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It all began when Henry Lesser lost his retail clothing job in the late 1920s. You see, Henry wasn't some average Joe who'd let his boss walk all over him. He was a loud and proud union leader who got fired when too many people agreed to join. But Henry didn't have social media to expose labor injustices in the 1920s. He could only hang his head, tuck his tail, and move on to the next gig. A buddy of his was there to pick him up,
getting him a job as a corrections officer in Washington, D.C. To Henry, the justice system and labor market were corrupt organizations driven by money and greed rather than anything else. Henry fought for change once, and it bit him. Maybe things will be different this time. Maybe he can make a real difference now that he's working on the inside. Every inmate deserved respect. They were people just like him.
Sure, they messed up along the line, but Henry tried to see the good in everyone. That's when he heard an interesting rumor. A particular inmate was living in the south wing of the Washington DC District Prison. A man so cruel, so sick, and so twisted that everyone told Henry not to go near him. Don't talk to him, don't engage him, don't even look at him. Henry had to know what all the fuss was about.
This inmate's name was Carl Pansrum. Henry didn't know it then, but meeting Pansrum would change his life forever. One afternoon, as Henry strolled by Carl's cell, he walked up and asked a simple question. "What's your record?" Carl responded. "How'd you know I have a record?" Henry smirked. He knew he had to keep things diplomatic, so he fired back saying, "Just had an idea.
His quick wit must have impressed Panzerim, and the two got talking. Their casual conversation turned into an unlikely friendship, though it didn't stop Panzerim from trying to escape. Karl was a master prison escape artist, a trick he'd perfected during his crime spree between 1903 and 1929. But the DC guards knew about Karl's history and were waiting for him to try something stupid, like baiting a mouse with cheese.
Carl barely made it out of his cell when the guards captured and dragged him into the prison basement. They tied him to a post, his feet off the ground, his hands behind his back. They left him there all night, like Jesus on the cross. You could say cruelty was Carl's best friend. They went together like two peas in a pod, but Henry was a close second, perhaps the only true friend Carl ever knew. Henry learned early on that Carl liked to talk.
But when he wasn't talking, he was itching to hurt someone. He'd act out in violence and get himself beaten because of it. So Henry slipped him some pencils and paper one day and told him to write down his life story. The autobiography kept Carl quiet in his cell. He never attempted another escape, though they still transferred him to Leavenworth Federal Prison in Kansas. And even though they were 1,000 miles away, Carl in Kansas, Henry in DC, the two remained pen pals
Carl spared no detail when writing his letters to Henry, letters that were basically pages from his autobiography. Until now, Henry knew Panzerum was a rapist and a murderer, sentenced to life in prison for some pretty heinous crimes. But Henry had no idea how deep Carl's evil ran, and reading his letters opened Henry's eyes to the big picture.
In Carl's own words, he admitted to killing 21 people, sodomizing over 1,000 men, and committing hundreds, if not thousands, of robberies and arsons during his life. And he wasn't the least bit sorry. He didn't believe in heaven or hell. He had no conscience and hated humanity more than anything. In his letters, Carl only apologized for two things.
He was sorry for all the animals he mistreated, and he was sorry he didn't kill the whole damn human race. Those letters became known as the Karl Panzrum Papers, the diary of a sick and twisted man who detailed the people he killed and how he killed them. The papers sat in Henry's possession for 50 years as he tried to get them published, but nobody wanted to touch them.
Nearing the end of his own life, Henry donated the Pansrom papers to San Diego State University, where you can go and read them at the Malcolm A. Love Library. Part 1. The Pansrom Papers. The account you're about to hear is based on the handwritten autobiography of one of America's most heinous serial killers, Carl Pansrom. With little means to corroborate his story, we can only take his personal tales with several grains of salt.
Pantrum grew up in East Grand Forks, Minnesota, a small town on the North Dakota border. His mother's name was Hardship, and his father's name was Cruelty. Together they made life hell for Carl and his six siblings. Farm life wasn't easy, especially at the turn of the 20th century. Carl's parents worked him and his siblings into the ground until truancy laws forced the kids into school. But those laws made Carl's life even harder.
After spending all day at school, he'd come home to spend all night working on the farm. He'd be lucky to get an hour or two of sleep before school the following day. According to Carl, he began his criminal life when he was five years old. He was a liar and a thief, a mean and despicable one at that. The older he got, the meaner he got. But through it all, he considered his family average human beings.
He saw himself as the animal, believing he'd been one since he was born. Carl's father took off when he was seven, leaving him, his mother, and his siblings to run the farm. But as his brothers grew up, they followed in their father's footsteps, leaving the farm to start their own lives. We can't say for sure what happened to them. In the end, Carl, one brother, his mother, and his sister were the only ones left running the farm.
But the cruelty never stopped, even as the family got smaller. Anybody bigger, faster, and stronger than Carl would catch, kick, and beat him for the slightest offense. Compared to his older kin, Carl was weak and helpless. He quickly learned how easy it was to overpower someone smaller than you. Carl had an epiphany when he was 11 years old. He knew there were other people in this world, places other than his nightmarish corner in Minnesota.
People smiled, they were happy. They didn't get beaten into the ground every day and had plenty of food to put in their bellies. They had clean water, they had parents who loved them. Even his next door neighbor lived like royalty by comparison.
Carl thought that if he could escape this place, he could make a better life for himself. So, at 11 years old, before running away from home, he broke into his neighbor's house and looted anything he thought was valuable. An apple, a piece of cake, a big ol' pistol, as he called it. He left the neighbor's house and headed for the train yard, but Carl's freedom didn't last very long. He planned on hopping on a freight train and heading west to live like the cowboys.
But the average 11-year-old in 1902 probably didn't understand the intricate railway lines. He got his wires crossed along the way and wound up back home to his mother's waiting fists. Carl was sent to a reform school in Red Wing, Minnesota for the robbery. But in his mind, the only way to reform a man is to kill him. Red Wing was, perhaps, the worst thing they could have done to young Panzerung. The goal was to force the Christian faith on him by any means necessary.
That included beating him, raping him, torturing him, and abusing him, all in the name of God. In his own words, "The only thing Carl learned at Red Wing was man's inhumanity to man. He hated his fellow humans, the Red Wing guards and staff especially, but he was still too meek to fight back." From his time at Red Wing to the day he died, Carl lived by a basic principle. If he couldn't hurt the people who hurt him, he just hurt someone else.
Boys who misbehaved at Red Wing were taken down to the paint shop. It was called the paint shop because that's where they'd paint their bodies black and blue with bruises. They'd strip the bold children and tie them face down to a wooden block. Then the torturers soaked a large towel in salt water and draped it over their backs. Next, he took a quarter inch thick leather strap, about four inches wide and two feet long, and lashed it across their bare skin.
The straps had tiny holes punched through them, so the victim's skin would poke through when they made contact. Tiny blisters formed and burst after 20 or 30 lashings, and the salt water brought the punishment home. According to Carl, it'd take two weeks to sit down again, and that's only if he sat on a feather pillow. Carl had to get creative when enacting his revenge, since he couldn't tie the guards down and lash them himself.
He'd urinate in their soups and coffee, and ejaculate into their desserts and ice cream. Then, he'd stand right by their side while they ate it. Carl tried to escape through the laundry room one day, but was eventually captured and beaten. Then he tried to kill the headmaster with rat poison, but was caught again and beaten. Carl needed a way to get revenge on Red Wing for good, and the only decent idea he could think of was burning the place down.
One night, he wrapped a long stick in cotton string. He snuck into the laundry room, lit one end on fire, and hid it near some oil-soaked rags. According to Carl, the whole place went up in flames and caused $100,000 in damage, or about $3 million today. But arson, violence, and revenge weren't getting Carl closer to his goal of leaving Red Wing once and for all.
So he changed tactics. Instead of playing the bad boy, Carl put on a new mask. He became a Bible thumping goody two shoes and told everyone how he wanted to go home and become a preacher. His charade worked and Red Wing paroled Carl in 1906. They sent him home with a suitcase full of clothes, a Bible, $5 and as Carl puts it, a million dollars worth of advice. But Panzrum, now 15 years old,
threw the Bible away along with any advice they tried to give him. He returned home, where his mother put him back to work on the farm. She said he had to earn his keep, but Karl wasn't about that life anymore. He remembered how his Christian mask worked on the Red Wing people. Perhaps it would work on his mother. He went on and on about wanting to be a preacher and how he wanted to go to seminary school. She eventually broke and enrolled Karl at a German Lutheran school. But Karl never learned a thing.
Instead, he picked fights with the other kids and would catch a good whipping by the preacher. But Karl was bigger and stronger at 14 years old and gave the preacher a run for his money one day. He put up a decent fight, but the German won the day. Hell-bent on killing the preacher, Karl stole a pistol and his brother's vest and returned to school the next day. In his papers, he recalls a saying about Colt pistols:
"Be a man either great or small in size, Colonel Colt will equalize." Before the day's lesson began, Carl told the preacher to leave him alone or he'd fix him. But the preacher, thinking Carl was bluffing, just grabbed the whip and started beating Carl over the head. Panzerum held onto his desk for dear life as the preacher tugged at his vest to get him up. The button snapped, the vest ripped off, and the preacher and gun landed hard on the floor.
Carl recalls the preacher sitting there, mouth agape, screaming, "My God! My God! A gun!" Carl didn't hesitate. He stood from his desk, grabbed the gun, and pulled the trigger. But it didn't go off. The gun misfired several times, and the classroom erupted in chaos. Carl escaped during the uproar and returned home, thinking he was some kind of hero.
He told his family about how he stood up for himself, thinking they'd kill a fat calf in his honor. Instead, they nearly beat him to death. According to Carl, his brother walked out the back door looking for another gun to shoot him with. Carl used the opportunity to escape out the front. He ran to the train yard and hopped on a train. He figured it was about time he lived out his cowboy fantasy once and for all. Part 2: Life on the Road
Panzerum spent the next year of his life meandering around the western United States. Train hopping and boxcar travel were his only means of getting around. When he'd arrive in town, he'd con his way into a free meal or bed. He'd dial up the good Christian charm, telling people he was a lost and hungry orphan who loved Jesus more than anything else. Though his nomadic life wasn't easy, anything was better than where he came from.
He'd steal what he could when his orphan routine didn't work, and even worked a few odd jobs to survive. He'd sleep in barns, haystacks, sheds, and train cars. It didn't matter. When you've got nowhere to be, anything that resembles a soft, flat surface is a bed. Carl was, for the most part, enjoying life on the road. But one night changed his experience forever. He was cozy in a boxcar headed west, when he suddenly wanted a little company.
The train was stopped at the station, so Pansrum walked up the tracks until he found an open lumber car filled with four burly homeless men. He told them about the warm car he'd just left, how it was clean and full of soft straw. They told him to lead the way, and all five climbed into Pansrum's car. But then the train pulled out, and the hobos shut the doors. They took a strange, perverted liking to young Pansrum.
They talked about making him rich and buying him all the silk underwear in the world. They'd shower him in diamonds as big as baseballs and give him anything else he wanted. He just had to do them one little favor. When Carl resisted, they took their favor by force. He was no match for four rapist hobos in a tiny boxcar. In his own words, "Carl got off that car a sadder, sicker, but wiser boy than when he got on."
He traveled alone whenever he could, but he'd soon learn another hard lesson about the perverse nature of men. He met another group while traveling west, who took a more alcohol-fueled approach to abuse him. They offered him beer and whiskey instead of food. And Carl, who'd never drank that much before, blacked out shortly after. He awoke with no memory of the night before, though he knew what happened. These two experiences taught Panzrum to view people through hateful and suspicious lenses.
He swore he'd never let anyone take advantage of him again. Instead, he'd be the one imposing his will on others. In his papers, Carl writes, "Men made me what I am today. If they didn't like it, they can put the blame where it belongs." Carl hoboed up to Butte, Montana, where the police picked him up on a petty larceny charge.
He spent a month or two in county jail before being convicted and sent to another reform school in Miles City, about 370 miles east of Butte. Miles City was reminiscent of his time at Red Wing, as the Catholics beat religion into his head every hour of every day. Carl tried to escape on several occasions but never made it very far, and the officers gave him a good beating every time.
One officer, a former prize fighter from Boston, took a liking to Pan's Room. A liking to beating him, that is. He made Carl's life a living hell. So Carl decided to kill him. His second attempted murder. While the fighter was getting his shoes shined, Carl snuck up behind him with a blunt board and cracked him over the head. He didn't kill him, but, according to Carl, the fighter quit bothering him after that.
The attempted murder only made his life worse. He was too young to send to state prison, still 15 years old. So he remained their problem for another year. Around this time, Carl met a boy named Jimmy Benson and the two devised a plan to escape from Miles City. Jimmy escaped first. And while all the guards were out looking for him, Carl seized the moment to run away himself.
They planned to meet near the first water tank east of Terry, Montana, about 40 miles down the road. Carl got there first and waited three days for Jimmy to arrive. He was hungry, tired, and thirsty, and the only weapon he had to protect himself was an iron bar he stole from Miles City. On the fourth morning, he awoke to find someone eating and drinking on the other side of the water tank, a pistol holstered on his belt.
Carl crept up behind him. Hal bent on killing this man and taking his food and pistol. But the man heard him coming, spun around, and drew his gun. It was Jimmy. The two laughed and celebrated their daring escape. Jimmy had delayed their meeting long enough to steal some clothes and food for Carl. The two became close and went on a month-long spree of robbery and arson. Jimmy taught Carl how to rob the collection boxes in the church. And Carl taught Jimmy how to burn the church down.
The two parted ways, each with a fancy suit, a six-shooter, and about $150 to their names. Jimmy returned home to Butte, but was arrested on robbery charges and sent to Deer Lodge State Prison sometime between 1905 and 1907. Carl kept moving, stopping home for a day before heading back to Montana. He joined the army, perhaps looking for some stability in life, but quickly realized how little he respected authority.
Two months later, he was locked up in military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, after stealing $80 worth of military supplies. William Howard Taft, the 27th President of the United States, was Secretary of War at the time and oversaw Pansrum's sentencing. Taft signed the documents condemning Carl to three more years in prison, and for that, Pansrum swore he'd have his revenge.
For now, he was stuck in Leavenworth, swinging an 18-pound hammer and smashing rocks in the quarry. When he got into trouble, they'd chain him to a 50-pound iron ball for six months. But the hard labor and grueling lifestyle turned Panzram into a well-built machine. He referred to himself as the Spirit of Meanness Personified, and dedicated the rest of his days to raising hell wherever he went.
He left military prison in 1910 with a suit, $5, and a train ticket to Denver, Colorado. Carl was in and out of prison between 1910 and 1920. He'd get caught stealing, wind up in jail, and then escape or wait out his short sentence.
According to his papers, Carl spent time in over 100 prisons across the United States. He also used the 1910s to see the world, traveling to London, Paris, Mexico, Hamburg, and Chile. But no matter where he went, there was always someone to rob and rape. In Mexico, Panthrom tried to enlist in the Mexican army, but they wouldn't take him. Instead, he befriended a native man, and they roamed around together.
One day, they met a traveler who claimed to have $35 on him, or about $1,000 today. They lured him out into the woods, and a native hogtied him to a tree. The pair stole his money, and Panzrum raped him before leaving him in the woods. According to the Panzrum papers, he's probably still there, unless the buzzards and coyotes had finished the last of him long ago. Panzrum became the man of many names over the years.
He adopted one of several aliases whenever he got arrested, including Jack Allen, Jefferson Rhodes, John O'Leary, and Jeff Davis. We can't say why he preferred these J names. Part three, the presidential pistol. For all the rapes, robberies, and assaults Pansrom committed over the years, he hadn't killed anybody yet. He tried and failed several times. And you could argue he left the Mexican traveler to die on the tree.
But as far as anyone can tell, Karl Panstrom didn't start killing until 1920. After finally getting his revenge on President Taft, he train hopped his way up to New Haven, Connecticut and broke into Taft's mansion, now seven years removed from the presidency. According to Karl, he made off with $40,000 worth of jewelry and Liberty bonds, but Taft always disputed that amount.
The former president claimed it was much less, in the ballpark of $3,000. But the most important item Pantram stole from Taft's mansion was the president's Colt M1911 .45 caliber pistol. Whatever he stole from Taft's mansion, it was enough to buy a yacht called the Akista. The boat was decently sized, with enough quarters for five people. Karl spent the first few months alone on the Akista, but decided he'd like a little company.
company he'd get good and drunk, rob, rape, kill, and then dump in the water. He sailed to New York City and spent time in the local pubs, trying to lure sailors back to the Akista. He'd promise big pay and easy work, which was enough for the local drunks to follow this strange man back to his boat.
He'd wine and dine them. And once they fell asleep, he'd blow their brains out with Taft's pistol. He ran this racket for three weeks, killing 10 people and ending up with a yacht full of stolen stuff. People grew suspicious of Carl in the New York saloons. He knew he couldn't just murder victims number 11 and 12 overnight. So he hired two more men and put them to work on the Akista. They sailed down to Atlantic City where Carl planned to finally kill them.
But the Akista ran aground and sank along with all of Carl's stolen goods. All three men made it to shore, and the two hired sailors escaped with their lives. Carl fell ill around this time and wound up in the care of Dr. Charles McGivern. He repaid the doctor with some jewelry stolen from Taft's house and the presidential pistol. Carl returned to Connecticut, hoping to steal another $40,000 to buy a new boat.
Instead, he got arrested for burglary and weapons charges and served six months in a Bridgeport jail. A few days after getting out, Carl stopped by Dr. McGivern's house to get his gun back. He then got involved in a shootout between some cops and disgruntled sailors, but didn't kill anybody. Instead, the cops won and arrested Carl once again. He faced some serious charges this time, including aggravated assault and inciting a riot.
He posted bail and skipped town, hopping a boat to Europe and catching another down to Angola, South Africa. As you can imagine, a white serial rapist and murderer didn't think too highly of African people. His papers are littered with racial slurs when discussing his time in South Africa, where he committed some of his worst crimes. He worked for the Sinclair Oil Company, driving workers between job sites, but that job didn't last very long.
Pansrum tried to sodomize a 12-year-old boy who was quick to tell his boss. They chased Carl out of town and he wound up on a bench in the capital city of Luanda. That's when a young African boy, perhaps 11 or 12 years old, came meandering around the corner and into Carl's grasp. Pansrum kidnapped the child and killed him behind one of Sinclair's gravel pits. In his papers, Carl writes, "'His brains were coming out of his ears when I left him. "'He will never be any deader.'"
Karl left Luanda on a Belgian steamboat headed south for Lobito Bay. He wanted to do a little crocodile hunting, so he chartered a canoe piloted by six African men. They paddled out in the bay and, sure enough, came across a swarm of hungry crocodiles. Pansrom shot all six men in the back of the head and dumped their bodies overboard as chum for the crocs. Part Four: The Beginning of the End Pansrom made it back to the United States in 1922.
He made his first stop in Salem, Massachusetts, where he raped and beat an 11-year-old boy to death with a rock. In his papers, Carl writes, "I left him laying there with his brains coming out his ears. From there, he went south to Baton Rouge, where he robbed a hospital of all their hard drugs, including cocaine, opium, and morphine. He sold them on the streets as he made his way back north, arriving in Yonkers, New York, in the winter of 1923."
Carl met a 15-year-old boy in Yonkers named George Wallison, who he kept by his side as he robbed and raped other men. But Panzram needed a new boat, and he wound up stealing a yacht owned by the police chief of New Rochelle, New York. He gave George a job on the ship, and the two headed north. The police chief's yacht must have been too hot because Carl abandoned it and stole a different boat in Providence, Rhode Island.
He and George went back to New York to sell the boat. And wouldn't you know it, an eager buyer was already lining up. But the buyer had other ideas. He pulled a gun and tried to rob Carl, but Panzrum was quick on the trigger. He pulled his gun and shot the man twice, killing him. George hadn't seen Panzrum kill anyone before and, not knowing what to do, jumped overboard and swam to shore.
Carl claims he let the frightened boy go. Either way, George made it to the police station and told them everything. It didn't take long for the cops to catch up with Carl and arrest him for robbery and sodomy. Though they couldn't get him on murder, not yet. But Carl didn't stay locked up very long. He convinced his lawyer to post bail in exchange for the stolen yacht. Of course, the lawyer didn't know the boat was stolen. Carl went back to New Haven, where he raped and strangled another young boy to death.
though police have never confirmed this story. About a month later, Carl tried to rob a train depot outside New York City, but they caught him red-handed in county jail. Carl, for some unknown reason, confessed to crimes committed under the name Jeff Baldwin, one of his many aliases and a wanted man in Oregon. Pansrum spent five years in jail, his longest stay, and got out in July 1928. But 1928 was the beginning of the end for Pansrum.
he committed a series of robberies after his release. By his account, he committed between six and eight robberies within the first three weeks, killed a man in Philadelphia, and robbed two more people between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. In fact, the last robbery Panzrum ever committed was when he broke into a dentist's house in Baltimore and stole the man's radio. He was arrested for the final time on August 30th, 1928, and charged with robbing the Baltimore dentist.
He confessed to several murders as police interrogated him, but they could only confirm one. Still, it was enough to hold Carl in prison, charge him with murder, and sentence him to 25 to life. And there he sat, in a Washington, D.C. district jail, until a friendly young man named Henry Lesser asked him, "What's your record?" Part 5: Famous Last Words Carl proved too much to handle for a small-time D.C. prison.
They transferred him to the Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, but he maintained contact with Henry Lesser the whole time. Upon his arrival at Leavenworth, Panzrum looked the warden in the eyes and promised to kill the first man that bothers him. The warden should have taken his threat more seriously. A guard named Robert Warnke decided to test Panzrum's patience while working in the laundry room. He kept antagonizing Karl, even after repeated warnings to stop.
You see, Warnke had a reputation for bullying and harassing other prisoners. So on June 20th, 1929, Panzrum beat him to death with an iron bar, making him Karl's final victim. The Warnke murder put Karl on death row, which sparked several protests from anti-death penalty groups. Even though they were fighting for his survival, Panzrum said he'd rather strangle each one to death. He accepted his fate, saying as much in his letters to Henry.
Carl stepped up to the gallows on September 5th, 1930. He spit in the hangman's face as he tried to place the customary black bag over Carl's head. His famous last words were, "Hurry it up, you Hoosier bastard. I could kill a dozen men while you're screwing around." Carl Pan's room was buried in the Leavenworth Prison Cemetery in a grave marked by inmate number 31614.