The Axeman of New Orleans
Gone South
Audacy Podcasts
4.8 • 4.2K Ratings
🗓️ 6 May 2026
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
New Orleans. 1918. A killer the papers call “The Axeman” breaks into homes at night, mostly targeting Italian grocers, and attacks with an axe taken from inside the house. No robbery. No clear motive. Just terror. The case is never officially solved.
In this episode of Gone South, former Times-Picayune editor James Karst walks Jed Lipinski through what the archives actually show: the earliest attacks, the infamous Axeman letter demanding jazz music, and the overlooked suspect Joseph Mumfre, a Black Hand linked extortionist whose name keeps resurfacing.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Listen up. |
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| 0:46.5 | From high-profile trials and stunning evidence to major breaks in cold cases. We'll follow |
| 0:52.7 | it all case by case. Follow and listen to 48 hours |
| 0:56.5 | case by case wherever you get your podcasts. The Times Picayune newspaper in New Orleans was founded |
| 1:08.2 | in 1837. When I showed up there around 2013, it had just celebrated its 175th anniversary. |
| 1:17.5 | In honor of that milestone, reporters would occasionally publish stories about interesting events |
| 1:22.7 | from the city's past. |
| 1:25.0 | There were a lot of good ones, but the ones I remember most were by a young editor named |
| 1:30.4 | James Kirst. Like me, James was from the north. He'd grown up on a farm in Indiana, and he was |
| 1:37.5 | working at a newspaper in Fairbanks, Alaska, when he was hired by the Times Pick. |
| 1:42.3 | And I'll never forget when I came down to interview at the Pickyune, |
| 1:46.3 | one of the managing editors joked that the other managing editor had gone to new lengths |
| 1:52.5 | to bring Yankees into the newspaper as I was visiting from Alaska. |
| 1:58.7 | By 2014, James had been at the newspaper for over a decade. |
| 2:03.8 | He lived through Hurricane Katrina, and he developed a deep interest in New Orleans history. |
| 2:09.8 | He wrote more anniversary stories than anyone else, starting with events that occurred |
| 2:13.9 | in the mid-1800s. |
| 2:15.9 | But it was an episode from the early 20th century |
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