This is the story of a child who needed help from the community around him, and was failed time and time again. This is the story of how society created an American serial killer. This is the story of Carl Panzram.
Charles “Carl” Panzram was born on June 28th, 1981, in East Grand Forks, Minnesota. He was the youngest of eight children, born to Prussian immigrants in a farming community. Carl’s parents never should have had children – but they were a free source of farming labour, and the family was barely keeping their heads above water.
As soon as the children were able, they were out on the farm working. However, they were also obligated to attend school. Carl would attend school in a catatonic state, barely able to pay attention, as he’d be worked to the bone all night long to make up for the hours missed. By the age of 5, Carl was only sleeping approximately two hours a night.
Carl was also subject to torturous beatings from his father and older brothers. When he was 6, Carl developed a severe ear infection. Rather than take him to a doctor they couldn’t afford, Carl’s father laid him down on the kitchen table, had his brothers hold him down, and tried to cut the infection out of his ear with a knife. It’s said that at some point, Carl’s father’s hand slipped, causing him to stab Carl through the ear, hitting a part of his brain.
The result of this was that Carl needed to be hospitalized for a number of weeks. His parents couldn’t afford the hospital bill, and so his father left, leaving Carl and his mother in poverty, and in extreme debt. The other children also left to work on other farms, or just took off to parts unknown.
By the time Carl was 8, he was a dependent alcoholic, stealing from the stash his father left at the house, or from neighbouring farmhouses. At the age of 11, in 1903, Carl was arrested, and then jailed for being drunk and “incorrigible”. He had been caught stealing apples and cake from a neighbour’s home.
Everyone could see that Carl was malnourished and emaciated. No one cared. No one looked at Carl and saw a child in need of assistance. Instead, they saw a problem that needed a firm hand. In October of 1903, his mother sent him to the Minnesota State Training School, a religious “reformatory” institution.
While there, Carl was systematically and repeatedly beaten, tortured, and raped. The institution would search for employees – guards – who took pleasure in harming children. Carl figured this out very quickly, and he did not give in.
His first night there, Carl was taken to “the paint shop”, a shed on the property grounds. It was so named for the guards relishing in ‘painting’ the children black and blue. Carl would not give them the satisfaction. He withstood the torture session, without uttering a single word.
On July 7th, 1905, Carl was given janitorial tasks during the night – an attempt at torture via sleep deprivation. Carl was left unsupervised. That night, “the paint shop” burned to the ground. Though they could never prove that it was Carl who razed it to the ground, the older boys at the school had a newfound respect for him. They taught him their tricks. Give them what they want – pretend to repent and reform, and he’d be let out.
Carl took to the advice like a fish took to water. Carl lied through his teeth, and manipulated anyone he came across into believing that they’d broken him. He convinced them that they had managed to beat the morality into him. A month after he began the façade, he was paroled.
Carl was 14 years old, and he saw how destitute the farm fallen in his absence. He packed a few meagre belongings, and he left his mother’s house.
Carl began travelling by train car, hopping trains to get from place to place. During one such journey, Carl was gang raped by four middle-aged men. They left him bleeding, beaten, and unconscious as they pushed him out of the moving train car.
Picking himself up, Carl continued to travel. He would break into houses, stealing and thieving anything he could, usually food and money. Carl was arrested and charged for grand larceny. He was convicted, and then sent to the Red Wing Training School in Minnesota. There, he received much the same treatment as he had at the Minnesota State Training School – left to the attentions of men who enjoyed harming children.
In January of 1906, Carl was paroled. He made his way west, and found himself in Montana, where he was sent to the Montana State Reform School after being caught for burglary. Carl escaped the school, along with an inmate he’d befriended, Jimmie Benson.
Carl and Jimmie were involved in a string of burglaries, robberies, and arsons. Eventually, Jimmie got caught, and was sent to prison as an adult. Carl cut his losses, and left the area.
A year later, in 1907, Carl, now 15, lied about his age and decided to enlist in the military. Carl craved routine, but could not abide by being given orders. He had spent his entire life being tortured and beaten by men giving him orders. His instinctual reaction was to rebel – was to take power from those weaker than him as those stronger than him had taken it from him. Carl would not fare well with the military.
Shortly before he was set to go off to training, Carl was caught and convicted for larceny after stealing uniforms. He was sentenced from April 20th, 1908 to 1910 at Fort Leavenworth’s brig, the United States Disciplinary Barracks. His sentence had been handed down by William H. Taft.
In a statement he made in his autobiography, Carl claimed that any sense of good, or humanity, that may have remained in him was “smashed” out of him during his Leavenworth imprisonment due to the torture and treatment he endured there.
(For a detailed account of the level of torture Carl experienced during his life, which I cannot detail for the sake of my own mental health, please listen to Morbid’s two part podcast series about the life of Carl Panzram. Links to the episodes are included in my sources below.)
After his release from Leavenworth, Carl Panzram was dishonourably discharged from his post. Carl then resumed his life of thieving. He was apprehended and imprisoned multiple times, where he would rebel, lead riots, and help prisoners escape. Carl incurred beatings, torture, solitary confinement, every form of ‘punishment’, or torture, that could be conceived.
Carl was also being taught how to conduct himself. If those stronger than him could take what they wanted from him, so too could he take what he wanted from weaker men than himself. As Carl went about stealing and burglarizing, so was he raping and pillaging. He was doing what he’d been taught in the reform schools, and in prison. He was mimicking behaviours of “strong men”, who had targeted him, he was told, for being weak.
Carl’s time in the schools, in the prisons, undergoing torturous treatments and manual labour, meant that he grew to be a very large man in stature. His physique made him an ideal candidate for a very particular type of employment. When Carl wasn’t about causing chaos, he was working as a strikebreaker. Legally sanctioned violence. Carl was in his prime.
During the summer of 1911, at the age of 20, Carl, under the name “Jefferson Davis”, was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to six months in the Fresno county jail. Within 30 days, Carl escaped.
Two years later, in 1913, as “Jack Allen”, Carl, now 22, was arrested in The Dalles, Oregon. He was convicted of highway robbery, assault, and sodomy. Within a couple of months, Carl escaped.
As “Jeff Davis”, or “Jefferson Davis”, Carl was sent to the state prison at Deer Lodge, Montana on April 27th, 1913. By November 13th, he escaped. He was sent back within a week for burglary, going by “Jeff Rhoades”. He was sentenced to a year, and released on March 3rd, 1915.
On June 1st, 1915, Carl burglarized a home in Astoria, Oregon. While trying to sell off the stolen items, he was arrested. He gave his name as Jeff Baldwin. He was convicted, and sentenced to seven years at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem, Oregon.
All of the pain and torture that Carl had endured up to this point in his life was no match for what he would endure at Oregon State Penitentiary. Carl was combative, contrary, and rebellious. The guards took to targeting him instantly. He suffered beatings, torture, being hung by his hands from the rafters, broken bones, and solitary confinement.
At one point, the guards were told to leave him in solitary confinement for upwards of sixty days. They couldn’t even bring him meals. He survived by eating cockroaches for sustenance. Carl knew that the orders had come from Warden Henry Minto. And Carl vowed that Minto would suffer as Carl himself had suffered.
While incarcerated in Salem, Carl befriended a man by the name of Otto Hooker. Carl and Otto planned an escape. While evading recapture, Otto managed to shoot Warden Minto dead. Minto’s brother took over his role as Warden, redoubling his efforts to break, and torture Carl in revenge.
On May 12th, 1918, Carl escaped Oregon State Penitentiary. He changed his appearance by shaving off his beard, and took the name John O’Leary. He then hopped a train, heading east. He never made it back out West again.
Making it to New York, Carl Panzram allegedly got a Seaman Identification card, and joined the steamship James S. Whitney’s crew, and set sail for Panama. In Panama, Panzram tried to steal a boat. At the time, he was with a drunken sailor. The sailor killed everyone aboard the boat, and was arrested.
While Panzram was still free, he decided to take off. He travelled to Peru, where he worked in a copper pine. From there, he travelled to Chile, Port Arthur, Texas, and, allegedly, also travelled and worked aboard ships heading to London, Edinburgh, Paris, and Hamburg.
In August of 1920, Panzram found himself in New Haven, Connecticut. There, he intended to get revenge. He made his way to the William H. Taft Mansion, and burglarized the home of William Howard Taft, the man who had sent him to Leavenworth. Panzram stole jewelry, bonds, and Taft’s Colt M1911 .45-caliber handgun.
After the theft, Panzram used the funds and bought himself a yacht named the Akista. Using his yacht as a lure, Panzram would hire drunken sailors coming out of the pubs, and lead them to the Akista. There, he would rob them, rape them, and then kill them using Taft’s handgun. He would then sail out to Execution Rocks Light in Long Island Sound, and dump the bodies overboard. In his autobiography, Panzram claimed to have murdered ten men in this way.
As the locals near where he docked his yacht became suspicious, Panzram decided to change tactics. Instead, he hired two men to be his crew. He convinced them to participate in robberies with him. They would sail the yacht up and down the coast, burglarizing other boats that they came across. Panzram made quite a killing this way. Then it came to an end.
Near Atlantic City, the Akista ran around. The two men, figuring it wasn’t long before they would become food for the fishes, cut their losses with Panzram and escaped to parts unknown. Everything was lost as the Akista sank – including Taft’s handgun.
Panzram made his way back to Connecticut, where he burglarized a house in Stamford On October 26th. 1920. He was charged, and convicted, of burglary and the possession of a loaded handgun. He gave his name as “John O’Leary”. He was sentenced in 1921 to six months in jail in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Upon his release, Panzram stowed away on a ship headed to colonial Portuguese Angola, in Southern Africa. He was found on the ship, where, using his large stature to his advantage, he agreed to work for free for passage. The captain agreed.
In Angola, Panzram got a job on an oil rig. He was later fired, and he burned the rig down as an act of revenge. He then claimed to have raped and murdered a young boy. In order to escape prying eyes from that, Panzram hired a boat which came with six skilled guards and hunters. Panzram hired them to take him hunting for crocodiles. Only Panzram came back from that excursion.
Feeling that his time in Angola had come to a close, Panzram then stowed away on an English ship, where he sailed to England. From there, he stowed away on an American ship, and made it back to the United States, landing in Salem, Massachusetts.
In Salem, two young boys caught Panzram’s attention. He alleged that he raped them both. On July 18th, 1922, Panzram beat one of the boys with a rock, while later strangling the other boy near New Haven. And he kept moving, quickly and swiftly, through the North Eastern United States
From New Haven, Panzram made his way to Yonkers, New York. There, he worked as night watchman at the Abeeco Mill factory. While working there, he caught sight of a 15-year-old boy named George Walosin, and began a relationship with him.
He left George, and headed for Providence, Rhode Island. There, he stole a boat, and sailed back to New Haven, seeking chaos and destruction in his wake.
In June of 1923, Panzram stole the yacht of the New Rochelle, New York police chief. He then went back to Yonkers, where he picked George up. He had promised him a job, but instead repeatedly raped him.
Panzram then sailed near Kingston, New York. There, he attempted to steal another yacht, but was nearly robbed himself. Panzram killed the man, using a .38-caliber pistol, and threw the man overboard.
On June 28th, 1923, Panzram sailed and docked in Poughkeepsie, New York. There, he stole $1,000 worth of fishing nets that he intended to resell. By this point, George was growing more and more scared of Panzram. He asked the man to take him back home. Without batting an eye, Panzram sailed right back to Yonkers, and let George go.
George Walosin went directly to the police, and told them that he had been sexually assaulted by a man named “Captain John O’Leary.” As this “John O’Leary”, Panzram was arrested on June 29th, 1923 in Yack, New York.
On July 9th, 1923, Panzram conned his attorney into bailing him out in return for the ownership of the yacht. The attorney thought it was a swell deal. The yacht was confiscated when Panzram skipped bail.
On August 26th, 1923, Panzram, as “John O’Leary”, was arrested in Larchmont, New York after having broken into a train depot. He was sentenced to five years. While in the county jail, he confessed that he was a wanted man in Oregon, under the alias of Jeff Baldwin. With this now on his record, Panzram was sent to Clinton Prison, in Dannemora, New York. It was known to be one of the worst prisons in American history.
In July of 1928, Panzram was released. He travelled to Philadeplhia, where he allegedly murdered a young boy. After that, he went on to commit burglaries in Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.
On August 30th, 1928, Carl Panzram was arrested in Baltimore for a burglary he’d committed in Washington, D.C. Panzram had burglarized the home of a local well-known dentist, taking a radio and jewelry from the home.
While being interrogated, Panzram openly admitted to murdering three boys that month alone. One in Salem, another in Connecticut, and the young boy from Philadelphia.
While in prison, Panzram befriended a guard, Henry Philip Lesser. Henry would give Panzram money for cigarettes, and other confectionary items. He would also give Panzram pencils and paper, where Panzram wrote extensively, in letters to Henry, about his life and crimes.
Slowly, the life story of Charles “Carl” Panzram made itself known, through writings and letters addressed to Henry Philip Lesser.
As law enforcement now had his full, extensive record on display, after piecing together every single one of his aliases, Carl Panzram was sentenced to 25-years-to-life at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary.
Panzram threatened to kill the first man who bothered him. Having previous traumatic experiences with Leavenworth, he also attempted to escape. He was beaten unconscious by the guards for his troubles. But still, he kept up his correspondence with Henry, who continued to encourage him to write it all down.
In Leavenworth, Panzram was assigned to work in the prison laundry. There, the foreman, Robert Warnke, who was known to bully and harass the prisoners on his watch, took special notice of Panzram. Panzram warned him to keep his distance, but Warnke kept going for him. Panzram lived up to the promise he’d made the warden upon his arrival.
On June 29th, 1929, Panzram ribbed an iron bar from one of the restrooms, and beat Warnke to death with it by beating him over the head.
For this murder, Carl Panzram was sentenced to death. He grew angry at appeal attempts. He simply continued to write to Henry, telling him that he felt no remorse. He believed it his life’s duty to rid the world of the human race, as he believed all human beings to be tainted.
On September 5th, 1930, Charles “Carl” Panzram was hanged at the age of 39. When asked if he had any last words, he stated: “Yes, hurry it up, you Hoosier bastard! I could kill a dozen men while you’re screwing around!” He then thrust his head through the hangman’s noose. At approximately 6:18 AM, he was pronounced dead.
Henry Philip Lesser preserved the letters that Panzram had sent him from prison, and attempted to have them published as an autobiographical manuscript. In 1980, he donated the letters to the San Diego State University. They are located in the Malcom A. Love Library, as the “Carl Panzram papers”.
Carl Panzram was let down by those who were supposed to care for him, and keep him safe. He has been held accountable for his actions. But can he really be blamed for becoming what he was taught to become?
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Sources:
The Sad, Gruesome Story of Carl Panzram, The Most Cold-Blooded Serial Killer in History – Laura Martisiute, John Kuroski – All That’s Interesting
Carl Panzram: America’s Most Repulsive Serial Killer – Daniel Lukacs – Serial Killer Shop
The Tragic Story of a Boy Who Was Abused and Became a Monster – Sam H. Arnold – Medium
Morbid: A True Crime Podcast – Episodes 184 and 185 – The Unbelievable Life & Crimes of Carl Panzram
Carl Panzram Wikipedia page
[…] I covered the case of Carl Panzram not too long ago, I never anticipated encountering another killer quite like him. And then I was […]