Clementine Barnabet & The Church of the Sacrifice & The Louisiana Axe Murders | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

hey weirdos I'm Elena my name's Ash whoa Mrs morbin I [Music] think I just felt crazy I want to just
shake it a little B I just coconuts oh man we're excited we're going to go to a rage room yeah for my
birthday celebration yeah going to rage [ __ ] so much rage inside of me so much rage can we ask them to play get
on of your mind that would be such a good song to R too to be honest I'll put my hair in ponytail back
and forth on the playlist there yeah we usually have to at most events I'll put my hair in a ponytail and do the
helicopter yeah do the do the ash get out of your mind that's the get out of your mind dance it's a ponytail
helicopter I tried to teach your youngest how to do it and it wasn't bad for her first attempt I mean she's
pretty great she's pretty out of her mind so she's like I stay out of my mind tit it's like you know what I feel this
on a spiritual level yeah um yeah so we have an old timey case today but fear not people who don't like old timey
cases um it's ax murders so it's going to be gnarly and this one it's also an Elena case it's very
interesting too oh it's interesting how it all pans out it's interesting that there's still a lot of questions in this
case and I still don't know what to think of it really yeah it's very very interesting it's a stumper yeah I hadn't
heard about this so I don't even know what to call this episode we will know what to call it by the time this is
released you'll know what we're calling it I'm going to start it by saying it's the Louisiana Axe Murders Clementine
barnabet and the Church of the sacrifice there's so many themes I think Mikey said that this is a highly
requested one yeah Mikey did say this is a highly requested one which is shocking
to me just because I had never heard of it which I feel remiss that I never heard of this name Clementine barnabet
sounds familiar to me the name sounded familiar to me but when I read it I was like oh I had no idea I'm interested to
see if I know anything so it's gonna be gnarly in here just so you know it's AE murders after all it's also just always
[ __ ] gnarly in here it absolutely is so let's begin shall we we shall between 1909 and 1912 a series of truly brutal
and gruesome and horrific family Axe Murders oh God or Axe Murders of entire families yeah children everybody oh
occurred along the Southern Pacific Railroad line between uh running between Southwestern Louisiana and Texas um I
mean it's impossible at this point to know how many of these murders were connected but there were definitely
similarities in a lot of them I the fact that it was full families that were being ax murdered was one thing um but
so most notably the timing and the victims were the things that really connected these things um and they have
there's many that speculate that this is One Singular killer or One Singular group of killers okay because there's
too many similarities it just doesn't feel like this many would have happened in this span of time and that they'd be
so similar um with a body count of more than 50 people D across 12 families all the victims were black oh that's another
similarity and they lived near the train line and all were killed at night and all had been killed with their skulls
fractured with an axe oh my God yeah it's really horrific that's intense now because no serious suspect has
really ever been identified in this case like and we're going to get into that don't worry there is suspects but like
we can't really pinpoint a suspect in this case no one's been caught in this case really it's really difficult to say
when the murders even began to be honest uh some identify the first murder as that of Edna opalus and her three
children who were aged four to 9 years old oh my God little babies it was in Rain Louisiana on November 13th
1909 details on the case are not like a ton but neighbors heard screams coming from their home around 1:00 a.m. and
rushed to the scene uh and that's where they found Edna quote and this is from the Crowley daily signal in 1909 quote
lying on the floor with her head split open by a blow with an axe Jesus the children had been attacked in a similar
way and they were actually still alive when the neighbors came stop but all three died not long after oh other than
the bloody axe that was left at the scene that's the other thing the bloody axe gets left at a lot of these scenes
really but we're in the early 1900s here it's not like we can just be like boop boop who's this yeah no of course um
there was very little evidence to be collected at the scene besides that and a few days later police arrested Houston
Goodwill who was Edna's brother-in-law uh he had apparently recently made threats against the family after having
a fight with his wife but the evidence against him was entirely circumstantial and they really couldn't pin anything on
him so nothing came of his arrest okay then on January 24th 1911 a little over a year after the uh the initial murders
someone broke into the West Crowley home of Walter buers in the middle of the night and they murdered Walter Byers his
wife sylvina and their six-year-old son while they all slept when officers came to the home
they discovered the entire family family and this is also from the Crowley daily
signal lying in one bed with their skulls split the bed covered with blood and bloody footprints on the
floor like horrific so chilling and just as in the um opalus murder the doors were all locked from the inside and the
killer had actually come in the home through the window in both scenarios so also like the initial
murders the bloody axe again was left at the scene this seems too coincident Dental this time though the police
discovered a wash basin filled halfway with bloody water which made them think that the killer had at least tried to
clean themselves up before leaving the scene yeah but unfortunately there was very little additional evidence once
again and a week later police arrested Walter Jackson who was a local barber and his brother for the murder of the
buyer's family but it's unclear what led the to them being the two men that were
caught as suspects there's really nothing to indicate that either was prosecuted for the murders and the so
the deaths remain unsolved okay almost exactly 1 month after the buyer's murders the scene just repeated itself
when on February 25th 1911 somebody broke into the home of 35-year-old Alexander Andress and murdered Alexander
his wife M and their two children with an axe oh the murders appeared to have occurred at the same point in the night
that the that the other two had okay and the bodies were discovered by M's father
Felix oh his whole family and they were discovered the following morning um this
got very strange though because the skulls of all four of the victims had been crushed with an axe but this time
whoever killed them had arranged the scene what according to the Press after they were killed and this is a quote by
the Lafayette Advertiser the man and woman were taken up by the murderer and placed on their knees beside the bed the
woman's arm over the man's shoulder as if in the attitude of prayer so they put the two parents into a Praying position
after they killed them that's so [ __ ] creepy the killer then placed the baby on the bed besides
M what yeah oh I don't like this at all it's rough what that's just bizarre very
bizarre and initially investigators thought it might be this escaped patient from Pineville Sanitarium named garon
good Godfrey sorry but when they finally arrested him a few days later several people attested to the fact that he had
been in Maurice which was about 20 mil away when the murders were committed so no way although they couldn't identify a
motive for the murder Chief detective PE quote believed that the murders of the Andrew family were caused by either
jealousy or renge and that a number of people were involved okay and everybody's like why
though yeah the Press on the other hand started speculating that the family had been killed by the same individual or
people who' killed the opalus and buyers families I mean I can see why they would
think that one reporter wrote the crimes are so alike that they may be the work of the same monster and honestly I I
don't see why not thinking that and sorry was this family killed with an axe that was left at the scene too or like
or was it left at the scene that I did I couldn't find in any reports whether it
was left at the scene but they were killed by next yeah uh two days after the murders uh police arrested Raymond a
man named Raymond barnabet who Clementine barnabet you'll find out Raymond barnabet was a man who
lived nearby and was known by police to have a criminal passed um Raymond claimed that on the night of the murders
he had been about 30 miles away in brousard and without evidence to the contrary investigators really had no
choice but to let him go almost exactly one month later a family in San Antonio Texas living near the Southern Pacific
Railroad line were again murdered in the middle of the night their skulls were caved in with an axe that the killer
Left Behind now it feels like that third one it was probably left behind but I don't want to say it was cuz I couldn't
find you don't know for fact despite having no evidence to hold him police remained convinced that Raymond barnabet
was at least partially responsible for the murder of the Andress family and in July 1911 Raymond was rearrested and
held in the local jail until his trial in October now throughout the trial Raymond said nothing and just sat at the
defense table occasionally muttering to himself goodbye and Mutu I I'm really bad at French I apologize but it means I
am gone huh and he would say it loud enough so that the jury could hear okay um after month of months of
Investigation local authorities really didn't come up with any new evidence that implicated him but what they did
have were his children one of whom would become crucial to the prosecution C's case oh [ __ ] I thought you were going to
say Clementine was his wife no so according to barnabet daughter Clementine on the night of the murders
raymon came home her father came home between 2: and 4:00 a.m. and I quote with his blue shirt covered in blood and
brains and told her to wash his clothes which he did which she did okay Raymond's son zephrine also confirmed
Clementine's story and told the jury that his father had actually confessed to him that he had murdered the Ender's
family okay both children also testified that their father was a violent alcoholic and they said they quote
feared for their Li life if their father was not found guilty oh testifying for the defense barnabet living girlfriend
Dena Porter denied ever seeing any blood or brain matter on Raymond's clothing that night or any other time and refuted
the claim that he had bragged about killing the endr family though she was forced to admit that Raymond had
threatened to kill her just one month earlier so maybe that would be why she wasn't so like jumping at the chance to
talk about him testify against him now a fourth witness was a neighbor who ended
up who apparently lived in the other half of the barnabet house okay they also denied seeing any blood or brain
matter on Raymond's clothing and directly contradicted everything Clementine and zephrine had said on the
witness stand so a lot of different stories floating around here interesting despite the total lack of actual
evidence and the conflicting testimony which you there's not a lot to go on there because like there's many
different stories being told it's just a bunch of he said she said Raymond barnabet was found guilty and sentenced
to death after the verdict was handed down the Press noted that the verdict was one quote mainly through the
testimony of Clementine and zephrine barnabet whose testimony made men shudder okay now both claimed that upon
arriving home in a rage quote unquote Raymond dragged them out of bed in the middle of the night and forced them to
help him hide evidence though what that evidence was besides that shirt yeah and
where they hit it was never answered and never seemed to come up during trial why
wouldn't that come up during trial I'm not real sure would that not be your follow-up question welcome to the 1911
of at all for real Raymond's lawyers immediately appealed the verdict on a number of grounds including their belief
that their client had actually been very drunk during the entire trial okay and thus was not able to adequately assist
in his defense yeah no I would say not probably not according to the def offence quote raymon had drained a
smuggled bottle of wine in his cell before he was taken into the courtroom [ __ ] to their surprise the judge
actually granted Raymond a new trial um but because he was destitute and couldn't afford bail he remained in
custody okay now one month after the verdict against Raymond barnabet was handed down on the morning of November
27th 1911 remember he was held in jail yes the bodies of Norbert Randall his wife Aima their three children ages 3 to
7 and their 2-year-old niece were discovered in their home in Lafayette all with and this is from the Crowley
daily signal who was very graphic with their descriptions oh good all with quote their brains knocked out with an
axe oh the discovery was made by Randall's 9-year-old daughter who had just come back from sleeping over
someone else's house that nightly sh and came to find her entire family dead at 9
years old walked into that scene of everyone killed with an axe the layers and layers of trauma that probably
followed that girl throughout her life can't even imagine and to think I would have been asleep in this house if I
didn't have these plans if I wasn't sleeping somewhere else what the [ __ ] when officers arrived at the
Randall house they found Norbert his wife and their niece Agnes dead in their bed with the bodies of the three
children lying dead in another bed a a child's bloody footprint was found next to one one of the Beds which led
investigators to speculate that one of the children had woken up during the attack and that the victim was thrown
back on the bed before being killed oh unlike the Andress murders in which all had been killed with the bladed end of
the axe yeah the randles appeared to have been bludgeoned with the blunt end of the axe weird yeah interestingly such
a sudden switch up yeah interestingly Norbert Randall had also been shot in the head and the bullet entered his
forehead this would be the only victim in the Louisiana Axe Murders to be killed by a weapon other than an axe huh
now police immediately fanned out all across the neighborhood looking for anything any evidence of the killer or
killers and soon found Blood on the rear gate of the gidry home about a block away where Clementine barnabet was
living and working as a maid [ __ ] what during their search of the gidry Home Police found bloody clothes hidden in
Clementine's room and she was immediately arrested on suspicion of having killed the Randall family this
just switched up so fast yes also arrested were Clementine's brother zephrine and Edwin Charles and Gregory
Porter which were two other young men who were living in the house at the time okay so when they testified they weren't
really like children children they were like um they were like teenagers okay now Clementine denied having anything to
do with the murder but given that her father had been implicated in the previous murders and was locked up at
the time the authorities told the Press they quote believe she is implicated in this horrible crime and also in the
murder of the Andress family last February despite her insistence that she was innocent Sheriff Louie lacost was uh
was convinced that she was the Killer and that the bloody apron discovered among her things was evidence enough of
her guilt the evidence was immediately taken to to the New Orleans um uh State chemist to be examined and the chemist
Dr Mets went went on to confirm that the blood and biological material on the apron was human okay and not just Blood
also biological material also Dr Mets compared the blood on the apron to the blood on one of the
pillowcases taken from the Randall house it was a match really this was one of the Randall family's blood her apron was
Advanced enough at that time to have a match for blood types yeah damn I didn't realize that it happened in uh 1901 Oh
wow was the beginning of blood typing and this was 1911 or 1912 so cool yeah so they at least had blood typing
happening um while the and either way it's like this is human brain matter on her apron yeah like how did that get
there how now while the sheriff waited for the results of the lab test from the chemist Clementine and the others sat in
jail but the murders didn't stop okay in early January all six members members of
the Wexford family including a baby supposedly born just a day earlier were murdered in their home and that was in
Crowley with their Prime axe murder suspects already in jail the Sheriff's Office needed to find a new suspect now
for their Westford murders and they found one they found King Harris who was a preacher at sacrifice sect Church
which was a fringe religious sect with churches in Crowley Lafayette and Lake Charles Louisiana
okay all all towns along the Southern Pacific Railroad line uhhuh despite the name and the church's occasional
non-western practices Harris denied the church preached quote anything that would incite criminal acts and assured
the sheriff that neither he nor anyone from the church had anything to do with these
murders um also Harris insisted his only contact with Clementine barnabet was when on the night of the Randall murders
he had been walking down the street and encountered Clementine who told him quote to leave the area because a street
corner fight had taken place and the police were on the way regardless of all the denials King
Harris was arrested on January 20 20th 1912 and held on suspicion of involvement in the a murders okay it
seemed that even the arrest of the barnabet and Harris weren't enough to stop it though on January 21st just one
day after Harris's arrest Felix brousard his wife Matilda and their three children were all murdered by what the
Press described as a midnight assassin and to have that happen one day later it's almost like whoever is doing this
is taunting them as in the other cases all five members of the brousard family had been
bludgeoned to death with an axe which had been left behind at the scene and was discovered underneath one of the
beds the scene really didn't have any clues any evidence um but the walls this is what's interesting the walls had been
smeared with blood and on one of the walls the killer had written in pencil when he maketh Inquisition for blood he
forgetthe of the humble is that biblical it's a Verbatim quote from the book of Psalms okay and on the inside of the
front door they had written human five what like this five members of the family what yeah isn't that like
chilling yeah I'm just like this is the one of the weirdest [ __ ] cases you've ever presented that's what I'm saying
that's why I was like I don't know what to think of this like I I've heard of Clementine's
name before definitely but I've never heard any details of this case so I did I I look this up the when he maketh
Inquisition for blood he forgetteth not the Cry Of The Humble okay and when I looked it up it seems that the the idea
of this is um kind of conveying the idea that God when he dos out Justice remembers the cries of the humble and
will actually save them yeah and I think like put Justice towards the those who uh
shed innocent blood wait say that last again it's basically like he's seeking just it's
basically God trying to Dole out Justice upon those who shed innocent blood okay
that's what it is um interpreted as so the the innocent blood would be the people who were murdered and that that's
Justice for them or that's Justice for the person that murders them that's what doesn't make sense is it's like so the
so it's interpreted as God will Dole out Justice to those who shed innocent blood
like he will and the people who the Innocents will be remembered yes you know what I mean like and it will like
you're going to have to deal with the wrath of God if you shed innocent blood kind of thing okay
but then it's like the killer wrote when he maketh Inquisition for blood he forget not the Cry Of The
Humble so it's almost like he's it because it I the idea of that quote I think it comes from like revenge and
Justice and like avenging what it sounds like and so then when he writes human five I wonder if this feels very I mean
this particular one whether it's meant to sound this way or not obviously it's very religious yeah clearly some
religious I don't I'm not saying this is any like religion that we can even identify but it seems like this is
they're trying to make it religious this person that did this uhhuh and is almost
feels like they're like tallying like human five and it's like like they're tallying what they're going to have to
answer for almost maybe yeah I'm trying to figure out the logic behind this I'm sorry were there five members of this
family there were five members of this family okay okay um but it's the sixth family that that is far okay um but it's
it almost feels like they're tallying the people in the house like the victims like what they're going to
have to answer for like human five right you know it's so weird to write human yeah cuz I'm like is there somewhere
where animals were killed that you could find somewhere written like animal yeah
this is strange this is so strange keep going so absent of any other clues or evidence besides that bizarre [ __ ]
investigators in Lake Charles told reporters quote circumstances point to the work of a fanatic or or of a fanatic
or religious cranks as nothing shows revenge or robbery as the motive and they also speculated that despite them
being nearly 75 miles apart yeah whoever killed the brousard family was probably
also responsible for the other murders in Crowley and Lafayette sounds like it which it definitely could be there's a a
big difference yeah so it could absolutely be like a copycat or someone using it to you know who knows if all of
these are connected interesting but there's also like a train that runs along yeah exactly so you can get there
it's not like it's not like you're driving there's a way to get to all these places yeah um but the mere
suggestion that this that this rash of Axe Murders occurring along the Southern Pacific Line was the result of religious
fanaticism was enough CU remember these are all black families Raymond barnabet is black his family is black king Harris
is black so we're seeing this and now we're seeing this mention of religious fanaticism that's enough to send white
Southerners into a gosh darn Panic at this point within one day of the brousard murders the Press had put
together the pieces of various Stories the barnabet arrest King Harris and the sacrifice sect and all those into one
very Sensational and Highly Questionable story that they just knew was going to sell papers goody on the morning of
January 23rd 1912 the headlines on papers like the Monroe News Star said sacrifice sect Slaughter
26 basically implying that not only had they been all victims of the same killer
but also that the murders are now being directed by quote a preacher who teaches
fanaticism meanwhile so now we're just making [ __ ] up he's in prison just making [ __ ] up right now while the
writing on the wall at the brousard crime scene obviously was very unusual remember that was a 75 m mile away
murder that's the out that's a little bit of an outlier it's similar obviously duh little bit of an outlier yeah you
know there was the idea that there was the people that were placed into praying positions so there's that as well yeah
um but nothing really about all of the murders it wasn't like they were all ritualistic you know what I mean there
were ritualistic elements for sure that you could see in a couple but not all they didn't look like they were human
sacrifices for religious sect you know what I mean like it seemed like it was a very
aggressive frantic murder scene you know what I mean like especially with an axe
like an axe is a very chaotic way to kill people it's not a ritualistic way to kill people um but you know they
wanted to sell a lot of papers so the Press leaned hard into that sacrifice angle claiming among other things that
the brousard family's killer had quote set a bucket below their heads in which to catch the dripping blood for use in
rituals later that was not true true at all um they also made a lot of King Harris's arrest quoting the authorities
as saying qu they believe that his teaching worked his followers up to such a pitch of frenzy and religious F fervor
that the murders are um or sacrifices followed now it's just all on him cool and he hasn't even had a trial yet he's
just been arrested yeah he's just been arrested like yeah cool guys and it's important to note that the press and the
authorities never directly accused Harris or the barnabet of being responsible for the murders of the
brousard family yeah like they're just they're just implying that he's probably behind this like it's literally
ridiculous and in fact while all the suspects are being held in jail there were other murders so like every time
what's going on um a family of five in Rain were killed in December 1911 and a family of four were killed in Crowley
just a few days before the brousard family was killed huh so clearly these murders could not have been committed by
Clementine barnabet or her brother and father or but they and King Harris who was still sitting in jail at certain
moments wasn't they were he wasn't even in the area at the time they were all being accused of being behind all this
every single one of these which you could also look at this and say okay maybe there's some big organ or
organization type thing that is being led by someone that pieces of this cult are being put inil but there's other
ones out here absolutely but the fervor that the problem here was the fervor over nonwhite and non-Christian
religious practices that came out of this through communities across Louisiana into a panic with white
residents demanding action and black residents fearing for their safety at this point because now they're pointing
to like oh it must be Voodoo that's what it must be if it's not Christians that's
for sure never and several white Southerners exploited the the opportunity to exploit public fear for
personal gain sending extortion letters to black churches like going way like leaning into this toally being
completely [ __ ] horrible and there were other more serious consequences to this Panic as well in Lake Charles A
hoodoo preacher was going door Todo selling charms of protection and offering to wire homes to secure them
from Evil mhm and in March that preacher was killed oh my God yeah so in March March many newspapers across the South
ran a syndicated article that was titled voodoo's Horrors break out again in now
in this the unnamed author provided details of the brutal murders emphasizing the more Sensational and
what they took as ritualistic aspects of all the crimes of particular interest was the supposed frequency in which the
number five appeared in the cases such as the message painted on the back of the or written on the back of the
broussard's front door uh the one that said hum five the article connected that aspect of the case with the fact that
regardless of her claims of Innocence Clementine barnabet had been arrested and had four other accomplices and she
was arrested with brain mattered blood on her apron mhm um so uh this is part of the article it said at Lafayette it
was five members of the Andress family who were sacrificed at the same place a few months later five members of the ram
Randall family had evidently been marked for Slaughter but a sixth of appearing upon the scene unexpectedly met the fate
of his Kingsmen at Crowley so they think that that family um the Randall family cuz was that their there was five of
them and that but there was one extra and they said that was just coincidental at Crowley last June four members of the
Warner family had undoubtedly been doomed to perish but one a child escaped and only four went to their death two
months ago six members of the Wexford family perished at the hands of fanatics but one was an infant that had been born
a day before the tragedy and in all probability had not been taken into consideration when the plans for the
human sacrifice were consummated now comes the brousard family tragedy with the five victims thus completing a
series of sacrifices of five separate families each evidently intended to involve five victims it does sound that
way interesting but they're I feel like they're reaching yeah with some of these
the fear-mongering and Sensational journalism it had racist undertones um it implied black Americans were in
large numbers embracing pre-christian religious practices that were encouraging and promoting Human
Sacrifice like that was essentially what they were saying right that that's what
this must be like that's [ __ ] and when they put it this way of course it was going to make any reader reading these
things seem not that not too shocked and it didn't seem too far-fetched that the
teenage Clementine and her accomplices might have been involved in a conspiracy and that they might have been involved
in this whole some kind of culty religious thing to commit ritualistic murder in the service of what they were
saying was one or more either Voodoo or what they got wrong hudo Gods because they would confete those two practices
they conflated them a lot this Theory should have been undermined by the fact that the murders continued even as the
five supposed members of the murderous Cults out in jail right um one month after the brousard murders three
families were brutally murdered with an axe along the Southern Pacific Line in Texas all spaced roughly one month apart
and all looking exactly like each other same Hallmarks of each case five family members three um yeah like same kind of
situation all had the same Hallmarks everything it's interesting that it's it seems to usually be five family members
like that I should say those those last three I'm not positive that all three of them
were five okay but they were they all looked exactly the same in the sense of like what was used that a family was
killed in the middle of the night left the same way the axe was found like all the same kind of situation and all along
that railroad line right now because there was so much sensationalism surrounding the case and a lot of
fearmongering happening it's unlikely Clementine or any of the others were going to get a fair trial by an unbiased
jury yeah no um and who knows if that was the reason that a confession came or if a confession came from a genuine
Place who who can be sure um but in April Clementine barnabet called the sheriff to her cell and confessed to
murdering more than 20 people in the previous year okay out of nowhere according to Clementine she had aices
who had carried out had continued to carry out the work of extermination All Along The Southern Pacific Railroad
while she was in jail okay and she said there are many families in this state that have been selected for killing in
Doom was sealed Clementine went on to tell authorities that two years earlier she
and the other members of the group had traveled to New Iberia and obtained from a hudo doctor a conjure that would
protect them from all harm and absolutely protect them from Discovery in the commission of any crime or deed
which didn't work evidently which all of this seems to line up with what everybody is thinking is happening she's
basically just saying the same story like confirming it now she said hudo but the media like I said was
immediately conflating hudo and Voodoo as the same thing right not bothering to find out that there's a difference or if
there was a difference so this made the whole Voodoo real ritualistic angle of the newspaper reporting a lot more
prevalent and in the end it was wrong from what I could gather there are many differences between hudo and voodoo from
the and the main one is probably the most distinctive difference is that Voodoo is technically like an organized
religion okay it's practiced with rituals and there's a structure to the practice there's leaders in the practice
um hudo from what I could gather is mostly an independent magic leaning practice that individuals take part in
okay and I believe it has most of its roots in the US while Voodoo does not oh okay so there are differences yeah at
least look up the some a little bit of the differences um but and remember we're very we're in the early 1900s
we're in the South here racism is prevalent it's just part of it's it's here it is even now so to the
white authorities and press the confession of her quote most violent repulsive acts seemed to confirm what
everyone had already suspected even though many within law enforcement acknowledged that much of what she had
told them wasn't true it didn't line up huh one article stated while the officers know some of the confession is
true they discarded much of Clementine's story as mere fiction as she has given any number of clues that have been run
down anded only will of the Wisps so just just fictional okay now Clementine's confession included a
number of actually true statements about the murders but the information could have been easily learned through
newspaper articles or just Town gossip everyone was talking about this more often than not her statements were like
way over the top outlandish and she would contradict herself a lot so she wasn't telling a clear concise story of
like here's what what happened it's exactly what you all think here you go it was like it they made it sound like
that but when you really look at it all of the [ __ ] was contradicting and a lot
of it like I said was things you could have seen in the paper okay for what her motivation for confession would be I
believe she might have I mean I don't here's the thing no one knows whether she was part of this or not nobody can
tell really there is but it seems to me like she may have been Mally ill she may
have been suffering some from some mental illness so that might have had something to do with her confession or
she had something to do with it yeah I don't know and I honestly can't put my finger on which one it is okay or if
it's a mixture of two you know like it's it's very hard to figure out but one of
the things was she claimed quote she had assistance in the murders but then she would often boast about having committed
them herself especially the Lafayette crimes like said she did it alone mhm despite the inaccuracies and
inconsistencies Sheriff Laos to rep told reporters quote Clementine barnabet is rational and I believe it is true except
as to details given with the per purpose of confusing others as to her accomplices okay so now they're claiming
that all the contradictions are just to confuse you about who was her accomplice
which again absolutely could be true yeah you could see that no idea though in the days after her confession
Clementine's story also grew and grew and grew and became incre increasingly bizarre okay the longer she went the
more Murder She confessed to uhhuh it was kind of one of those things which we have seen instances where that has
happened with other supposed murders or um confessed murders where you know like
Henry lecas going to say they admit to like a billion zillion murders and then they would pull it back and then they
admit to more and then they pull it back some people do do that yeah and it's like even who do Mur murderers so who
knows um but she eventually said that she killed 35 people herself okay she claimed she and four others two women
and two men were part of an axe gang and once they'd identified a family to be sacrificed decided seemingly at random
they drew lots and whoever drew the Short Straw did The Killing okay she said it was an easy matter that's what
she said of killing the Randall children oh it was an easy matter we thought it was better to kill them than to leave
orphans as they would suffer okay as for why she had done it Clementine told the sheriff that quote
moral perversion was responsible for a passion to shed human blood and take human life that she could not
control okay so again these statements are chilling and scary the idea of an ax gang like very scary absolutely and
could be true and we don't know according to Clementine when the this impulse Came Upon her she said she could
not rest until she had killed an infant and pressed its form to her breast what the [ __ ] and an infant was killed and
babies were killed yeah multiple now initially Clementine had refused to identify her accompli but by April 4th
and this is where it gets this is where it gets funky okay this is where you're going to go okay maybe she is just lying
but by April 4th she finally named Reverend Joseph Tibido as the aformentioned hoodoo Doctor Who had
provided them with protection spells okay Tibido was a black fortune teller living in New Iberia who also portrayed
himself as a practitioner of herbal medicine he didn't traffic in charms he said he didn't deal with charms as
Clementine had indicated but he was known to prescribe a remedy that included giving a patient a piece of
paper with 25 letters in five lines the paper was instructed when they felt bad to tear off one of the letters roll it
in a ball and swallow it okay and it's likely just a coincidence but the emphasis on Vibes in Tibido remedies
fit the ritualistic sacrifice narrative perfectly and he was soon roped right into the crimes Joseph Tibido was
arrested a day or two later but police had literally nothing on him except for Clementine's
statement so following his arrest the local press pointed out that while Tibido was a well-known figure in the
city no one knew him to associate with Clementine much less willfully advising the woman or of knowing of her intention
of starting her career of crime yeah a few days after her confession six indictments were returned by the grand
jury charging Clementine with the murders of the Randall family okay a date was set for the arraignment soon
after but nobody I don't I couldn't figure out why the arraignment was like continuously put off huh like
continuously and in the meantime Clem Clementine continued just naming co-conspirators feeding the press that
for that insatiable hunger they had for more gruesome awful details right but each time investigators tracked down or
arrested anyone named by Clementine nearly every single one of them were able to account for their whereabouts on
the nights of the murders or just had the aliis themselves like they were they had Alibi like everything and people
could account for them right so she would name someone they go to them and be like nope they were states away like
or they this person can account for where they were huh so it's like they kept being like no that's not someone
and she like oh this person like so after several delays Clementine was finally arraigned on the murder charges
and a trial was scheduled for late October in the meantime her defense attorneys found her to be very difficult
and an uncooperative client but eventually they convinced her to enter a plea of religious
Insanity which is described as the idea that stress could exhaust a constitutionally weak nervous system
were the stress great enough even the strongest mind would succumb the sources of stress and exhaust question were many
but could be grouped under the headings physical and moral now at the same time articles about Clementine's bizarre
claims and behavior kept getting reported in the press and honestly it was getting like offensive at this point
like they were getting really nasty about it one of them said that the woman is on the lowest scale of humanity and
totally devoid of any sense of pity or ordinary conception of Shame and disgrace is conclusive and borne out by
her whole life which has been pitched on the lowest plane of morality which if she killed a bunch of people then yeah
absolutely while the woman at times seems practically insane she yet has a certain intelligence and cunning ever
since her incarceration she has successfully foiled the officers and their attempts to get at the true facts
of the case and when she DET deceives the officers by giving them some false clue she smiles with devilish delight
and Chuckles over her Victory o and again if this is true [ __ ] terrifying yeah very much so but but again they
haven't like charged her they don't have any real evidence here like it's and and
I still go back to that apron which I I'm like someone explained that away for me yeah that's I don't know about that
that's the biggest thing for me unless she's hiding it for someone else but why would her apron be that's the thing was
hers yeah I don't get it now although initially a source of fear now that she had been indicted and seemed Bound for
prison the public developed feelings of disgust and moral outrage towards Clementine which who wouldn't at this
point if you think that she did all this of course yeah um but this also probably
contributed to her very defiant attitude that she had yeah to make matters worse
by late October Clementine had been evaluated by three psychiatrists and all of them found her seene really and that
cleared the way for a trial oh gosh I don't know about that no I don't know about that but who knows I mean this was
very early 1900s in the South and a lot happening so I don't know if they cleared that way what makes you think
that she's suffering from a mental illness the way she's speaking the way she acted and like she's very like
smiling about things she seems like she's not and that re religious mania thing kind of seems to be a little bit
fitting but you'll also later you'll hear something that happens that you're like what happened
here okay like something's ay you know and just the way she talks about it the way she's sitting there saying like well
she just she felt like she had to just kill an infant and hold it to her breast like I don't know about that like I I
don't know who knows that's the thing she's I she's young she's like a teenager at this point so it's just I
think it's almost too much for me to like believe that she's fully saying saying these things like it maybe it's
just because it's so gruesome and awful could be and the thought of her killing entire families that's the other thing
is like you did this all yourself cuz you're naming accompli and they're getting cleared so like who are your
accompli yeah what well what about the other ones that were arrested they all did it together and maybe but they kept
getting families were getting killed after they were arrested yeah so who are the other people and she can't point to
well maybe she doesn't want to point to anybody else but she was well that that's actually responsible maybe she's
just having them chase down leads of yeah but you know what I mean why to [ __ ] with them people do that all the
time you're going down yeah but maybe she knew that maybe she's like I'm going down maybe I might might as well have
fun on the way out maybe that was fun for her maybe if they really do if she really does believe and obviously this
is theorizing because I don't know if she is could he be guilty or not I really don't yeah um but if I'll I'll go
with the like if she is guilty then then this seems to be something that's like we wanted to like cleanse you know the
moral perversion and all this [ __ ] like when she was talking about that so it feels like this is if if she is
guilty and if there is a group of people doing this like an offshoot of some kind
of religious thing M then they seem to be doing it because they need to cleanse this horrible thing that's happening so
if she's caught it makes sense that she would want it to continue right like you
said like she's going to have them chase down false leads because she wants the other real co-conspirators to be able to
continue this grand plan that they have exactly so there is a way of looking at it like that that you go okay maybe and
then maybe she'll still go to maybe in her mind she still goes to wherever she wants to go once she gets taken down
because she didn't [ __ ] with the plan because she didn't stop the plan and she
kept it in motion exactly so you're right it could it could absolutely be that kind of religious you know
fanaticism that we can't understand but then at the same time she did say that they picked these families at random so
how do you know that they're morally perverse and that's the thing so it's like there was no real they said once
they pick someone it was that was it yeah but maybe they just felt like it was like some kind of divine
intervention of that's the thing maybe they just knew yeah it just came she didn't like you know uh she didn't
really spell out the process yeah like she didn't kind of like uh indulge Us in any more details about that but it's
you're maybe it could be that they just they would feel it and that was the family that had to go cuz a lot of times
that kind of [ __ ] is inexplicable anyways even if you do get an explanation because in the reality of
that is just they want to kill people right uh but yeah that's this is a fascinating case and it gets more
fascinating somehow okay now Clementine's trial began October 24th 1912 and the prosecution was relying
very heavily on her confession obviously um she had formally confessed to 17 murders and implied having committed
many more um but she uh she was also being prosecuted for the murders of uh Aima Randall and throughout the trial
Clementine continued to exhibit very strange Behavior and was frequently disruptive okay um at one point she
screamed from the stand I am the axom of the sacrifice sect I killed them all men
women and babies and I hugged the dead babies to my breast but I am not guilty of
murder okay so I see why you potentially mentally ill you just don't know and you
don't know if it's an act you don't know yeah um that would be so disturbing it would be very disturbing uh despite
their repeated attempts to control Clementine and discourage these outbursts Clementine's defense attorneys
were unable to dissuade her from demanding that her confession be entered into the trial record so she didn't want
it entered in like that confession that she just screamed out in the middle of court and they were trying to get it
taken off the Record they were like that's an outburst blah blah blah but they couldn't but she wanted it entered
into the record okay which can point both ways it can point to mental illness where she didn't do this but she's just
going along with it it can point to mental this where she did do this and she's not realizing what's happening
here uhhuh or it can point to she's part of this wild cult that and she wants it
in the record that she did this right it can go any of those ways and I could see
it going any of those ways which is so frustrating cuz I'm like I just you wish that more people and I don't know if
anybody else does but you wish that more people offered anything up well in this
next bit we'll make make you go huh cuz according to One Source she wanted it in
the trial record because quote she felt if she was to be executed an angel in a chariot of fire would save her life so
so that's a lot yeah you could again look at that two ways so the prosecution rested their case just after just one
day followed soon again by the defense who really didn't have any uh defense of do there after a deliberation the jury
returned a verdict of guilty and was um and Clementine was sentenced to life in Angola prison for the murder of AA
Randall now following her conviction Clementine kind of just disappears from the record really that's just got
convicted went to prison but then when she does pop up you're like what tell me everything cuz she popped up again in
the news nearly a year after this oh okay and according to the article and like and after that she really
disappears it's like she really just pops in every once in a while but according to the article it says that
the prisoner meaning Clementine underwent what is described as an operation of the most delicate sort oh
no performed by prison physician Doctor Sterling which left her quote one of the
mildest prisoners in the penitentiary did she have a labotomy lobotomies were not really over here at this time okay
again the article is not specific about what type of surgical procedure was performed only saying that quote the
woman's desire to slay came from a perversion of the sexual Instinct and an operation to remedy this was performed
by The Physicians so they're saying like her sexual appetite is what made her want to
kill in a statement to the Press following the operation prison manager Colonel Harrison Parker said we have had
the woman under observation ever since she has lost all traces of her old desire to kill and sings cheerfully as
she works in the fields The Cure is as complete as it is wonderful what did they do this was
before labotomy were really a thing I think it was a forced hysterctomy that's I was wondering if that's what it was
just because of the way they speak about sexual desires and all that but no matter what it was holy [ __ ]
what the [ __ ] the Cure is is as complete as it is wonderful that's chilling [ __ ] yeah and
then she's just singing and then she's just in the fields yeah which like and there's also stories like I've seen like
stories you know in they're like internet stor so like you know anybody can say any [ __ ] thing they want on
the internet but they like that people have said like that um like I've seen somebody claim that they like met this
old woman who like they grandmother know knew in the area and that this woman like told her stories about like they
never caught that you know the Axe Murder you know of New Orleans not the the other one that we talked about
before but um and kind of like gave these stories that made it seem like you know I I don't know like that just made
it seem like they knew a little more and this is like older woman and I guess like at one point she said something
like that she was you know like that she showed like a picture of her when she was younger and when they saw it it was
the picture of Clementine barnabet but she was still in prison but people think she was released from prison what
yeah and in fact authorities were so confident in this surgical procedure that they had performed on Clementine
she was released from Angola April 23rd 1923 so she didn't even do like 10 years
wait when was she that was only she only did she was convicted in like 1911 1912 yeah
probably like 1912 I would say so she was there from 1912 so what 11 years yeah what the [ __ ] I mean that like it's
a long time but not in this context if if that's what she did if that's what she did yeah and she just
Fades into society and off the Record Clementine barnabet was the only person punished for the familial Act
murders in Louisiana so they just let everybody else that they were holding go and Texas I should say she was the only
one punished for them what but the and the these were the ones that were occurred between you know 1909 1910 and
1912 yeah but the consensus seems to be that if she was responsible for any because nobody's nobody's sure if she
was or not that she couldn't have been responsible for all of them well no because she was in prison while some
continued to happen yeah like exactly many of the suspects other Suspects were arrested and in jail with her and they
were still occurring and when did they stop that's um that's the thing it's hard to say when they stop quote unquote
okay I think in 1912 it seems like they teetered out at least from the record but I don't know if that's just
like that fits The Narrative of like she's in jail now so we won't connect these okay you know what I mean but it
seems like that's the thing there's so many weird things here that's interesting that like I would be
interested and and I will do that I'll go back and I'll um I'll report back on the next episode in the beginning I'm
going to go back in the record and see like what other ones occurred and whether they were anything like similar
yeah because again if they continued then it you can say well she was part of the she was saying she was part of the
sect that was doing this and other people were around to do it yeah but also you can be like huh you know what I
mean like I there's so many ways to look at it well cuz you could also say like she got convicted maybe that scared the
other whoever was involved and they once she got convicted they were like okay they stopped and were like [ __ ] but like
but then she got out and that yeah so I'm going to take a peek and see if there's more that fit the bill this
was a very spooky one It's a Spooky one and and again you go back to why did she
confess right and why did she confess to as many why did she insist it be put in the
trial record but when you think why did she confess to as many like you said in the beginning there was more even before
that they just were like not as similar which does lead you to wonder like sometimes that happens in people's early
days of killing they change it up and they get better at it you know I hate to say it like that for lack of a better
term yeah yeah so maybe 's many ways to look at this and there's many ways to either say she
is mentally ill and suffered yeah and that this was just placed on her because they needed someone to pin it on or
maybe she was mentally ill and she did it and she did it I lean a little to more toward she had some kind of
involvement in this it feels like she did have some kind of involv I can't get past that apron I can't get past that
apron and I can't get past the fact that like she was so adamant that her father
be put in prison and and she hid these bloody clothes for him and Y it leads you to
wonder like did she say oh I did it for my dad in case they found anything in her possession yeah and then her dad's
in jail and they do find something in her possession it's like okay well it's not your dad now yeah see it's a very
interesting case and I'm glad people suggested it cuz this it's fascinating I can't get past the because it would be
one thing if she had a bloody apron like you know things happen like whatever yeah but there was brain matter on the
apron and that they match it's a it's human and it matched one of family I mean and it would be one thing if it was
an if it was a apron or an apron but it was her apron it was hers and it was found in her room hidden hidden
mhm that's bizarre and then she confessed yeah and then what [ __ ] operation did they give her I know I
feel like it has to be some kind of hysterctomy it did sound that as soon as you started talking about like her
sexual appe and ited and if you look there is no they never released what it was you can't find it anywhere but a lot
of people do feel like it was probably a hysterctomy huh and then like if she wanted to talk about it later like and
obviously that's like just people on the internet talking who knows could just be
to like add to the spooky Vibes of it all of course wow weird [ __ ] case dude very interested to he interesting
one uh next episode yeah I'm going to take a peek because now I'm curious so I'll update you guys in the beginning of
the next episode yeah I very much enjoyed your coverage of that that was that was a thinker and thanks to Dave
for the help because this was a very interesting one Dave forever Dave forever wow well we hope you keep
listening and we hope you keep it weird but not so Weir that you don't keep thinking about this because I'm never
going to stop probably it's intense bye [Music] [Music] [Music] I think I'm ready
[Laughter] go I'm ready sometimes I'll just be singing that was good that was good

From about 1910 to 1912, an alarming number of axe murders were occurring across the American South and Southwest. Though many would speculate as to the identity of perpetrator, including the theory that a single individual was responsible, many of these murders would remain unsolved and contribute to macabre urban legends that endure to this day. In New Orleans, however, the brutal axe murders of at least five Black families in 1911 and 1912 are attributed to Clementine Barnabet, an African American teenager who confessed to the crimes.

Despite having confessed to as many as thirty-five murders, and having been convicted and incarcerated for one, the veracity of Barnabet’s claim has long been in doubt. Tried and convicted on very little evidence, Barnabet’s story changed many times following her arrest and eventually came to include sensational and highly questionable claims of her belonging to a Voodoo religious sect that engaged in human sacrifice. Not only were these claims unsupported by any real evidence, but they also suggested the girl may have been suffering from profound mental illness and had nothing whatsoever to do with the murders in and around New Orleans. But if Clementine Barnabet wasn’t the killer, why did she confess to such brutal, wicked crimes?

Thank you to the incredible Dave White or Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research!

References

Crowley Daily Signal. 1911. "Brutal murder of negro family is discovered in West Crowley." Crowley Daily Signal, Janaury 26: 1.

—. 1909. "Rayne scene of brutal murder." Crowley Daily Signal, November 13: 1.

—. 1911. "Six murdered in Lafayette." Crowley Daily Signal, November 27: 1.

Crowley Signal. 1911. "Negro murderer was convicted." Crowley Signal, October 28: 5.

Fort Wayne News. 1912. "Seventeen murders were confessed to." Fort Wayne News, October 25: 17.

Lafayette Advertiser. 1912. "Clementine Barnabet sane." Lafayette Advertiser, October 22: 4.

—. 1911. "Horrible crime." Lafayette Advertiser, February 28: 1.

Monroe News-Star. 1911. "Butchery of human beings." Monroe News-Star, November 28: 1.

—. 1912. "Sacrifice sext slaughter 26." Monroe News-Star, January 23: 1.

New Iberia Enterprise and Independent Observer. 1913. "Blood lust cut out of Clementine Barnabet." New Iberia Enterprise and Independent Observer, August 9: 1.

Osborne, Jeffery. 2012. Preventing Lethal Violence Neighborhood by Neighborhood; Proceedings of the 2012 Homicide Research Working Group Annual Symposium. Conference Proceedings, New York, NY: Homicide Research Working Group.

The Times. 1912. "Five negroes are murdered in a Lake Charles cottage." The Times, January 22: 1.

—. 1912. "Gives names of 3 of "ax gang"." The Times, April 3: 1.

—. 1912. "Negro woman confessed to slaying 20." The Times, April 2: 1.

The Times-Democrat. 1912. "Amplifies confession." The Times-Democrat, April 4: 6.

Times-Democrat. 1912. "Blood and brain from living person spattered girl's clothes." Times-Democrat, January 18: 2.

Unknown. 1912. "Voodoo's horrors break out again." Atalanta Journal, March 11: 50.

Weekly Iberian. 1912. "Hoodoo doctor arrested and identified by Clementine Burke." Weekly Iberian, April 13: 2.

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Brief Summary

Clementine Barnabet is linked to a series of brutal axe murders in early 1900s Louisiana, raising questions of guilt and media sensationalism.

Key points

The Louisiana Axe Murders. A series of brutal axe murders occurred between 1909 and 1912, targeting entire families.
Clementine Barnabet's Arrest. Clementine Barnabet was arrested after bloody clothes were found in her room.
The Chilling Inquisition. A family is murdered, and the killer leaves a chilling message on the wall.
The Tally of Innocent Lives. Discussion on the interpretation of justice and the tallying of victims.
Clementine's Shocking Confession. Clementine Barnabet claims to have murdered over 20 people while in jail.
Clementine's Trial Begins. Clementine's trial starts with her bizarre behavior and shocking confessions.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Oh my God, little babies!

Reacting to the murder of children.

4:30WatchJul 1, 2024

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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