Hello!
Welcome back to another episode of Diagnosing a Killer.
I'm Kenna.
I'm Koelle.
And it's another one of them funky recording sessions.
Yes.
So Koelle does not have a headset on and I do.
I'm hearing my voice lag as we speak, but I just can't not do it.
Yeah.
It's interesting wearing the headset because you can hear every little thing.
So when I wasn't wearing my headset in the last episode, there was some like shuffling on my part and stuff because I can't hear that when it picks it up because it sounds so quiet in here without a headset on.
Yeah, it's really loud with the headset on.
But thank you guys for bearing with us while we're learning our technical difficulties about our software and hopefully we still sound just as good.
You guys have no complaints.
We are going to get right into this episode, but before we do, do you want to go ahead and give everyone our handles?
Sure.
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I don't know. You look really excited.
I've been wanting to do this case for the better part of a year, maybe if not longer.
Okay.
So, today, we are going to be talking about one Karl Panzram.
Oh my God.
We need a big old bitch.
Yeah, he's a big old bitch.
Oh my God.
Karl Panzram.
Yes.
Okay, Kenna and I, oh my gosh, I don't know, it's got to be like at least two or three years ago now.
Yeah.
Well, it would have been before we even had diagnosing a killer.
That we talked about it.
We talked about it and Kenna and I were on our way down to Rockport and we were listening
to another podcast that had covered him and I just remember laughing the whole time because
they were so funny.
It was a really good episode.
That's actually the first time I heard about it and I actually forced you to listen to
it because I was driving.
I was like, my car, we're going to listen to my podcast.
My podcast, my favorite podcast.
Yeah, but.
Oh, I'm so excited.
I know.
Karl's Panzram.
Oh my God.
Okay.
Content warning.
This episode contains depictions of child abuse and neglect, extremely graphic sexual assaults
of children and adults, torture, arson, trafficking of young people, brutal murder of children,
and derogatory language.
If this episode is not for you, we encourage you to find another one of our episodes.
Remember, your mental health is very important to us and we love you.
Love you.
Bye.
So yeah.
That's a doozy of a content warning.
That's what we're working with.
Okay.
Karl's Panzram was born on June 28th, 1891, close to East Grand Forks, Minnesota.
Sources differ on how many siblings Karl had.
One stated that he was the sixth of seven children while others stated that he was one
of five born to East Prussian immigrants, Joanne or John.
I think it's Galtzleb, Panzram, and Matilda, Elizabeth or Lizzie, Panzram.
They have like eight names.
His name's Johan.
It's Johan, yeah.
Oh, that's so cool.
But it's like, I don't know how to pronounce it.
Galtzleb?
Oh gosh, I don't know.
I think we've all learned by now that I can't, I cannot pronounce it.
We're just gonna say, we're just gonna butcher it like five minutes in.
Galtzleb could start.
We would say that.
From a very young age, Karl and his siblings were made to stay home and help on the family
farm instead of attending school.
However, when truancy laws came into place in their area, the kids were required to attend
school.
It's not clear exactly when that happened, but from what I could tell, it was around
the end of the 1800s and beginning of the 1900s, every school, every area was kind of different.
Yeah, I think that's awesome when they started doing things like birth certificates and death
certificates.
Yeah, those are like caring about people.
Yeah, H.H. Holmes really got screwed on that one.
Following the truancy laws being put into place, Karl's parents were extremely mad about the
fact that they were losing their health on the farm so their kids could get an education.
Oh god, yeah, like, oh god, real stand up people.
So, due to their kids being in school all day, Karl's parents would force them to work on
the farm all night.
Karl would state about this that he used to only get two hours of sleep a night before
having to get up for school.
What?
Like, it's detrimental to your immune system and mental health.
I guess his parents, though, probably didn't know or really care.
Oh, I'm sure.
And they were just like, oh, it's like mandatory day care is probably what they're thinking
instead of because they probably didn't have any experience in education.
For sure, and they definitely were like just having kids so that they could have more help
on the farm.
Yeah, it seemed like, you know, totally.
Karl's parents seemed to only have children to put them to work and they would punish
the children if they ever argued or did something the parents did not like.
Punishments in the household ranged from being starved to being chained up.
With the family being completely broken and it being the late 1800s, Karl was left to
his own devices and pretty much did whatever he wanted to when he was not being watched
by his parents.
So, they just treated him like ranch hands.
Exactly.
By the age of five, Karl claims that he was a liar and a thief and stated that he was
not liked by other children his age.
He was like, I was a liar and a thief and I was like five.
Yeah, he's so cool.
I was like the coolest five ever.
I'm so full of me really mature for my age.
When Karl was seven years old, his father abandoned the family, leaving Lizzie to take care of
all the children by herself.
Well, not really take care of, but just, you know, keep an eye out for him.
Yeah, to continue making them work a nine to five.
Eventually, Karl's older brothers would leave the home as well, but one of them would ultimately
actually drown in a well.
What?
That's how he left.
He didn't like actually leave.
He didn't actually.
He's still here today.
It's not funny.
So, he just like fell into the well, I guess.
I guess so, yeah.
Maybe it was so shallow that, yeah.
Damn, that sucks.
The fact that his brothers all left Karl didn't really matter to him because he was regularly
targeted by his siblings and was constantly being beaten on by them.
Oh yeah, especially if he's a little younger, right?
Yeah.
On top of this, Lizzie was continuing to be mentally and physically abusive to all the
children.
With their father being gone, the children's hours on the farm only increased, and Karl
began acting out even more.
Karl would have his first run in with the law at the age of eight when he was charged
with being drunk and disorderly in public.
I'm sorry, what?
You heard me correctly.
What?
Eight.
Eight?
Yes.
He drunk and disorderly?
Yes.
Oh God.
So, he wasn't lying about being a liar at the age of eight.
Yeah, exactly.
Why?
He was legit.
Karl would be let go for this because he was eight, but he would constantly commit petty
crimes for years following this.
At the age of 11, Karl was arrested yet again for being drunk and incorrigible.
That's a quote.
Encourageable.
You'd be incorrigible.
What is that?
Like a sly fox?
What is that?
I think it's like unruly is what it means to be.
Yeah.
It just sounds like such an old-timey thing to say.
You're incorrigible.
Shortly following this, Karl would break into a neighbor's home where he there stole apples,
cakes, and a revolver.
Two things to eat, one thing to... shoot, to make someone else eat.
After a few years of his petty crimes, Karl's mother had just about had enough, and Karl
would be sent to the Minnesota State Training Reform School on October 11th of 1903.
Karl would later report that during his time at this school, he was repeatedly beaten,
tortured, and raped by staff members.
Holy shit.
Upon his arrival, Karl was taken into an office by a male staff member who stripped him naked,
examined him, and asked about his sexual practices.
And he's how old?
12.
Jesus.
Karl stated about this, quote, he examined my penis and my rectum, asking me if I had
ever committed fornication or sodomy or had ever had zonoby committed on me or if I had
ever masturbated, end quote.
Isn't that fucking disgusting?
That's fucking disgusting.
While there, the children were subjected to receive, quote, Christian training, end quote,
and if they misbehaved or failed to learn their curriculum properly, they would be brutally
attacked by the staff.
Yeah, super Christian of them.
Yeah, great.
You can't learn something?
Wow.
Might beat you up and beat your ass and then you'll learn something.
Better learn.
Karl had difficulty reading, so he would frequently be a target of the staff.
The staff had dubbed the room where they assaulted children, quote, the paint shop, end quote,
due to the fact that blood painted the room.
Oh my God.
It's terrible, terrible.
Karl got a particularly large amount of visits to the paint shop with his resentment growing
each time he went.
Karl stated that he would be assaulted by the staff with a wooden board, a thick leather
strap, a heavy paddle or whip.
Karl hated his time at the school so much and, understandably, had an extreme loathing
of the paint shop that he decided to burn the place down.
Oh shit.
Hell yeah.
It's a fucking anarchy.
On July 7th, 1905, Karl successfully lit a fire at the school without being detected.
What?
By late 1905, Karl had learned how to tell the staff what they wanted to hear, and during
his parole hearing, he was able to convince them that he was fully reformed as a result
of the lessons the school taught him.
So he lit a fire, but he didn't burn the whole place down.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, he just lit the paint shop area.
Yeah, and he's like, well now I know what they want me to say, so I'm just going to
pretend like I got everything, and then they'll let me go.
I'm sure he was, I mean, clearly he was used to being physically abused when he was a kid,
so he could probably take that aspect of it, but I think probably the sexual abuse was
probably way worse.
Yeah.
So, you know, yeah, he was just like, oh, like if all of my resistance is only going to cause
more problems, then yeah, him being able to suppress that and kind of just, I guess,
what am I trying to say, like mask all of that just to get out of there is totally something
in his capabilities.
But for him to learn that at such a young age.
It's awful.
And he's like, yeah, I'm reformed.
Karl stated about this quote, I was reformed all right.
I had been taught by Christians how to be a hypocrite, and I learned more about stealing,
lying, hating, burning, and killing.
Damn, it's like wicked intense, like really quick.
Super quick.
And he's so young.
It's awful.
By the winter of 1905, Karl's mother would remove him from the school.
Karl stated that after leaving the school, quote, all the good that may have been left
inside had been kicked and beaten out, end quote.
I'm sure she hated that too.
I'm sure she's like, oh, damn it.
Like I thought I was rid of him.
Bring his ass home.
Bring his ass home and make him work on the farm.
Get to the farm.
After getting back home, Lizzie would notice that Karl had changed, but not for the better,
as he was much more melancholy and detached than he was before.
She's like, whatever.
Yeah, I wonder fucking why.
Yeah.
Lizzie's health was falling, failing, excuse me, around this point.
So she pretty much brushed off the way that Karl was acting and hoped that he would just
grow out of it eventually.
Just grow up.
You know, just shake it off.
Just be mature.
Just fine.
After leaving the school, Karl would continue his crimes.
And on one particular instance, he stole money from his mother's pocketbook.
Lizzie was not too pleased with this, obviously, and she would report Karl to authorities.
Right.
Karl would be sent to Red Wing Training School, a state juvenile detention center.
In January of 1906, Karl would be paroled from Red Wing.
So what, he's like 14?
Around this time, Karl was showing signs of extreme alcoholism and was increasing his
criminal record with burglary and robberies.
Have you ever seen a million ways to die in the West?
No.
Oh, yes, I have, but I don't remember any of it.
Like that reference that they keep making is like, oh my gosh, she's like 13.
She's like middle-aged.
Yeah.
I mean, seriously, that's him.
He's got, he's a lifelong alcoholic.
Yeah.
He's 14.
Right.
A few weeks after his parole release and after attempting to kill a Lutheran clerk with
a revolver, Karl would leave home in an attempt to escape reality.
At the age of 14, Karl hopped on a freight train and left the Minnesota farm never to
return.
Karl would become a regular on freight trains and even recalled at one point being gang-raped
by a group of homeless men on one occasion while traveling.
Oh my God.
Leading up to this attack, Karl found himself on a train heading west from Montana.
Upon boarding, he came across a group of homeless men hanging out together.
They struck up conversation with Karl, stating that they would get him some decent clothes
and a warm place to sleep.
However, they requested something in return.
All four of the men took turns sexually assaulting Karl.
Following this attack, Karl claimed that that was the moment that he decided he would get
his revenge.
He stated, quote, I left that box a sadder, sicker, but wiser boy.
I made up my mind that I would rob, burn, destroy, and kill everywhere I went and everybody
I could as long as I lived, end quote.
Jesus Christ.
14 heaps.
Yeah, at 14.
Imagine feeling like that.
It's just, I mean, it's awful.
It's helpless.
It is hopeless.
Before that moment, it's this, like, just, you feel it, like you said it before, like
you feel bad for the kid, right?
Feel bad for him when he was a kid.
It's just, no kid deserves to go through that.
No wonder he just was like, fuck it, scorched earth now.
No, yeah, he was completely broken.
It was not long after this incident in the summer of 1906 that Karl would be arrested
for burglary in Butte, Montana.
He would be sentenced to a year of imprisonment at Montana State Reform School in Miles City.
And we'll see that he continually gets out and continually gets out.
Well, he's a child and everybody thinks that he's capable of that.
Even as an adult, though.
Yeah.
So, like I said, he only got a year, I'm assuming, because he was still only 14 at this
point.
Still a juvenile.
Yeah.
While here, Karl would claim that after a guard had punished him, he assaulted and seriously
injured the guard with a wooden board.
As punishment for this, Karl had to spend some time in solitary confinement.
The next year, in 1907, Karl and a fellow inmate by the name of James Benson would escape
from their reform school and would steal guns in Terry, Montana.
Oh shit.
In the next following weeks, while on the run, Karl and James would repeatedly break
into stores, raid buildings, especially churches, and burn them to the ground.
The churches?
In the stores, yeah.
Damn.
After the war, Karl and James would travel, and the men would go their separate ways in
Fargo, North Dakota.
In the later months of 1907, after getting drunk in a Helena, Montana saloon and engaging
in conversation with an army recruiter, Karl enlisted himself in the United States Army
and was assigned to the 6th Infantry at Fort William, Henry Harrison, at 16.
I was gonna say, he could only be like 16 if this was 07.
I actually tried to look it up and I couldn't find when the age requirement to join the
military was changed to 18, but apparently it wasn't a thing at this point.
Or he lied about his age because he's a big ol' bitch and they believed him.
That's so true, he's a big ol' bitch.
He's a very big guy.
He's like 6'6", right?
Yeah, I'll talk about it.
Of course, Karl refused to take orders while in the army, quickly gaining the attention
of his superiors on his first day.
Karl would commit numerous crimes and constantly be drunk during this time.
Oh Jesus.
How are you just drunk in the military?
I don't understand that.
They don't give a shit.
This is before the prohibition too, you know?
Yeah, that's true.
In April of 1908, Karl would steal about $88 worth of clothing and attempted to go AWOL.
Karl would be arrested for this crime.
He would face trial on April 20th and subsequently be convicted after pleading guilty to three
counts of larceny.
A prison sentence in the United States disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth between 1908
and 1910 from the ages of 17 to 19, he would serve.
So he is just kind of going in and out.
Yes.
And he would not play any long-term sentence here.
Yes, exactly.
Secretary of War William Howard Taft officially approved Karl's sentence.
I love Taft.
You love Taft?
Just the name.
I love Taft.
The story behind that is that every time we watch Jeopardy and there's a question about
a president who always says Taft.
It doesn't matter what year it is, I'm always like, it's Taft.
He had a special bathtub made for him because he was so big.
Well, you're gonna love this story because he comes back up.
Taft?
He officially approved Karl's sentence.
Karl would later claim that while he had been a, quote, rotten egg before imprisonment
at the military penitentiary, quote, any shred of goodness left in him was smashed out, end
quote.
Didn't you say that about the first place though?
Like didn't you say there was no good left and now he's saying it again?
Now there's really no good left.
Well, yeah.
And it's also like, I'm not trying to say that he is not on a hard life.
He absolutely has.
But it sounds like he's immediately just trying to blame it.
Like, oh, well, I'm just gonna do this.
And it's because of this, you know?
Yeah.
It's a great excuse.
In 1910, Karl was finished serving his time and found himself with nowhere to go.
Over the next several years, Karl would go by numerous different aliases and drifted
across Kansas and Texas, eventually ending up in California.
Karl would be in and out of jail during this time, being released each time for some reason,
and would ride the train often, spending time in Washington, Idaho, Utah, and Oregon.
It's gotta be really like convenient for him to just be hopping on trains and committing
more crime.
Yeah, for sure.
It's like the railroad killer.
Yeah.
Or Richard Ramirez.
During these years, Karl would state that he was, quote, rage personified, and quote,
and talk of himself raping men often whom he had robbed prior.
So he did, like I said, he kind of went scorched earth, right, where he's like, fuck it to
everyone and everything.
Yeah.
I don't care about anybody.
But at the same time, like, kind of like what you said, you know, I used the word excuse
earlier, which is not an excuse, but it's like, it allows him to lean more into that
rage.
Yeah, definitely.
Karl was a big person, even at the young age of 19, and he would tower over his victims,
unfortunately giving him the upper hand.
While Karl gained a lot of attention from females due to his stature, he recalls not
being interested sexually in the opposite sex.
Karl was often committing other crimes during this time as well, such as arson and vandalism.
By his own accord, Karl claimed that one of the few times that he did not engage in criminal
activity was when he was employed as a strike breaker.
This is, I didn't know, it's a person who works despite a strike going on.
Oh, okay.
On one occasion, Karl tried to gain employment as a steward on a ship, but was discharged
when he showed up to work intoxicated.
Mm-hmm, of course.
Karl would be detained once again in 1910, where he was sent to prison and forced to
enter a chain gang.
This is a group of inmates that are chained together to perform physical work.
He was imprisoned in Rusk, Texas, and forced to do manual labor with fellow inmates.
But according to him, he escaped and went to Huidah Duarez, Mexico, in the winter of
1910 to try to enlist in the Federalist or the Mexican Federal Army.
Having no luck, Karl would hop a train to Del Rio, Texas, and got off in a small town
about 50 to 100 miles east of El Paso.
Karl would later claim to have abducted, assaulted, and strangled a man about a mile
from town before stealing $35 from the victim, which would be about the equivalent of $1,200
today.
Dang, why is that guy carrying around that much money?
In the summer of 1911, at the age of 20, Karl was arrested in Fresno, California, under
the alias of Jefferson Davis for stealing a bicycle.
It is I, Jefferson Davis.
I know it's a funny name.
He would be sentenced to six months in county jail, but would escape after just 60 days.
Karl later claimed that after he escaped, while riding on a boxcar in California, he
disarmed an armed man, whom he then forced to rape a homeless man at gunpoint before
throwing them both off of the train.
What the fuck?
Like, why?
Why are you doing this?
Do you think that it's real, or do you think that it is?
As I say, Karl claims, because I don't know.
A lot of this stuff is like, because he has an autobiography like Spoiler Alert.
So a lot of this stuff is from him.
We don't really know.
Gosh, it just reminds me kind of like, Elliott Roger when Elliott Roger was like, oh yeah,
I totally did this and that.
Maybe even this Starbucks.
It's through my cafe all over the year.
teh Cafe all over the year.
Heavy couple.
It's just like, did you know.
Karl would travel to Oregon where he found work as a logger cutting and moving trees.
Karl would admit in his autobiography years later that once while hiding in a bordello
excuse me which is like a brothel, his wallet was stolen and he contracted gonorrhea.
Just magically?
Yeah.
Just happened to happen to get it.
I got gonorrhea because my wallet got stolen.
Like duh.
Unleashed the gonorrhea.
He would also admit that during this time he started having extreme paranoia.
In 1913 at the age of 22 Karl would change his alias once again to Jack Allen and was
arrested under this name in the dailies Oregon for highway robbery, assault, and sodomy.
I was gonna say is that the gonorrhea that makes you go crazy but it's not as syphilis.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right.
He would ultimately break out of jail after only serving 60 days.
None of these prisons are able to keep him in.
He just escapes.
Yeah.
Now he's adding escape artist to his resume.
Do you think that while he's in prison he's like a model prisoner because of what he was
taught when he was at that training school or whatever?
No, because I feel like if that was the case he would have been a model military man and
he wasn't.
That's true.
He was just a shithead.
I just was wondering if maybe he can talk his way out of anything.
Probably.
Kind of a guy.
But I feel like, I mean we'll see this later on, like he's pretty like apparently, like
he's pretty apparent and when he goes into jail he's like I fucking hate every single
one of you, don't talk to me.
Yeah.
He immediately causes a scene.
Carl would be arrested once again in Harrison, Idaho, but again he would escape from jail.
Carl eventually ended up in Chinook, Montana where he would be arrested once again under
his old alias of Jefferson Davis for a burglary charge on April 27th, 1913.
Whose first name is Jefferson?
He's two last names.
Jeffrey.
He would be sentenced to one year at Dear Lodge, 30 miles north of Butte.
While there, Carl would run into his old pal Jimmy Benson.
Together they would plan another escape.
However, due to a last minute transfer, Jimmy would leave the facility and the escape would
never happen.
Well, I guess it would happen, but not with Jimmy.
Would have happened, yeah.
On November 13th, 1913, at the age of 22, Carl would escape Dear Lodge on his own.
Okay, he was like thanks for the plan, boy, and then just like leave.
He would however be arrested once again only a week later on another burglary charge under
the alias of Jeff Rhodes.
Authorities would find out his real identity, and Carl would be given another year on top
of their remaining sentence he already had as Jefferson Davis.
Oh my gosh.
Even though it's not his real identity.
They're like, oh we know you, you're actually Jefferson Davis.
He's like, sure.
Yeah, that's me.
That's me.
That's Jefferson Davis.
The prison was severely understaffed and super slow running, causing inmates to pretty
much lay around all day without anything to do.
Carl would find a way to occupy his time, however, and he would use his size to unfortunately
assault other inmates for his own gain.
Carl would serve out his whole sentence this time, being released on March 30th, 1915,
at the age of 24, with a new suit of clothing, $5, and a ticket to the next town over.
They're like get the fuck out of here.
Leave.
Never come back.
This is about $150 today.
God damn.
$5.
I thought it was interesting so I kept putting the conversion rates.
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Carl would quickly hop back on a train and go through Washington, Idaho, Nebraska, and
South Dakota.
On June 1st, Carl would burglarize a home in Astoria, Oregon, stealing less than $20
worth of items, and was soon arrested while attempting to sell some of the stolen items.
He would be charged with larceny in a dwelling after the DA promised to go easy on him.
Why?
And he pled guilty.
Because he can talk his way out of anything.
That's the way I feel.
He would be subsequently sentenced to seven years in the Oregon State Penitentiary, what
will be referred to as OSP from here on out because it's a long, long name.
The next day he was released.
No.
He would be sentenced in Salem under the alias Jefferson Baldwin.
Oh no.
He changed his last name.
Carl would arrive on June 24th, 1915 as inmate number 7390.
Although his uncooperative attitude was quickly observed by guards, they seemed to be nonreactive
to it.
OSP was notorious in the Pacific Northwest for punishing its prisoners with torture and
abuse.
Oh shit.
Carl's name was known for keeping inmates in line by using forceful techniques such
as whipping, hosing, beating, starving, and isolation.
That sounds like the warden from Shawshank.
Yeah.
Prisoners who stepped out of line were usually shackled to walls and hung from rafters for
hours or even days on end.
Carl was known as stating about this, quote, I swore I would never do that seven years
and I defied the warden and all of his officers to make me.
The warden swore I would do every damn day or he would kill me.
Oh fuck.
He's like, you do your seven days or you're gonna be here for seven years?
Seven whole days.
Or you're gonna stay here for the rest of your life.
Actually.
Later that year, Carl helped a fellow inmate by the name of Otto Hooker escape from the
prison.
Now that's a name.
While attempting to evade recapture, Otto would kill the warden, Harry Mento.
What?
This event would mark Carl's first known involvement with a murder as an accessory before the fact.
Holy fuck.
In Carl's prison record, which noted his two aliases, Jefferson Davis and Jeff Rose,
he falsely gave his age as 30 and his birthplace as Alabama.
The only truthful thing on his prison record was when he stated his occupation as a thief.
So what do you do for a living?
I'm a thief.
Thief.
So how old was he actually?
25, 26.
Okay, but he said he was 30.
Mm-hmm.
Carl would be disciplined dozens of times while at OSP, including 61 days in solitary
confinement.
Can you imagine that?
Two fucking months.
So you'll lose your fucking mind.
Carl decided that he was going to escape once and for all on September 18, 1917, at the
age of 26.
After going through a few days of freedom, two shootouts, one in which Carl attempted
to shoot Chief Deputy Joseph Frum, Carl was recaptured and returned to the prison.
While on the way to jail, Carl wrestled with the officer, resulting in him being beaten
to the point of unconsciousness.
He would immediately be placed into solitary confinement upon re-entering the prison.
He's just like ruthless.
Just a loose cannon.
Yeah.
Like the definition of a loose cannon.
On May 12, 1918, Carl would escape the prison once again by sawing through the window bars
with a hacksaw blade and jumping off the prison walls.
Okay, Bundy.
Upon him exiting the building, guards would begin shooting at Carl, but he would quickly
escape into the woods without suffering any wounds.
And he's a big dude too.
Yeah, like there's a lot of room.
I just imagine a big foot.
Yeah, exactly.
Just running into the woods.
Carl is all hairy.
Carl would revert back to his old ways and hop a freight train heading east.
He would shave off his mustache and begin going by the alias John O'Leary.
So he was hairy.
Yeah.
From this point on, Carl would not return to the northwest, and he would head east.
Carl would find himself in New York City, and while there, he would get a seaman ID card
and board the steamship James S. Whitney en route to Panama.
Just get out of your system, seaman.
Ha ha ha ha.
Seaman.
While there, he attempted to steal a small boat with the help of another sailor while
drunk.
His other sailor had actually killed everybody on board and was arrested, but Carl would
remain free.
What?
I don't know how he didn't get killed.
Everyone else got killed on board.
Was he just like, I guess, just sneak killing people?
I don't know, I guess so.
That's creepy.
Carl would travel to Peru and begin working in a copper mine.
Following this, he would further travel to Chile, Port Arthur, Texas, London, Edinburgh,
Paris and Hamburg.
Wow.
Hamburg.
In 1920, at age 29, Carl found himself back in the US, this time in Newport, Rhode Island.
On September 16th, 1920, Carl would burglarize the Taft mansion in New Haven, Connecticut.
Taft?
This was a prior residence of President Taft that had been turned into a historical monument.
Carl would comment that he specifically sought out this place to burglarize because he had
been holding a grudge against President Taft since his incarceration following his dishonorable
discharge from the army.
It's like fucking Taft.
I'm just gonna go lay in his bathtub.
He's a big guy too, he'd probably fit it.
That's true.
Carl would steal a large amount of jewelry and bonds as well as a.45 caliber handgun
that belonged to Taft.
Carl would use the stolen money to buy a small sailing yacht that was named the Akista.
That's crazy.
I had no idea that Carl Pansram had anything to do with President Taft.
He hated him.
Damn.
From here, Carl would embark on an eight year long murder spree that spanned several
countries and involved multiple victims.
Carl would sail along the coast towards New York and for three months he would lure sailors
away from port bars onto his yacht, get them intoxicated, sexually assault them and then
kill them with Taft's gun.
Carl would dump the bodies in the water.
In this time and manner, Carl claimed to have killed 10 men.
The murders only came to an end when Akista ran aground and ultimately sank near Atlantic
City, New Jersey.
Whoa.
I know.
He's using Taft's gun to kill people because he hates him that much.
During this event, Carl's last two potential victims were able to escape.
So he had two potential victims on board when the ship ran aground and then they were able
to jump off the ship.
Yeah, I was going to say they just jumped overboard.
On October 26th, 1920, Carl was arrested in Stamford, Connecticut for burglary and possession
of a loaded handgun.
He would subsequently serve six months in jail the following year.
How many crimes do you think he committed while he was bouncing around?
Oh, a bunch.
Like hundreds.
Country to country.
And here's the thing.
I keep saying he's getting these small stents in prison, but he's using all these aliases.
So it's not like they see this Jeff Baldwin guy and they're like, oh, this guy's been
in prison since he was eight.
It's like this guy's only been arrested one other time or whatever.
Right.
Yeah, that makes sense.
So it makes sense, yeah.
After Carl was released once again, he would hop on a ship to Southern Africa and landed
in Luanda, the capital of Portuguese Angola.
The year is 1921, Carl is about to be 30.
He's only about to be 30.
That sounds like an entire lifetime sort of crime.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, it is technically, but yeah.
It sounds like he's 60 or something.
Exactly.
Carl became a foreman of an oil rig in Angola, but he would later burn it down out of what
he referred to as quote, spitefulness, end quote.
Carl was later noted as saying about his life, quote, I was so full of hate that there was
no room in me for such feelings as love, pity, kindness, or honor or decency.
My only regret is that I wasn't born dead or not at all, end quote.
It's just awful.
It sounds like it's just one of those things where he's just so beyond, you know, like
when we talk about in other cases where people instead of becoming suicidal, they become
homicidal.
Yes, exactly.
It kind of sounds like that a little bit.
Definitely.
Shortly after burning the oil rig down, Carl got a new idea in his mind.
He wanted to obtain a young virgin female.
Carl paid a family who lived in Angola 80 eschutas, which is about $8 US and about $123
today.
But I thought he wasn't attracted to women.
Yeah, he wasn't.
In exchange, he was given a 12 year old girl whom he raped in his shack later that night.
Oh my God.
He returned the girl to her family following this and demanded his money back due to the
fact that he did not believe she was a virgin.
He raped her.
In response, the family instead gave Carl an eight year old girl whom he also raped
in his shack.
He would return this girl as well and claim the same thing that she was not a virgin
and demanded his money back.
Pretty sure most eight year olds are gonna be virgins.
That's fucking gross.
Carl would claim at this time that he also raped a young local boy, either 11 or 12 and
killed him.
Carl would later confess, quote, his brains were coming out of his ears when I left him
and he will never be any deader, end quote.
Oh my God.
It's just so removed from reality.
Carl would also claim that around this time he hired a boat with six rowers, shot all
of them and threw their bodies to the crocodiles.
After returning to the US, Carl claimed that he raped and killed two small boys, beating
one of them to death with a rock on July 18, 1922 in Salem, Massachusetts.
The other one he stated he strangled near New Haven.
After killing the boys in Salem, Carl began working as a night watchman in Yonkers, New
York at a Beco mill factory.
He would steal a boat around this time and sailed to New Haven on the lookout for new
victims to assault and rob.
In June of 1923, Carl stole a yacht belonging to the police chief of New Rochelle, New York.
He would pick up a 15 year old boy by the name of George Wallisini with the promise of
giving him a job on the boat.
Instead, he would sodomize the young boy.
George had no choice but to stay on the boat with Carl following this.
I mean, they're in the middle of the bay or whatever.
On June 27, 1922, Carl claimed to have picked up a man on the river near Kingston, New York.
Carl stated that upon approaching the man, he thought the man might try to rob him, so
he shot the man, killing him, and threw his body into a river.
Why would he claim that?
Like it matters?
Self-defense.
I don't know.
That one time it was self-defense.
Yeah, just one time.
I don't know.
So that was one of the self-defense.
Yeah, that guy was an asshole.
The following day, on June 28, Carl and the young boy George docked at Pukipsi, New York,
where Carl stole around $1,000 worth of fishing nets, which would be around $18,000 worth
today.
George not only saw Carl stealing the fishing nets and was assaulted by him, but he had
also witnessed the murder of the man on the river the previous day.
Oh my God.
So once the pair reached Newburgh, New York, George decided that he needed to escape.
He jumped off the boat and swam to shore.
Good.
Once safe, George told police that he had been assaulted by a man by the name of Captain
John O'Leary, and an alert went out for the man.
Carl would be arrested under this alias on June 29, 1922, in Neac, New York.
Following this, on July 9, Carl would try to escape from jail.
Shocker.
He would later scam his lawyer by selling him a stolen boat and pocketing the cash to bail
himself out.
His own lawyer?
Yes.
He sold his lawyer a stolen boat.
That should be like illegal, right?
Yeah, I would think so.
Like a bribe.
Carl would skip bail and his boat would be confiscated by the government.
So the lawyer was like, fuck man, like that sucks.
He sold me that.
I don't have a client and I don't have a boat.
On August 9 of either 1922 or 1923, Carl was in New London searching for a victim to mug
when he spotted a young boy begging for money.
He would pull a knife on the child, take him to the woods nearby, and sodomize him.
After spending some time with his victim, Carl would ultimately strangle the boy to
death and sodomize him yet again.
On August 26, John O'Leary would be arrested yet again in large meant New York after breaking
into a train depot.
He would be charged with four counts of burglary and the judge would set his bail at $5,000.
I didn't do a conversion rate for that one.
Oh my gosh, that's a lot though.
Probably over a hundred, couple hundred.
A hundred thousand, probably.
Carl would cut a deal with the DA's office in exchange for a lighter sentence if he
pled guilty.
Which is like, come on, don't give him a fucking lighter sentence if he's pleading guilty.
Come on.
But his name is O'Leary now.
He's a different person.
Carl would keep up his end of the deal, but the DA would not, and Carl would subsequently
be sentenced to five years.
He's like, are you fucking kidding me?
I pled guilty and they're like, psych!
While incarcerated, Carl confessed to another alias of his, Jeff Baldwin, and stated that
he was wanted in Oregon for the murder of a policeman.
After first being in prison and sing-sing prison, Carl would be transferred to Clinton
prison in Danimora, New York.
Does that sound familiar?
Danimora?
It's because it's the same prison that Richard Matt and David just escaped from.
So go listen to that episode if you have it, because it's a really good episode.
You mentioned Neera Shal earlier too, and I'm pretty sure that's where Berkowitz was
living.
Yeah, I think so.
Or was born, I think.
Even at this point, inmates referred to the prison as, quote, Danimora the hellhole.
The hellhole?
Many of the staff members were related around this time, as they would pass down many generations
of trauma and methods of work attitudes.
It was like a family business almost.
They would treat the inmates like animals that needed to be beaten.
It was a frequent occurrence around this time that inmates would end up leaving the prison
and going to the state hospital for the criminally insane, because the psychological torture
was just too much.
Carl would make his first attempt to escape within the first few months, in which he climbed
one of the high outer walls and fell 30 feet onto the concrete below.
Oh my god.
Yeah, okay.
It was as if this guy hasn't had enough head trauma.
Okay, let's continue.
What?
That's not funny.
I'm so sorry.
What?
He would break both of his legs and ankles.
It's not funny.
I'm so sorry.
He would break both of his legs and ankles from this fall and badly injure his spine.
That's not a funny sentence at all.
It's not funny.
Just imagine.
It's terrible.
Oh my god.
Yeah, where your shins go through your kneecaps.
If he fell, oh my god, ow.
If he fell on his head though, he would have died.
He would have died.
Yeah.
Where was I?
He would break both of his...
Say it again.
It's funny.
Say it again.
Oh my god.
This is so crazy.
Okay.
Instead of getting Carl medical attention, guards would pick him up and drop him on the
floor in his cell, which is so awful.
So he was left to suffer through those injuries.
Yeah.
He was noted as stating about this, quote, I was dumped into a cell without any medical
attention or surgical attention whatsoever.
My broken bones were not set.
My ankles and legs were not put into a cast.
The doctor never came near me and no one else was allowed to do anything for me.
At the end of 14 months of constant agony, I was taken to the hospital where I was operated
on for my rupture and one of my testicles was cut off.
I suffered more agony, always in pain, crawling around like a snake with a broken back, seething
with hatred and a lust for revenge.
Five years of this end of life, the last two years and four months confined in isolation
with nothing to do except brood.
I hated everybody I saw end quote.
I mean, that's understandable.
I don't, yeah.
Not to like kill someone because of it, but just to have so much loathing for everything.
Yeah.
I would probably fucking feel that way too.
I mean, these people probably know what he's done though.
Like, you know, they probably know his, some of his crimes, the crimes that he's probably
confessed to, they can't have him around other inmates anyways.
That's true.
I mean, I'm not saying he deserved any of that, but I mean, I don't know.
Yeah, it's just a shitty story all around.
If he hurt somebody that I loved, I'd be like, good, you know?
Fucking rot.
Shortly after this surgery, a prison employee witnessed Carl sodomizing a fellow inmate
and he was thrown into solitary confinement.
He would be essentially ignored for the last two years and four months of his sentence.
I mean, they wouldn't even talk to him.
They would just give him his food.
He can't be integrated into any type of a regular normal situation, even in prison,
because he's just gonna hurt people.
Exactly.
Carl would be released from Clinton in July of 1928.
By now he was permanently crippled and had just about lost his mind.
Oh shit.
Within two weeks, Carl would commit several robberies and killed another man in Baltimore.
Even though he's like, I mean, not trying to be rude, but he's probably limping around
and stuff.
I mean, I can be rude against him, I guess.
Yeah, I know.
He's probably just like, I don't know.
He's not in a wheelchair or anything, but yeah, he's definitely has some struggles walking.
But even then, it's like, that doesn't even stop him.
Yeah, of course.
The pain in his experience.
Exactly.
He's just so pissed off at the world.
This is like blind rage.
He wants everyone to pay.
On August 30th, 1928, Carl was arrested after burglarizing the home of a dentist 10 days
prior.
Three men were also arrested as being his accomplices.
Now he needs help, right?
Carl would give his real name after being arrested, but he lied about his age and birthplace,
claiming that he was 41 and that he was from Nevada.
He was only 37 at this point.
During Carl's interrogation, he confessed to killing three young boys earlier that month,
one in Salem, one in Connecticut, and a 14-year-old boy in Philadelphia.
He also confessed to killing a boy at Pier 28 on League Island, and this was also confirmed.
He's all like, fuck it.
Here's my real name and this is what I've done.
He's like, I might as well just go to prison for the rest of my life, honestly, I think.
At this point, he's probably like, I can't get around like I used to.
I might as well just go to prison.
Boston police were unable to corroborate his other confession, which was the murder of
a boy in Charleston, Massachusetts.
Carl would later write that he had contemplated mass murders and other heinous acts, such
as poisoning a whole city's water supply with arsenic, or creating a fuss between ships
to start a war.
What?
He's like, oh, this is boring now.
Yeah.
Due to his extensive criminal record, Carl would be sentenced to 25 years to life, arriving
at Leavenworth federal penitentiary as inmate number 31614.
Upon his arrival, Carl was noted as telling the warden, quote, I'll kill the first man
that bothers me, end quote.
I'd be like, yes, sir?
Yes, sir.
You go ahead.
Soltry.
Lights out.
The prison would dub Carl, quote, too psychotic, end quote, to be around any other inmates,
so they would have him work alone in the laundry room.
However, the four men, Robert Warnke, was known to bully and harass prisoners under him, and
it was not long before he began messing with Carl.
I don't want to do that.
Carl allegedly warned Robert to back off, but he would be relentless.
On June 20th, 1929, Carl would beat Robert to death with an iron bar.
The trial for this murder would begin on April 14th, 1930, where Carl limped into the courtroom
defiantly and refused counsel.
When the judge asked for how he pled, Carl was noted as snaring and stating, quote, not
guilty, end quote.
The prosecutor would call the warden, five guards, and 10 fellow prisoners as witnesses.
During the witness testimonies, Carl was known as smiling at them.
Like, just a little prisoner over here.
So he was like, these are all the people that witness this?
Yeah, or like, maybe like character witnesses.
The jury would deliberate for only 45 minutes before delivering a guilty verdict.
Following this, Carl was tried for this crime and was sentenced to death.
The judge remanded, I'm sorry, not tried, but sentenced.
The judge remanded Carl back to Leavenworth until September 5th, 1930, where he would
be taken to the gallows to be hung.
Upon hearing his sentence, Carl seemed to be relieved, almost happy.
Carl refused to allow any appeals of his sentence and would become upset if anyone that was
anti-death penalty tried to argue for him.
Oh shit.
He's like, just let them fucking kill me.
I just want to die.
He would state about this, quote, the only thing so you and your kind will ever get
from me for your efforts on my behalf is that I wish you all had one neck and that I could
have my hands around it, end quote.
Oh, that's crazy, not crazy, but you know, I mean, that's just how he's like, don't
argue for me.
Don't argue for me and yeah, he just, the amount of rage and the amount of like, resentment,
I guess.
Carl was known as making comments to guards about killing children almost as soon as he
entered the prison.
It was also around this time that Carl met a 26 year old rookie guard by the name of
Henry Lesser.
Henry had just started working at the jail that same year and he remembered having an
urge to approach Carl and ask him about the nature of his crimes.
Carl responded that he, quote, reformed people, end quote.
He's taking it from that first place that he went to, the reform school, yeah.
Over the next few weeks, Henry would notice that Carl was always angry and never around
any other people.
For an unknown reason, Henry took pity on Carl and would begin to befriend him by giving
him a dollar to buy cigarettes and food.
Please don't tell me this guy dies.
Carl and Henry would strengthen their friendship over time and Henry would eventually provide
Carl with writing materials, encouraging him to write an autobiography.
This is also what, like I said, where I'm getting the direct quotes from.
Carl would use the contraband items to write his story in detail, starting from the beginning
on the Minnesota farm.
He began the autobiography with the quote,
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.
I have no conscience, so that does not worry me, end quote.
That is so heavy.
First little opening paragraph there.
Yeah.
I'd be like, okay, we're not reading this.
And bedtime stories over kids.
Through his writings, Carl had to relive the horror of his childhood.
But in his nearly 20,000 word confession, he would give precise details of his murders,
which were later confirmed by authorities.
During the years of 1900 to 1930, while Carl was at the peak of his criminal career, it
was pretty easy to evade arrest.
All you pretty much had to do was keep your mouth shut and change your name.
Carl was also noted as stating in his writings, quote,
All of my associates, all of my surroundings, the atmosphere of deceit, treachery, brutality,
degeneracy, hypocrisy, and everything that is bad and nothing that is good.
Why am I what I am?
I'll tell you why.
I did not make myself what I am.
Others had the making of me, end quote.
He's kind of like philosophical.
All right.
It's kind of deep.
It's so, yeah, right?
I mean, especially for a guy who didn't have a lot of education, although he did travel
a lot.
True.
Carl would try to escape this jail early on as well and assaulted three guards when
they removed him from his cell.
On October 29th, an arrest warrant arrived for Carl on a murder indictment in Philly
for the homicide of Alexander Yusuke on July 26th, 1928.
Two witnesses to the crime were able to positively identify Carl as the perpetrator.
Oh, what's that big guy over there?
Carl would later write about this crime, quote,
I made a full confession of this murder of McMahon and, sorry, McMahon.
You send a number of witnesses from Salem to identify me, which they'd done.
I do not change my former confession in any way.
I committed that murder.
I alone am guilty.
I not only committed that murder, but 21 besides, and I assure you here and now that if I ever
get free and have the opportunity, I shall sure knock off another 22, end quote.
He's like, yeah, no.
So you do not let me out.
Yeah.
But don't.
Keep me away, please.
With his execution date already set, Carl remained in Leavenworth until September 5th.
This day was noted as being a cold and dusty morning, and corrections officers would take
Carl from his cell at 5.55 AM, escorting him to the gallows.
The only witnesses to Carl's execution were a few newspaper journalists and about 12 COs.
That's it.
No victim families or anything.
Nope.
Carl was noted as cursing his mother for bringing him into the world.
Escorted by two U.S. marshals, Carl would climb the steps to the platform, and as the
marshals attempted to place the black hood over his head, he spit in the executioner's
face and stated his last words, quote, hurry up, you hooser bastard.
I could kill 10 men while you're fooling around, end quote.
That's the quote.
That's why I said derogatory language in the content warning.
That is obviously derogatory term, but that's what he said.
That's like just defiant to the last second.
The last second.
He's like, fuck you.
You won't.
Flicking him off.
I'm fucking out.
Dr. Justin K. Fuller pronounced Carl Panzerham dead at 6.18 a.m.
Nobody would come to claim Carl's body, leaving the prison staff to cart him to the cemetery
in a wheelbarrow and put in a solitary plot.
It was a big-ass wheelbarrow.
The only ID on the gravestone was the number 31614.
Former prison guard Henry Lesser would preserve Carl's letters and autobiographer manuscript,
which he spent four years trying to have published.
In 1980, Lesser donated Carl's materials to the San Diego State University, where they
are kept as the quote, Carl Panzerham papers in the library.
Is this Henry the guard?
Wow.
He really like super bonded with him.
Yeah.
There's no true diagnosis for Carl, but professionals have been known to refer to him as a full-blown
psychopath.
But that's the story.
That's all of it.
I was like, it sounded like it was going to keep going.
The last line.
He's a psychopath.
Yeah.
Anyway.
Yeah.
I feel like there's not much else I can really say.
I know.
And the thing is, when you think about these crimes, you would think this would be a two-hour
episode.
Yeah.
But it's just so fact-based.
It's like, here's what I did.
Here's what I did.
And then I'm dead.
They definitely felt kind of Bundy-ish, where there's no real, although Bundy would be operating
40, 50 years later.
But there really isn't, I guess it's just like, it would be a more modern-day telling
of that.
Yeah.
You know, Bundy very much just could not stop.
It was a compulsion.
Yeah.
And he had no compassion and no empathy.
And I don't know how angry Ted Bundy was.
Probably pretty angry.
Yeah.
But yeah, Carl just got the raw end of the stick immediately.
Yeah, definitely.
However, I mean, yes, he did have excruciating circumstances growing up.
He was also one of like, what, like six or seven kids, the sources kind of varied.
And as far as we know, no one else in this situation became even remotely similar to
him.
However, he also experienced the reform school and all that stuff as well.
Yeah.
Again, not saying it's an excuse, but the rage makes sense in my opinion.
The rage.
The youngest too, and he got picked on by not only his parents, but his siblings as well.
That's true.
Yeah.
It's a horrible, horrible story, a series of unfortunate events.
That's just, ugh.
It's like, again, it's one of those like, you want to feel bad for the kid, but the
adult made all the decisions.
I just wish, I mean, this sounds kind of bad, but I just wish he had only realized what
he did at the end earlier so that he would have not killed so many people.
But yeah, I know it's just horrible.
And I mean, his MO like doesn't even really make sense to me.
Like it's just like anyone and everyone, like anybody that can be seen as potentially
vulnerable, like cool, that's my victim.
Right.
But yeah, that's Carl Panzram.
I'm really interested to look into that book.
Yeah.
Because it sounds, especially if he wrote it.
Yeah.
I don't know if it's, I honestly don't even know if it's a book.
I didn't really look it up.
I know it's obviously an autobiography.
I don't know what kind of form it is though.
I don't know if it's just online or if it's like a hard copy or whatever.
Is it like more of a journal than it is?
Yeah, I just, I don't know.
Like I said, I pulled from sources that like quoted the autobiography.
I didn't pull from the actual autobiography.
Right.
Yeah.
But yeah, that's our episode.
And I actually told Hillary from Lady of Scare in us.
I gave her a spoiler alert.
I told her that I was doing this like a week ago because she just gave me a spoiler alert
on their episode about Gypsy.
So yeah, Hillary, I actually requested this for, I recommended her do this episode a long
time ago and she just didn't.
And so she's, I'm glad that she's here listening.
I know she is.
She's just your challenge.
Yeah.
Hopefully you like this episode.
And if you want to cover it, cover it because I want to hear your side.
Yeah.
That's it.
All right.
Well, until next time, we will see you guys back for another mental breakdown on Monday.
Yeah.
Oh my gosh, this month.
I know.
It's just gone by.
I know.
It's just nuts.
So yeah, we'll see you next week.
Okay.
And be looking forward to that tier two, three Patreon episode on the 29th.
Yes.
Okay.
Love you.
Bye.
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