

You're listening to Skeptoid.

I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com.

The Voodoo Axe Murders.

Welcome to the show that separates fact from fiction, science from pseudoscience,

real history from fake history, and helps us all make better life decisions by knowing

what's real and what's not.

The great city of New Orleans, Louisiana is perhaps best known for its French quarter, jazz music, and

Creole cuisine. But it is also, somewhat more privately, known for Louisiana Voodoo, a unique religion that blends West African

religious traditions, Roman Catholicism, and Haitian voodoo.

When two waves of axe murders swept through Louisiana and Texas

between 1911 and 1919 only one person was punished a teenage black girl reported to be a voodoo priestess. The newspapers

had a field day sensationalizing the monstrosities of voodoo. Today we're going to point our skeptical eye at that contemporary

conclusion that Voodoo was the explanation and see if young Clementine Barnabat and Voodoo as well. and

Voodoo as well deserve to be exonerated.

I do want to clear one thing up right at the outset.

The Louisiana Voodoo religion

has nothing to do with murder or human sacrifice. There's not a thing in Voodoo

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