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Servant Girl Annihilator | |
|---|---|
 December 1885 newspaper headline relating to the Servant Girl Annihilator | |
| Details | |
| Victims | 8 known victims |
Span of crimes | December 30, 1884 – December 24, 1885 |
| Country | United States |
| State(s) | Texas |
The Servant Girl Annihilator, also known as the Midnight Assassin, was an unidentified American serial killer who preyed upon the city of Austin, Texas, in 1884 and 1885.[1][2][3] The sobriquet originated with the writer O. Henry.[4] The series of eight axe murders were referred to by contemporary sources as the Servant Girl Murders.[5]
The December 26, 1885, issue of The New York Times reported that the "murders were committed by some cunning madman, who is insane on the subject of killing women."[6] The murders represent an early example of a serial killer operating in the United States, three years before the Jack the Ripper murders in Whitechapel.[1]
According to author Philip Sugden in The Complete History of Jack the Ripper, the conjecture that the Texas killer and Jack the Ripper were one and the same man originated in October 1888, when an editor with the Atlanta Constitution suggested the idea following the murders of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes by Jack the Ripper.[7]
- ^ a b Hollandsworth, Skip (July 2000). "Capital Murder". Texas Monthly.
- ^ "How the 'Servant Girl Annihilator' Terrorized 1880s Austin". www.mentalfloss.com. 2017-04-25. Retrieved 2020-03-01.
- ^ "True Crime Society - The Servant Girl Annihilator". True Crime Society. 2019-09-29. Archived from the original on 2020-02-17. Retrieved 2020-03-07.
- ^ Hollandsworth, Skip (2015). The Midnight Assassin (1st ed.). New York: Henry Holt. p. 81. ISBN 978-0-8050-9767-2.
- ^ Galloway, Skip J. R. (2010). The Servant Girl Murders: Austin, Texas 1885. Booklocker.com, Incorporated. ISBN 978-1-60910-123-7.
- ^ "Three Murders in One Night" (PDF). The New York Times. December 26, 1885.
- ^ Sugden, Philip (1995). The Complete History of Jack the Ripper. Carroll & Graf. ISBN 0-7867-0276-1.