Tangipahoa Parish’s Tickfaw Axeman revisited
Of all the cases, this column has covered these last five years, the story of the Axeman still prompts regular emails from readers. Although I shared updates on the topic in the first Bayou Justice book, readers still ask for more.
This week, we revisit and update the report with everything I have learned since sharing the original story five years ago.
One hundred years ago, someone claiming to be the Axeman of New Orleans sent a letter to the Times-Picayune newspaper. The letter said the killer would leave the city for good if everyone played jazz music the following Tuesday night ...
New book explores News Orleans’ Dixie Mafia links
In the 1980s, I began interviewing retired police officers and service workers who worked at businesses linked to reputed organized crime families. Over time, I found those most willing to share were retired burlesque dancers and bartenders from mob-connected clubs. That interview project became the Carnal Knowledge book series, and this week, we released the first in that series, Dirty Phenix: Birth of the Dixie Mafia.
93-year-old Bourbon Street conman wins again
In the old carnival game Razzle Dazzle, con artists reeled in unwitting victims through an unwinnable arcade gambling contest. On March 9, 2004, Louisiana’s State Police exposed a similar scam in New Orleans. In that case, emanating from a Bourbon Street T-shirt shop, losing bettors got duped a second time trying to report the confidence game to the New Orleans Police Department.
Florida mob witness killed in Louisiana bayou
On January 23, 1968, a 22-year-old cocktail server led police to a remote area near the north shore of Bayou Sauvage. Twenty-one miles east of New Orleans, at the city limits where Chef Menteur Highway, U. S. Highway 90, splits with Ridgeway Boulevard, the waitress pointed across a lagoon to an area only accessible by boat, where investigators could see a partially submerged car.