Carl Panzram (1891-1930) was an American serial killer from the era of the Great Depression.

Early Life

He was born in Minnesota, in 1891, the son of Prussian immigrants. He was raised in poverty and logged his first arrest at the age of eight for being drunken and disorderly. By his teens he was an alcoholic and repeatedly got into trouble with the authorities, usually for burglary and theft. He ran away from home at the age of fourteen and was gang-raped by a group of hobos, one of many incidents that added to his hatred and rage for what he saw as an uncaring world where 'might is right'.

In adulthood, Panzram was a prolific thief, but he was frequently caught and imprisoned. Utterly incapable of any self-discipline, Panzram would get into trouble by attacking guards and refusing their orders, which led to his being subjected to beating and punishments that verged on torture. He often escaped from prisons, once getting revenge on a judge who jailed him by breaking into the judge's house and stealing thousands of dollars. Panzram travelled extensively too, even ending up in Scotland at one point, where he served time for burglary.

In his autobiography, Panzram wrote that he was 'rage personified', and he would often rape men who he robbed, not because he was necessarily homosexual but because it was his method of dominating and humiliating people. He also engaged in vandalism and arson, at one point considering an ambitious plot to scuttle a British warship docked in New York harbour in order to provoke a war between Britain and the USA.

Murder Spree

In 1920, aged 29, Panzram took the final step in his life of crime by graduating to murder. He lured sailors in New York away from bars, got them drunk, shot them and dumped their remains into the river. After tiring of that, Panzram went to Africa where he raped and killed an 11-year-old boy. A few days later he hired six men to go hunting crocodiles with him. However, in the swamps, Panzram shot all six men to death, hacked them up and fed them to the crocodiles.

Back in America, Panzram shot dead a man who made the mistake of trying to rob him. He also raped and killed two small boys, beating one to death with a rock and strangling the other with a belt.

Imprisonment and Confession

In 1928, Carl Panzram was arrested for burglary and, in the light of his extensive criminal record, he was handed a 25-year sentence (he was not yet suspected of murder). "I'll kill the first man that bothers me," Panzram told the judge, and sure enough, a few months later, he killed Robert Warnke, foreman of the prison laundry in Leavenworth, battering the unfortunate victim to death with an iron bar. To his evident delight, Panzram was sentenced to death. He refused to appeal, even threatening to kill Human Rights Groups that attempted to appeal on his behalf.

Whilst on Death Row, Panzram was befriended by a young, liberal-minded prison guard named Henry Lesser. Lesser gave Panzram some writing materials which the prisoner used to write his autobiography, detailing his crimes and his nihilistic philosophy:

"In my lifetime I have murdered 21 human beings, I have committed thousands of burglaries, robberies, larcenies, arsons and last but not least I have committed sodomy on more than 1,000 male human beings. For all these things I am not in the least bit sorry." - Carl Panzram

Carl Panzram was hanged on September 5 1930. When asked by the executioner if he had any last words, Panzram barked "Hurry it up you bastard, I could kill ten men while you're fooling around!"

The 1996 movie, Killer: A Journal Of Murder was based on Panzram's final years, with James Woods starring as Panzram.

External Links

• Killer: A Journal Of Murder at the IMDB

• All about Carl Panzram by Mark Gado (page 1 of 23)