Clementine Barnabet and her supposed Voodoo cult were responsible for several murders in 1911-1912 in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. Or were they? Some of these ax murders are attributed to the Man from the Train... and there are some similarities, but there are also some rituals and strange happenings that don't seem to be connected. Part 3.
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Ref:
James, B., & James, R. M. C. (2017). The man from the train: The solving of a century-old serial killer mystery. Scribner.
Clementine Barnabet and her supposed Voodoo cult were responsible for several murders in 1911-1912 in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. Or were they? Some of these ax murders are attributed to the Man from the Train... and there are some similarities, but there are also some rituals and strange happenings that don't seem to be connected. Part 3.
Twitter & Facebook: @macabrepedia
Instagram: @macabrepediapod
Email us at: macabrepediapod@gmail.com
Ref:
James, B., & James, R. M. C. (2017). The man from the train: The solving of a century-old serial killer mystery. Scribner.
Macabrepedia makes light of dark subject matters that may not be suitable for all audiences listener discretion is advised.
Marissa:Today we continue our series inspired by the man from the train by Bill James and Rachel McCarthy dreams. Clementine Barnabas claimed to be responsible for 35 murders in the early 1900s and Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. These are sometimes referred to as the church of sacrifice murders, or the Voodoo priestess murders. These acts lengths took place around the same time that the man from the train was active and possibly even traveling through the area. If you were to pull out your phone right now and map it the fastest route between Beckley West Virginia and Houston Heights, Texas, where the man from the train is believed to have murdered on either side of these dates. The fastest route passes through rain, Louisiana, where some of these murders took place. One family was murdered just 12 days after the murders in Beckley, West Virginia, which is attributed to the man from the train plenty of time to get there. But did he do it? Or are Clementine Barnabas and her suppose it voodoo cult responsible? Join us as we add another entry into this our Macabrepedia
Matthew:Hello and welcome to Macabrepedia marriage of true crime. The truly bizarre. We are your hosts Matthew and Marissa and today we will be continuing our series inspired by the book, The Man from the train and the axe murders that are attributed to a single person, presumably by the name of Paul Mueller, who may have criss crossed the United States and beyond slaying families. This particular story is about Clementine Barna bit.
Marissa:Indeed it is will begin on November 12 1909. Anna Appaloosa and her three children are murdered. Neighbors actually heard screams coming from the house and they went in they found Edna dead. And all three of her children were still alive, but they were mortally wounded. So they did die from their wounds. The murderer had escaped. And her children had all been stabbed with a knife and hit in the head with an axe. This is the first in a series of murders that will be linked together and terrorize these towns along the Southern Pacific Railroad bond.
Matthew:These are and these are sometimes attributed to the man on the train and some times not. And in that very, I don't know what you have planned for that. But in that particular attack right there. That's the first time that we would if this was the man from the train, first time that we see a knife being used, as well as an axe that seems as pointed out in the book The Man from the train that's very unusual for like a person who's killing people to switch weapons for sure midway through so that implies that there could have been more people which could have been could have been the man from the train with some friends or it could have been Clementine and her voodoo cult as the opening said.
Marissa:Right and this is actually the one that took place between Beckley Yeah. But that's pretty early. And Clementine Barnaby was quite young at the time she was 1617 years old. So we're gonna move a little bit forward. Got West Crowley, Louisiana in January of 1911. Police are called to a home at 605 Western Avenue. Inside he found the bodies of Walter Byers, his wife and his son are murdered in bed with their heads bashed in. The house was locked up indicating that the murderer may have entered through a window in the back. The bodies were found two days after it's believed they were murdered. And the smell is what actually alerted the neighbors.
Matthew:Neighbors or neighbors. They get on they get on male adults think stink train.
Marissa:Yeah, we don't want to keep smelling that. Yeah,
Matthew:what the hell is that?
Marissa:There were bloody footprints everywhere in the house and blood all over the bed, of course. And there was also a bucket of blood in the corner. Yeah, that's not at all like the man from the train. So it would seem that this was placed under the victim to catch the blood
Matthew:for a voodoo ritual that was trying to get us to the Voodoo party.
Marissa:So it's a little waste. An axe was found placed at the head of the bed. The newspapers use the term brained when referring to how these guys were killed. So it's it's quite likely that this means that they were paired with the blunt end. Yeah, for
Matthew:sure. And I mean, yeah, the bucket of blood doesn't really fit the MO but Only through a window braiding everyone that still that's still in line so far.
Marissa:It's important to note here that the buyers home was closed, close close to a railroad switchyard. That was used by a lot of train traffic, actually six railroad lines use this. So it was definitely close to railroad tracks,
Matthew:though. That's yeah, that's that's another part of the MO for the, well, at least, maybe not modus operandi, but the mode of transportation. Sure, yeah, the man on the train.
Marissa:This one is pointed to as not likely to be a man from the train case, partly because of the fact that some of it was just a little bit off, you know, not quite like his normal.
Matthew:Right at this time. This is in 1911. So if we're assuming that this started, at least in 1898, like he's been at this for a decade, and he'd be he'd be having it down at this point, but you know exactly what's going on. It'd be it'd be really unusual for it to suddenly start changing.
Marissa:If it's not broke, don't fix it. Why would he change?
Matthew:Well, I will actually say in that because you might change it based upon the fact that you just you know, it's not it's not hitting that same scratching that same it well, you want to Well, we'll something a little a little different.
Marissa:You know what I'm gonna go to for a bucket of blood. Yeah, you know,
Matthew:he ends with a fistful of bacon. So you never know what's true
Marissa:about that. And that that's true. But later on Clementine would actually confessed to this murder. But
Matthew:who's Clementine to that? Yeah.
Marissa:Clementine Barnum bit. Yeah. Okay. I said it already.
Matthew:Who's Clementine? We haven't introduced our, our star of the story with Clementine.
Marissa:So about four weeks later, after this murder on February 25, four murders of the Andress family were murdered in Lafayette, Louisiana, as was Alexander Mimi and their two children. Joaquin and
Unknown:Agnes. There's some issue with pot some
Marissa:people pronounce it differently. It's It's Jo a c h i n. Yeah. I'm gonna say why corrosion?
Matthew:Yeah, it could be anything. We've heard it a couple different ways. Yes, man from the train audiobook says walking.
Marissa:I'm gonna go with Joaquin because it makes sense. This crime was very similar to the buyers murder, prompting police to select suspect there was a connection. It was quote the work of the same terrible monster. This house was also close to the railroad tracks. The family will were all murdered with the blade of the axe, not the blunt end. And the sheriff was brought to them when the bodies were still warm. Mimi's brother had actually found the bodies early the next morning, so suggesting that they had been murdered quite late into the night or right before early morning. Right. According to Mimi's mother the doors were all locked except for the kitchen door so that was open the Axe was laying on the floor at the foot of the bed and it looked like the bodies had been moved which is also not know his normal. According to the Lafayette advertiser the adults were both moved by the murderer and placed on their knees beside the bed with the woman's arm over the man's shoulder as though in prayer
Matthew:well I was gonna say the posing thing depending on which axe murders you attribute to the man on the train there is there is other acts of possible posing and stuff that do happen yes depending on which ones you do but not in in a prayer like thing because this this is the husband and wife are on their knees as if you're like saying your nightly prayers, you know, sitting like side by side and then the children are like,
Marissa:on the bed the baby was the baby was actually placed beside the mother on the bed.
Matthew:Yeah, that's weird. Yeah, that's that's a person who's like well, I got time to kill Yes.
Marissa:And murdering the baby. No
Matthew:pun intended.
Marissa:I saw something somewhere that said that they Clementine of Lee said that she did what she claimed she did it to not have an orphan. She didn't want a child
Matthew:to be an orphan to suffer. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of but it was a baby lot of Braining of babies in this in this series. That's anyone in the house yeah, yeah. Oh, rough. But yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot of there's a lot of Child Murders that happen and this which is getting getting better
Marissa:off. Indeed. So the riders from the man from the train do not believe this is actually committed by the man from the train murderer for a few reasons. The blade of the Axe was used rather than the blunt end of the axe right to not normal, not the norm. And the door was left open rather than everything being locked up again, not typical. I mean, these are things that could have been whatever but you know, still doesn't quite fit. time of night for the murders was much later than normal. The timeframe for most of the murders were pretty Much like a few hours after bedtime, or a little bit after bedtime, it certainly went to sleep basically, not super late into the night.
Matthew:If you think about that, though, this guy had posed the bodies in a prayer form. That's another thing, but he's but if the bodies were found still warm, but also posed. That means that that when it wasn't much time before when he showed up, he narrowly missed them, which also could be why the back door was left open. Maybe because he was somebody discovered what was happening. He heard them coming and then dipped out the back door, didn't have time to do everything.
Marissa:It doesn't say whether the blade was cleaned or not. But some of these they were clean and some not. So if he was rushed out, maybe just didn't have time to clean the blade. A month later, Elizabeth Castaway and her husband, Alfred Castaway, were murdered with their three children again, in a very similar way. And they do attribute this as a man from the train murder.
Matthew:Also, this is the only we hadn't we hadn't touched on at this point. This is the only killing that has a white person in it. Yes. Mrs. When else is black, Mrs. Castaway was was was was white. And everybody else had that as having
Marissa:Yes. But they were still the thing. They were almost all of these guys were black. But they were also all have low social status, right? Well, yeah. And because Elizabeth Castaway, was married to a black man that made her at the time, a much lower social status because of how the world was the time,
Matthew:right. But from a from like a criminal psychologist kind of perspective. Everything this is all of these if you're attributing it to one person, that's all happening on a racial line, which is a lot of what a psychological behavioral kind of thing goes with with with psychopaths, I generally kill on a on a spitless split like that. The other thing too, is it's you don't get as much until they started to be linked together. They're not covered very much. Because the level of racism at this time
Marissa:the deep south in the 1900s, or the early 1900s. I would
Matthew:I would love to say there was only the Deep South. But it was everywhere. It's pretty it was Yeah. For most of these, and we might touch on this a little bit a little bit more appropriate of a time. But we kind of like going back to the Body Snatchers and stuff when you're getting into a lot of the bodies that were taken were from African American, or black, whatever. graveyards because people didn't care as much if somebody of low status or a different race or something like that was being taken. Same thing with murder. Like if it's only happening in the black community. Well, whatever.
Marissa:sadly true. Yeah, it's
Matthew:terrible. It's torture terrible.
Marissa:But it is a truth. It is very much true. Right. So as with most investigations leads came in that usually does happen, right? For calling in or not calling in this time, but you know,
Matthew:letting people know calling as in the term of the time Yeah, yeah.
Marissa:So eventually, after a few false leads, they did focus on a local guy. His name was Raymond Barnaby, but he was a local sharecropper, which doesn't really pay the bills very well. But he was also known as a petty criminal, probably for the same reason doesn't pay the bills. After he got into a fight with his mistress Dena Porter. She complained about him to a friend and she said that she thought there might have been a connection between him and the murders. I mean, she was just complaining to her friend and her friend, I guess, went to the police. But that's what happened. He was arrested and put on trial. During this trial, the two children of his who lived with him he had he had a couple other children, but the two that he lived with, where's Efrain and Clementine Barnabas, they testified saying that they feared for their own lives if their father went free. Raymond Barnabas, often came home and home and afflicted physical abuse upon his family. In his temper, he had a fiery temper. The children did find solace in a local church, they were able to at least get away somehow with that. Clementine even became a leader in the church, which was good for her. Clementine. A teen said that her father had returned home one night with blood on his clothes, threatening the family. Raymond's mistress Dina testified that Raymond had come home early in the morning. Importantly, perhaps even before the murders took place. So quite early in the morning, Raymond's girlfriend's mistress I've seen loss of
Matthew:I believe it was a long term girlfriend that was considered a common Dino Dino live there for common law common law wife at the point
Marissa:but anyway, ravens girlfriend Dina testified that Raman had come home early in the morning, perhaps even before the murders were committed. This is what Dina said. And she also said that he had clean clothes when he came home. So yeah, but Clementine said that he came home much later and had blood and brain on his clothes. Laos, like loudly talking about killing the addresses and saying that he was going to do the same thing to him. One family. So contradiction. Yeah. But there was another family that lived in the main part of the residence. This was kind of like a duplex. So this other family lived in the main part in the Barnabus lived off in their own part of this house. So the other family who were living there, they were the Stevens and they contradicted what Clementine said. And they contradicted what Clementine said. Mrs. Stevens said she rose at dawn and she heard nothing from the Barna bit residents. I mean, Clementine was saying that he was loudly proclaiming he had killed the Anderson starting everybody miss your house? Yes. But she said she didn't hear a thing. And Clementine has said that her father had given a shirt to Mrs. Stephens to wash because it was covered in blood.
Matthew:I like that a lot of times they say blood and brains.
Marissa:Yes, I'm like. Okay. Also seems weird to me that he's giving his I mean, maybe Mrs. Stevens did the laundry for everyone, but he's doing his laundry to Mrs. Stephens with blood on it. But whatever. He didn't know she said she either he didn't. Mrs. Demon said that this never happened. She went so far as to say that Clementine had a bad reputation and her testimony should not be believed. Dina Porter also contradicted what Clementine said. So everybody's contradicting Clementine. But the jury nonetheless believed Clementine, she was charismatic. She told a good story. That means a lot. Raymond denied involvement in the Andis murder. But he was convicted of the crime for a while he was drunk at his first trial. So for some reason, they granted him a new trial weeks later. This is this is very odd. This
Matthew:is a very odd reason no matter what time period.
Marissa:Yeah, it's really weird, even at the time very weird for somebody to grant a new trial based upon the fact that the defendant is drunk or intoxicated. Yeah. Maybe if the lawyer was but not if this is a very odd reason. So particularly for somebody like him, he's low social standing, he's black, which again, has a lot of prejudice at the time. And this is strange. So it really lends credence to the idea that the authorities actually didn't believe that he was guilty.
Matthew:And I mean, also, there's a complete lack of evidence that he was there other than conflicting tests. Yeah, there's conflicting testimonies between his two children. And the the adults that live in the house? Well,
Marissa:it's exactly yeah, it's important to note that a lot of these murders, they, they placed them on people nearby who had low social standing, because just
Matthew:if you are, if you are black poor, or from out of town, you're probably going to die because of this. Yeah, you know, if you please, wrong time. Absolutely. That goes all the way back to the two fours, before we realized that we were going to have like this, all of these linked together, we didn't really harp on the savage level of racism that was in the befores murders. Like, they, it's a lot, it's so much is so much that we were like, We there, there's racism is not simple, you know, so it's really hard to like, you know, to present that to present that story. It's an it's so obviously racist, that it's like, we didn't want to make anybody believe that we were buying into the story with that, you know, they kept saying in the divorce murder, that there were like, fecal matter with watermelon seeds in it. And then there was watermelon seeds found later and there was like rinds of watermelons, like tracing back to where ASA, the guy who just a lot of stereotypes happening, and that all comes from the the sharecropping like, we already said that Raymond, Barnabas was a sharecropper, that was a very common thing. Now sharecropper is somebody who basically takes care of the land and the lands and then gives part of the crop to to pay the rent for the land, whatever. So that was a very common thing. But the crops that they used became there that crops that they were known for doing became stereotypes to for later stuff. But so anyways, the Yeah, again, if you were, if you were different than the people you are around or from out of town or something like that, you're in trouble. Indeed, not just for not just black people, but way scarier. If you're a black person who's in a lot of these stories, there are certain times where I think and this one actually where a person is arrested. Just because one if you were accused of it, the population would just come and snatch you up and kill you. Yes. So so sometimes lynchings happen. Yeah, so a lot of a lot of the times that some of these people were arrested, they arrested basically for their own protection, because as soon as somebody's like, Oh, we're questioning this person. You know, bad gas travels fast in a small town. Everybody knows wham. This guy just disappears all of a sudden. So
Marissa:anyway, But while Raymond is in jail, another murder takes place. Why, but it was removed I know. So on November 26 1911 Norbert Randall, his wife Zima, three children who are named Rene Norbert Jr. and Agnes and his nephew or neighbor, I see both. Albert sighs they are all murdered in Lafayette, Louisiana. Their other daughter, who was not staying there at the time, she had been staying with somebody else. She came home the next morning, and she found them it's a terrible terrible terrible morning. Clementine Barnabas was actually sitting on the porch of a neighbor's house for this one she watched this lady this girl run away from the house after she found her entire family slaughtered
Matthew:later and I believe clementines own testimony. She says she was laughing.
Marissa:She might have been clementines unique, interesting character for sure. Yeah. For the most part, it was similar to the other ones Norbert Azima and Agnes were found in a bed that was covered by a mosquito net, because this is a Louisiana.
Matthew:Yeah. In the south of the US or rough. Yes. The mosquito
Marissa:net had been torn up with the fall of the blows of the axe. Sure, yeah. While the rest of the family was murdered with the blunt end of the axe, which is a typical, you know, what we've been seeing
Matthew:pretty much every for the last three episodes is pretty much the what we've been saying.
Marissa:Norbert had been brained but there's he was also shot. So there's speculation that he was actually shot after he had been hit with the axe. I don't know why they would have but Well,
Matthew:if that if he was the target, perhaps Yeah, I want to make sure that that dude, I don't know. The other
Marissa:guy who was hit with the Sharpen of the axe and the rest of his family was not it? I don't know. But there that that is a thing he was shot. So
Matthew:also not something that the man on the train does very often. There was another one. I don't think it was this one where there's another guy gets shot. And I read it as if he was like, running away and he was shot. And then and then he was found in like the middle of the yard. May or may not make an episode out of it. But go ahead.
Marissa:It seems also that one of the children and another in the other bed or two beds had woken up because there was one bloody footprint on the floor.
Matthew:It's so it's so frickin sad. All
Marissa:it is. I know. Isn't that sad? It was one of the children. I mean, that's just terrible.
Matthew:And the other one that the kids survived the being stabbed? Yeah. And then they died later. Like three of them. Yeah, yeah, no, it's it's rough. I'm just saying this. And just all the babies. Yeah, just so many. Yeah.
Marissa:Because it's crazy. Not Yeah,
Matthew:it's just what else are you gonna do?
Marissa:Yeah. Now you have to laugh. Otherwise, what are you gonna do cry? So
Matthew:it is really rough, though. That's a lot of I mean, when an entire family dies obviously there's gonna be some children involved and stuff like that. But to have somebody just so so Callison Yeah, just terrible. Just go in and another another part of you can almost attribute it to the to their MO is killing families that for the most part don't have enemies. Yeah. You know.
Marissa:The Axe was found leaning against a wall near the foot of the bed. But this one had been cleaned off.
Matthew:Yeah. Which is something that he normally would do if he had time.
Marissa:Yes. But not all the axes get cleaned off. So this one was cleaned off. Their house was about a quarter of a mile from the railroad tracks. Since Raymond Barna bit was sitting in jail, it was clear to authorities that another or the same killer perhaps was on loose the Lafayette parish Sheriff Louis le Kosta arrested Barnabus two children
Matthew:Sure, well they clearly had if you have enough details or whatever like enough enough close enough facts to get somebody arrested and then another murder happens you might know a little bit more than you may have told us
Marissa:he already had his suspicions about them because they were said to have really bad reputations around town and account collected many years later. Like we're talking like 2025 years later. They it said that they were quote, filthy shifty, degenerate examples of the lowest of the African type. So this is just showing the racism Yes, terrible. So yeah, basically they were just saying they were the worst of their race.
Matthew:But anytime that they give her any any credit they try to make it seem like she might be mixed with Oh, I saw that she might be mixed white.
Marissa:Yeah, anytime they call her she's
Matthew:she's pretty clever. She must have some white and it's like
Marissa:well, they said something about she was super cute but she's maybe an only an eighth what a black or do business. But that is what the what was written here. Also when they'd gone to arrest Raymond At the Barnabas Barnabas residence, clementines clothes had blood on them from the Andrews murder and brains and brains from the interest murders. During her father's trial, she had claimed that she had used the clothing to wipe up blood, or that her father had wiped his hands on her. I don't know, but he was suspicious of this answer, which would be Yeah, so they went to a respose both as Efrain and Clementine, but while they are they found underwear and apron and a dress and clementines room that were saturated with blood and covered with human brains. And the latch on the door was also covered in blood. So
Matthew:this was at the house that she was at what she saw the other person discover where she's living. Yes, yeah, cuz she's like a live in maid, right?
Marissa:Yes, Zephyr and was also able to provide an alibi but Clementine was taken into custody. She denied it at first. But then she started bragging, taking responsibilities for the murders of the Randalls. She took responsibility for the Randalls the addresses and another family that she actually didn't know. But whenever she was 18 At this time, she also said that she had murdered the Randalls because they had disobeyed the orders of the Church of sacrifice, which was a group within the Christ's sacred sanctified Holy Church, which is where she went. Okay.
Matthew:So there was like a sub cult within her church.
Marissa:Correct. At least that's what she said. So January 1912, three more families are murdered.
Matthew:Three more families were murdered in 1912. Or in January of 2012. Yes. That's, that's way faster. The man on the train.
Marissa:Oh, yeah. He did take some time between them. But anyway, one is Merle Warner and her three children discovered by Murrells mother, these bodies had been moved after they had died. To be together. It's clear that they had been moved. But the Axe was not cleaned. And it was in fact still bloody at the scene. So with Clementine in jail, authorities arrested her brother's effort and figuring he'd acted on her orders. Sure, despite him having an alibi,
Matthew:had an alibi before What about now? Yeah,
Marissa:he had we had one
Unknown:now to he's like, No, still no. Still into it still can't prove nothing.
Marissa:But but they still arrested him. But then another family was killed the night after they the night that they arrested him. So on January 20. The same night they arrested him. Another family's murdered Felix Broussard, who's this 50 year old guy who's living in the area, his wife, who we don't know her name, and three children were killed in Lake Charles, Louisiana with the blunt end of an axe. There were there was an axe in the house. This was Felix Zach's, but it was not the murder weapon. That Well, there were two axes in the house, I should say. But this one was not I was found in the kitchen. And they didn't actually use Felix's axe, which I find quite strange, but I'm gonna maybe it was a better Yeah, well, the axe that was the instrument was found under the children's bed. Okay, yeah, a bucket was placed into their heads to cache the blood. Okay, another bucket
Matthew:here to rain.
Marissa:Yes. Another quite interesting detail here though, is that the victims hands are split apart using pieces of wood.
Matthew:All right, the fingers were like as if you took like a small
Marissa:toothpick or something and stuck it between your fingers to like Yeah,
Matthew:well thicker than that because it's not supposed to pierce but yeah, something something you know just about this, you know, like an inch or so long, just to like, as if your hands were webbed with these
Marissa:little it's like one of those things that you put on your toes to spread. You know, paint your toenails, but it's on the hands. And it was done with wood. So this seems quite strange and ritualistic or
Unknown:weird. Yes.
Marissa:There was also a handwritten message on the wall. And there are different accounts whether this was written in blood or in pencil.
Matthew:Man from the train says pencil, yes,
Marissa:but it said, quote, when he maketh the Inquisition for blood, he forgetteth not the cry of the humble.
Matthew:That seems pretty ritualistic.
Marissa:Indeed. So the message is from Psalm 912. In the King James Bible, though it is not exact. And the man from the train makes a good point here. It could have been a coincident dental mistake that it was done incorrectly. The exact quote comes from the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Matthew:Makes a lot more sense for racist lines. Indeed, it
Marissa:does. Yes, the message had a signature, the quote human five. From here, police thought they must be dealing with a group of murderers rather than just one since its head five.
Matthew:You know, none of the families had five. Well, some
Marissa:of them did. Not all of them. That was another net that was another number here. The newspapers tried to link them together because they said that every murder had five victims. That's not quite true. But they did it as a you know this must be the ritualistic number, but some of them had for some had six it's it's not, it's not true. So
Matthew:what's the ritualistic number of 5797? Days? 13? Yeah, but not not five.
Marissa:Clementine confessed to these murders as well, despite the fact that she had been in jail at the time. So, clementines brothers, Efrain was relief, released from prison after these murders because he'd been in prison when they were committed. So he couldn't have done her.
Matthew:That's it. Another good alibi. Good job, Jeff. All right.
Marissa:So the newspapers as I just touched on, they took this and they ran with it. Same with the murders were connected to some sort of voodoo ritual. And this is where they're coming in with the number five. I mean, I don't I don't know enough about voodoo. But they suggested and again, these are the newspapers, so they may not have just they may have been just Sensational lipstick with this. But these adjusted to the number five was, you know, important to this voodoo ritual, five victims. But you know, again, they weren't all quite exactly five. It was just, but it's still what they said. But they were going crazy with this whole voodoo thing. That's the point here. Rumors started circulating that Clementine Barnum bit was the leader of a voodoo cult called the church of sacrifice. So that would be a part of that trip. She was in a local Pentecostal wherever and she was part of her church. His name was King Harris. He was brought in in question because of rampant rumors, but he had never heard of it. He was actually quite shaken is what they said that he might have had any part in influencing these murders. So he, he was completely and he
Matthew:was a guy who was arrested for his own safety. Basically, he was held right so
Marissa:in on April 5 1912, Clementine completely confess your capacity to confess to 18 murders. That's busy. She claimed that she had brought her voodoo charm or conjure bag with her when she had committed the crime, believing that it would protect her and her friends who she said she had with her. She said her and her fellow accomplices drew lots to see who would actually do the deed and commit the murders. She claimed she also disguised herself as a man's remain less noticeable at night. She said she killed the children because she did not want them to be orphaned. But her actual motives for committing the crimes was not clear at all. She also gave misleading information about her accomplices and the crimes. They didn't really get much from her she kept changing our story.
Matthew:The idea of the Kandra bags or conjure bags that she had, she had bought these bags with her friends that were supposed to keep her safe from being detected and from keep her safe from being protected or from being detected by police for whatever crimes that they said decided to do. And at the time when they got the kanji bags. The group hadn't really decided as to what crimes they were going to do but then they were like we should do a murder and then that's when they draw lots and do all that stuff. But because it later when she she gets the kanji bags and from from from a guy who she said originally was a woman or whatever.
Marissa:So her story did not really stay straight. She had once said to her father was the man behind the murders. But then when they kept happening when she was when he was in jail, she gave names for accomplishes accomplices who never were either found or
Matthew:may have actually been in jail
Marissa:during this time. Yeah, yeah. arrests were made but to search for the rest of the group just was pretty fruitless. It was a human five gang. The DEA at the time Howard II Bruner thought some of the murders may have been copycat crimes. I'm going to touch on this for a second because think about it. You can the man from the train, they do touch on this they say that, you know throughout history there are these like groupings of crimes right so like important part, the 1930s or so there were a lot of criminal gangs in the 1870s or so there were a lot of like train robbery Yeah, train robberies. I mean it I mean now school shootings, there's always copycats
Matthew:assassinations in the 60s and stuff like that and and it's like there's there'll be like a decade of time where that that is like the yes method of crime that is like constantly seeming to pop up like it just gets into like the zeitgeist.
Marissa:If you put it into the minds of the Popplet populace, then it's going to happen again. Because it's just in their, in their mind, why do something violent? Oh, this is something violent I can do.
Matthew:So at this time, we're dealing with a, you know, 2030 year span of axe murderer being the delicacy of the time. Yes, it was for crime and murder, because it is crazy. I mean, obviously, we're linking all of these together. But part of the reason why they're kind of linking all these together, is because it's just a sudden boom of axe murderer.
Marissa:They said that at the time. Around this time, there were only on average about eight families that were are killed every year right yeah familiar side or whatever All right, like all around the country but all of a sudden all these families are getting brained basically. And 11 of them yeah 11 of them and this and small area. So it's in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi like this area had a huge influx on them not to mention the the Louisiana axe murders and the the ban from the train all of those things. All of this is happening. So it's very not common at all for this to happen. But
Matthew:yeah, it's unusual. And also the when you say Louisiana axe murderers, that's not actually what we're talking about here. There's a specific set of crimes called the Louisiana Axman letters, but the same time period. Well, yeah, that one happens in like the 1980s 1990s. But still, we'll do an episode on that one pot. Well, we'll connect it to kind of on the back end of this one, I think but it that one. That one is the one that I said was going to be kind of fun because it's all about jazz and murder. But not Clementine,
Marissa:jazz. So the DA again, he believed that Clementine was a moral pervert, because she actually confessed to caressing the corpses after she
Matthew:killed them. Cool thing? Yeah, yeah.
Marissa:Again, whatever. But she, there were, there was a lot of confusion. There was probably never a charge of sacrifice, right? The Reverend King Harris had his sanctified church perhaps leading to confusion regarding the sacrifice, church, churches sacrifice, lots of misinformation, lots of prejudice, toxic voodoo, lots of things.
Matthew:I mean, I can imagine that I mean, just kind of like this is a young a young person who is if you're in that kind of a church and and I'm just kind of assuming that it's kind of like that Southern fire and brimstone kind of, you know, that like high energy kind of a church like I don't think that they're like the, you know, like the Puritans coming in there and quietly reading and Latin or anything like that. I'm pretty sure this is much more of a you know, no Latins, a Catholic thing. Yeah. But I'm saying like, what I'm saying though, is I don't think it's, I don't think it's like a really subdued kind of probably a much more, you know, vibrant and energetic kind of sermon that is often given. I mean, I don't know I haven't I have nothing to base that on other than just white when I think of like, church in the South. I'm thinking Baptist Church, kind of an idea where it's a lot more like Boo Boo Boo Boo, you know, a lot of energy, a lot of music. A lot of DAB in your forehead to get the sweat off while you're given the powerful servants.
Marissa:So there actually was a voodoo priests involved. Only a little bit though, only a little bit. So his name was Joseph Tibideaux. Clementine said that he had given her ideas for the crimes, but he swore he only ever gave her this invisibility charm. So to help chargebacks Yes, that's all he said he ever did.
Matthew:Tibideaux was just turned her invisible. Yeah, that's all
Marissa:Tibideaux was noted for his ability to ability to get rid of warts. So I mean, it doesn't really sound like he's that malicious to me. No, thank you. What are your words, though?
Matthew:Yeah. I mean, I don't. I don't know the religious aspect aspect of like voodoo much more than like, the common person who watches TV TV shows, you know, like, I know, I know. hoodoo and voodoo from like, supernatural and stuff like that. Like, I mean, this is, but there is there's a whole religion that has, like, has that is voodoo. I'm not gonna claim to be
Marissa:an expert. Yeah, absolutely.
Matthew:Not. I mean, but, but classically, it is a scary religion to people, you know, and I mean, it is definitely one that there's a lot of prejudice around. Absolutely. But I mean, yeah, he kind of was just like, from what I understand. He's just kind of a shaman, you
Marissa:know, and I don't get anything at all bad from him something that
Matthew:said that he like, wrote papers for people to but I don't know if that was like some kind of criminal act that he was doing on the side but
Marissa:but while Clementine was in jail, she confessed to a total of 35
Matthew:murders. Nice. That's a high body count little girl,
Marissa:but she kept retelling them with different details. It was never straight. She couldn't keep her story straight at all. She just kept changing all of the details involved. Her defense attorney claimed that she was insane. But she did stand trial, a team of medical professionals examined her and said that she was quote, morally depraved, unusually ignorant and have a low grade of mentality but not deficient in such a manner as to constitute her imbecile
Matthew:or idiot. Right? So no plead of insanity, no,
Marissa:no plead of insanity. She stood trial, but she was only convicted of killing one person as Lima, which is the norm it is the norm. It's like a double jeopardy thing at the time, it was very normal for this to happen.
Matthew:So in order and this is kind of the Reverend Kelly and Valeska was charged similarly, you charge A person with a single individual in a murder that gets killed so that you can charge them individually for each individual. So you can keep trying to reach retry them because you can't be charged for the same crime twice. Unless there's some kind of crazy other evidence that comes through, I think, but like for the it's called Double Jeopardy, but basically, you can't, if you just charge them for just the one person and you don't get a conviction, you just move on to the next person in the house and say, Well, we're now we're gonna charge you for this person. And who was the person that you got charged with?
Marissa:Zima Randall. So the wife and the murderer, Clementine was sentenced to life in prison at Louisiana penitentiary. She was 19 years old at this time. The man on the train says it's unlikely that she had involvement in these murders. Even though she was close to two of the crimes, at least, she confessed. And blood was found on her close. So there are some, you know, pieces of evidence that should be taken into account here. But she made an escape attempt. Actually, she actually did escape. She was done. She do? Well, she made an escape attempt. But she, she well, it's an attempt just because she didn't stay gone. But she did escaped in 1913. But she was caught it was the same day. So not for very long. Yeah. Other than that one escape attempt, though she was a model prisoner. She was not actually there for super long. She was released on good behavior after 10 years. Wow. Very strange. And it makes it seem like the authorities didn't really believe she did it. Then let her go. Yeah, I mean, 10 years, but that are they like maybe she
Matthew:was just 10 years is not a long time for most crimes. Yeah.
Marissa:But it's not any murder. Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. If not for murder, again on a good behavior in 10 years after murder, smashing smashing babies in their cribs and stuff. Exactly. There's no way you're getting that. But yeah, so she was yeah, she was like, oh, for some other reason. And there was there. There were there are spotty accounts where she underwent some non lithotomy procedures,
Marissa:typically not a lot to me. But that was not common until like, at least a decade later. So
Matthew:yeah, I mean, you know, I mean, think about it now. I mean, it might have just been like a hysterectomy. Oh, it might have been and just be like, Okay, now that we've taken that out, you should be fine. Good to go now. How ridiculous. That's a true thing. That's, that's the eugenics of the time period.
Marissa:Yeah, no, I know. Lots of lots of fucked up things in our history, isn't it 11 Black families were murdered during the spree 1911 1911 to 1912. This is I mean, other than that, one murder pretty short period of time. It this was all in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. And I mean, again, it was very rare for this to happen, because eight families a year in the whole US and then all of these things are happening in this this fairly small area. And
Matthew:then even if you include the entire man from the train thing that was only as as the book puts it, not including the divorce, it's it's only from 1898. I think I said 89. Before, we're pretty sure they have it as 98 to 1912. So I mean, it's only 20 year span.
Marissa:Yeah, I mean, not even really. But they have they have a good but very simple quote in here that like that, just as violence follows violence. Yeah, sure. Relating to, you know, the fact that there are these little clusters of crimes. Yeah. So she is called the first female serial killer in America. But did she actually kill anyone? No, I don't think she did. She did. I think she was a young kid. I think she was just swept up in the whole thing. And she just, I don't know.
Matthew:So I mean, I mean, her dad was was accused, she might have, you know, I mean, she might have just been, she might have just been a turd of a person in general. But even just taking that aside, I mean, she might have just, like you said, got swept up in that because I mean, if you even watch current day interrogation processes, it can be a little, little slippery slope. Certainly tragic for somebody. Yeah. But then you add that to being a black teen in 1911. Like, the police want a confession from you. They get paid off of a confession from you. If there's if there's a reward, there probably isn't for this one. But, you know, like they want they want to solve the crime, regardless of if it's true or not. She also
Marissa:had a really rough upbringing. I mean, her parents were divorced her her father was abusive. Yeah, she had a lot of a lot of things against her for sure. And she might have just, you know, fake or whatever,
Matthew:what the fuck, and also just got the attention that she wanted. Yeah. And
Marissa:also think about it I mean, like You can look back at like the Salem witch trials. I mean, people get swept up in this and they just kind of go along with. Thank you. It's okay. But
Matthew:yeah, and that's yeah. I mean, that's that's absolutely, absolutely a possibility now. Who was it? Was it the man from the train? I mean, there's a lot of things in here that maybe I would say, probably not. It definitely sounds like a group of people that were running around. Particularly like, in all of the all of the murders of the man on the train, there was never, it never seemed so targeted towards black people. And this one, only one person in all of these was was white.
Marissa:I hit to him like, just just because he was in the area killing a black family or two, but I don't think he would kill this because of the fact that everybody else. I think they're all whites. Pretty sure every other
Matthew:other one is white. Yeah, yeah. It does seem a bit strange. Yeah, it seems super strange. I don't know. 11 families? It seems. Yeah. It seems. It seems very, very targeted towards the black community.
Marissa:Yeah, absolutely. And they were all poor to the poor black community. So it's just not not the same Mo Mo.
Matthew:Yeah. And then there's also MMO MMO. Assault, the same world Warcraft. Now the It also could have just been copycat killers. And it also I mean, as as these other ones were getting linked together and stuff like that. I mean, it is like
Unknown:you.
Matthew:I mean, I don't know it's not it doesn't seem super hard to get away with murder at the time. You know, if you're just kind of feeling feeling inspired to go kill some people, you know. But that'll do it for that section of Clementine Barnett and her voodoo murder call.
Marissa:That's well, that's how they marketed allegedly,
Matthew:but it's posted. But what? Yeah, so I'm thinking that going. We've probably got two or three more episodes in this series. Only Hurley and Begley we have we Yeah, take me home. From West Virginia. I'm from Virginia, amen. Virginia.
Marissa:Back clay is West Virginia.
Matthew:Yeah, but Hurley's Virginia, it is Hurley's down the hall Hurley's down where currently it's near Grundy. And that's where the or the half the two story Walmart they do what everybody says. A two story Walmart Ben It's a Walmart on top of a parking deck. And they whoo boy that says that flooded right. Yes. Because of flooding. Hurley flooded real bad recently. Well, fairly recently.
Marissa:Well, southwestern Virginia is quite similar to West Virginia. I will say nothing like DC area. Opposite side of the state. Yeah, it's
Matthew:very different. But But yeah, so we have to cover that one. Then, you know, we're just kind of good. We're gonna hit a couple of the highlights that aren't that have more story than just family gets, as Marissa keeps saying, brained and there's,
Marissa:I mean, I understand for
Matthew:another, I guess we probably I probably need a theme song or something.
Marissa:We do need a theme song for that iPad out with the GarageBand on it. We'll see we'll find something.
Matthew:Do you know what I was gonna say? Or you know, we need to see. She just wants a different fucking everybody loves our music except for you. I like it. And why did you just suggest we change it?
Marissa:I thought you meant for the segment I did. Talking about Yes. Okay, clearly.
Matthew:So for the mats, McCobb minute, because I'm doing this one. Luckily, we're both luckily. This one comes to us kind of from a conversation that I was having with one of our patrons. By the way, if you want to support the podcast, feel free to go check us out on Patreon. It's it's $5 you get access to a couple of other episodes. Some things that have been written from our from from my personal journal, and just a couple other little fun little things, cool little extras and just you know our undying thanks for supporting this creative endeavor endeavor of ours. But yeah, check it out. patreon at patreon slash Macabrepedia You can go over there check it out. We got an episode with cyca and Alyssa taking taking the reins and doing a murder. The Bloody Mary stories. All right, with that and then we also have we we we may have a couple other specials that are that were we decided not to put into the main stuff just for are stuff that just for reasons that I'll explain in the Patreon if it goes up. But, but anyways, this comes from one of our patrons, a person who does accident reconstruction, basically with the South Carolina Highway Patrol. And yeah, and he was talking about just a formula that you can determine the speed at which a pedestrian was hit, based upon how far away from the point of impact their body is found. Which is it? I mean, obviously, if you say it, it sounds like, Well, yeah, you should be able to kinda, but like, it's called the,
Marissa:it's just not something that I've ever really considered. There's a thing, but I mean, it doesn't make sense math. Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. I mean, obviously, you can map out anything for the most part. But I mean, I just figured I walk up on a guy got hit by a car, and I go, Oh, wow, shit. He's way over there. Her legs 20 feet away. Oh, man. Yeah. Well, so it's called the pedestrian vault slash slide, minimum throw with unknown angle, also known as the circle equation. Now, what this basically does, is it takes the square root of I think it's, I think, I don't know if this is the actual base number, you always put in there, but it's 64.4. The square root of 64.4 times F times d, or whatever, 64.4 ft, which is F is the drag factor, which is point seven, I guess, which is like the average of the friction that the ground would have on the body? Well,
Marissa:I said, the body bounces,
Matthew:right? So it's not. So it doesn't matter if it's grass, or if it's concrete, or gravel, because you're not really generally sliding very far. You are hitting and tumbling, and bouncing. Right? So and then you take the distance from impact to where it is, and then you can kind of figure out where that all is. He also said, an interesting little fact is, even if you had knee high laced boots, if you get hit by a car going more than 45 miles an hour, those boots are coming off. Everybody, almost all pedestrians are found without their shoes on if they've been hit. Wow, over 45 miles. Wow.
Marissa:Those laces would hold on.
Matthew:Yeah, I mean, I'm sure there are certain there are certain times when that's not gonna hold true, it's still interesting to know that most of the time you're coming out them shoes. Yeah. So if you ever find somebody laying on the side of the road, wearing flip flops, we're not hit by a car,
Marissa:maybe the friction from the ground is enough to keep them attached to the ground while you get hit. I'm guessing there has to be I might be wrong, could be way wrong. But
Matthew:so one of the things that he had said as you when somebody gets hit, obviously, if you actually have like thigh high boots, and the point of impact was below those, it's probably not going to come off because you're not being thrown from your shoes. It's hitting once it's hit, it's hitting the boot, right. But anyways, that aside, he said when somebody is hit by a vehicle, they stretch, Whoa, that was really loud as they stretch. So like, like an elastic girl, kind of from The Incredibles. There's your movie reference for the episode. So you kind of if you're stretching to the point, like you have at least you know, all your joints and stuff start to stretch. So your leg would actually become thinner at that point. Pop right at them boots. Yeah, so if you ever find a dead body on the road, you check their shoes, and you can tell if they were hit back hard. But I shouldn't laugh at that. But you know, math is funny. But what we're gonna do also on that Patreon is we're gonna go ahead and put up the the breakdown of the angles and the equation so that you can play around with that. Thank
Marissa:you. So that's very interesting.
Matthew:Yeah, that was that was the
Marissa:well, he also said that the body just goes up.
Matthew:Well, well, because I had I had asked the question, well, doesn't the weight of the person matter? And he said, No, the angle of the bumpers, what matters like if you're hit by a Camaro, your angle when you're hit, rockets you up. If you're hit by a Mack truck, it's a flat face so you get flung forward. So then you want when you can figure out the angle based upon what the car would be. So based on that as well. We'll get him on here at some point to actually maybe a year and a half. Over go over the intricacies of pedestrian vault impact. Projectile Yeah, it's cool, and I'm sure I'm not doing it justice, but that's our McCobb minute is that you can map out how far a person has been flown. And the speed of the car, which it was. Also another little fun little thing with that, too. He had at some point, been able to determine time of death based upon somebody's Fitbit.
Marissa:Or because their heart stopped.
Matthew:Yeah, it was like Fitbit or Strava or something like that something with their athletic watch.
Marissa:I think you said Strava I remember you saying this a long time ago.
Matthew:Anyways, that's an interesting little thing. That's really cool. Yeah, was that your, your time of death can be will be held by your, by your wrist wear?
Marissa:Oh, man. Yeah, that's crazy.
Matthew:But kind of once a once again, thanks to all of our patrons for supporting us. If you have any questions, concerns, comments, or anything you want to have put into a McCobb minute, or whatever you want to do there. Please feel free to reach out you can do so as a patron you can do so on Discord. You can also anybody can reach out on Twitter and Facebook at Macabrepedia.
Marissa:Also on Instagram at Macabrepediapod. And you can email us at macabrepediapod@gmail.com.
Matthew:And next week, we will be going in to the hollers of Virginia and West Virginia, we'll be going into the haulers and to go over some of the crimes that are still associated with the man from the train. And then after that, there is there there are a couple in North Carolina that have some interesting things that are still kind of also highlighting that, that that racial kind of thing that we're touching on here that we could explore a little bit more we might put that into another one. Then we'll probably wrap it up in another another episode or two. With this miniseries, I cannot stress enough how much we are leaving out be Oh yes. From the from the just the book. Yes. The book. The man from the train is really worth picking up not a sponsor in any way shape or form. They don't know we're doing this we haven't reached out to him. Gonna try maybe to reach out to Rachel the researcher of it because I think she also has a another axe murderer book coming out really? Yeah. Called whacked.
Marissa:Named for an Axe Murderer.
Matthew:Right. So she did put so much research into this. She's probably much other stuff.
Marissa:He's the one who realized the first one I think is what this said that that quote that was written was not first it was rather from Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Matthew:So yeah, she she's put it in I mean, obviously what in her research of AX murders, she only put together the story for the man on the train, or man from the train. But she has, you know, so much more. I have no idea. I'm completely speculating based on that based on just her Twitter post. But um, anyways, go check it out. It's on Audible. It's read really well and a really it's very, it's very well read as a conversational kind of tone throughout check it out. I mean, not a sponsor, but we've pulled so much information from it that it's we will be doing them a great injustice by not plugging the hell out of it. But anyways, thank you so much
Marissa:and thank you for listening please leave a review if you can and rate us where you listen, we can be rated on Instagram on Instagram.
Matthew:Now well you can reach out you can rate us on Instagram to do anything but
Marissa:you can rate us on Apple podcast and Spotify and possibly a few more at this point but definitely on there and we would appreciate each and every review and thank you so much yeah
Matthew:and you can five star review tear us apart in the in the reviews I want I want terrible reviews or does not even terrible reviews because I don't really want to throw off other people who are actually reading don't say to you, okay, highlight no highlight Marissa because she doesn't want you to tear us apart and then make it like yeah, you can tear me apart as much as you want you can make up whatever lies you want about me on there. Go ahead put a five star review five star review. highlight how awesome Marissa is what
Marissa:please don't leave it all negative because then people will read it and be like,
Matthew:Oh, we're making it so bad that they're like I have to see the author we don't want to over under high price. But anyways, thank you so much as always and join us next week as we add another entry into this hour. Oh no whisper just straight up