The Midnight Assassin
Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America's First Serial Killer
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Narrated by:
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Clint Jordan
About this listen
A sweeping narrative history of a terrifying serial killer - America's first - who stalked Austin, Texas, in 1885.
In the late 1800s, the city of Austin, Texas, was on the cusp of emerging from an isolated western outpost into a truly cosmopolitan metropolis. But beginning in December 1884, Austin was terrorized by someone equally as vicious and, in some ways, far more diabolical than London's infamous Jack the Ripper. For almost exactly one year, the Midnight Assassin crisscrossed the entire city, striking on moonlit nights, using axes, knives, and long steel rods to rip apart women from every race and class.
At the time the concept of a serial killer was unthinkable, but the murders continued, the killer became more brazen, and the citizens' panic reached a fever pitch. Before it was all over, at least a dozen men would be arrested in connection with the murders, and the crimes would expose what a newspaper described as "the most extensive and profound scandal ever known in Austin". And yes, when Jack the Ripper began his attacks in 1888, London police investigators did wonder if the killer from Austin had crossed the ocean to terrorize their own city.
With vivid historical detail and novelistic flair, Texas Monthly journalist Skip Hollandsworth brings this terrifying saga to life. The introduction and epilogue are read by the author.
©2016 Walter Ned Hollandsworth (P)2016 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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In the closing days of 1799, the United States was still a young republic, its uncertain future contested by the two major political parties of the day: the well-moneyed Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton, and the populist Republicans, led by Aaron Burr. The two finest lawyers in New York, Burr and Hamilton were bitter rivals both in and out of the courtroom, and as the next election approached - with Manhattan likely to be the swing district on which the presidency would hinge - their animosity reached a fever pitch.
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The Trial of the Century
- By Jean on 09-06-15
By: Paul Collins
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Manhunt
- The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer
- By: James L. Swanson
- Narrated by: Richard Thomas
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Abridged
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The murder of Abraham Lincoln set off the greatest manhunt in American history, the pursuit and capture of John Wilkes Booth. From April 14 to April 26, 1865, the assassin led Union cavalry and detectives on a wild 12-day chase through the streets of Washington, D.C., across the swamps of Maryland, and into the forests of Virginia, while the nation, still reeling from the just-ended Civil War, watched in horror and sadness.
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Fascinating!
- By F. Elizabeth Hauser on 12-14-08
By: James L. Swanson
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Hell's Princess
- The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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In the pantheon of serial killers, Belle Gunness stands alone. She was the rarest of female psychopaths, a woman who engaged in wholesale slaughter, partly out of greed but mostly for the sheer joy of it. Between 1902 and 1908, she lured a succession of unsuspecting victims to her Indiana “murder farm". Some were hired hands. Others were well-to-do bachelors. All of them vanished without a trace.
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Can a book about a serial killer be entertaining?
- By Lori Hanson on 05-08-18
By: Harold Schechter
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Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
- By: Edward Steers Jr.
- Narrated by: William Coon
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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The assassination of Abraham Lincoln is usually told as a tale of a lone deranged actor who struck from a twisted lust for revenge. This is not only too simple an explanation; Blood on the Moon reveals that it is completely wrong. John Wilkes Booth was neither mad nor alone in his act of murder. He received the help of many, not the least of whom was Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd, the Charles County physician who has been portrayed as the innocent victim of a vengeful government.
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Thrilling and informative
- By Sean on 06-21-12
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Beale Street Dynasty
- Sex, Song, and the Struggle for the Soul of Memphis
- By: Preston Lauterbach
- Narrated by: Mirron Willis
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Following the Civil War, Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee, thrived as a cauldron of sex and song, violence and passion. But out of this turmoil emerged a center of black progress, optimism, and cultural ferment. Preston Lauterbach tells this vivid, fascinating story through the multigenerational saga of a family whose ambition, race pride, and moral complexity indelibly shaped the city that would loom so large in American life.
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Narration Speed...It's Half the Battle
- By B. Westman on 03-21-17
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A Death in Belmont
- By: Sebastian Junger
- Narrated by: Kevin Conway
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1963, with the city of Boston already terrified by a series of savage crimes known as the Boston Stranglings, a murder occurred in Belmont, just a few blocks from the house of Sebastian Junger's family, a murder that seemed to fit exactly the pattern of the Strangler. Roy Smith, a black man who had cleaned the victim's house that day, was convicted, but the terror of the Strangler continued.
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Excellent
- By Susanna on 01-13-15
By: Sebastian Junger
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Breaking Blue
- By: Timothy Egan
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1935, the Spokane police regularly extorted sex, food, and money from the reluctant hobos (many of them displaced farmers who had fled the midwestern dust bowls), robbed dairies, and engaged in all manner of nefarious crimes, including murder. This history was suppressed until 1989, when former logger, Vietnam vet, and Spokane cop Tony Bamonte discovered a strange 1955 deathbed confession while researching a thesis on local law enforcement history.
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Excellent! Highly Recommended.
- By R. Smith on 02-25-17
By: Timothy Egan
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Blood at the Root
- A Racial Cleansing in America
- By: Patrick Phillips
- Narrated by: Patrick Phillips
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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National Book Award finalist Patrick Phillips tells Forsyth's tragic story in vivid detail and traces its long history of racial violence all the way back to antebellum Georgia. Recalling his own childhood in the 1970s and '80s, Phillips sheds light on the communal crimes of his hometown and the violent means by which locals kept Forsyth all white well into the 1990s.
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when is white history month?
- By Bailey on 03-06-18
By: Patrick Phillips
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Tinseltown
- Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood
- By: William J. Mann
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 15 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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By 1920, the movies had suddenly become America's new favorite pastime and one of the nation's largest industries. Never before had a medium possessed such power to influence; yet Hollywood's glittering ascendancy was threatened by a string of headline-grabbing tragedies - including the murder of William Desmond Taylor, the popular president of the Motion Picture Directors Association, a legendary crime that has remained unsolved until now.
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Everybody's a dreamer...
- By Steven on 01-08-15
By: William J. Mann
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Buried in the Bitter Waters
- The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America
- By: Elliot Jaspin
- Narrated by: Don Leslie
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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"Leave now, or die!" From the heart of the Midwest to the Deep South, from the mountains of North Carolina to the Texas frontier, words like these have echoed through more than a century of American history. The call heralded not a tornado or a hurricane, but a very unnatural disaster: a manmade wave of racial cleansing that purged black populations from counties across the nation.
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a compelling read with a disappointing conclusion
- By Gregory on 12-16-07
By: Elliot Jaspin
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Meandering and tedious while never delivering the promised story.
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Early in the morning of Monday, July 8, 1895, 13-year-old Robert Coombes and his 12-year-old brother, Nattie, set out from their small, yellow-brick terraced house in East London to watch a cricket match at Lord's. Their father had gone to sea the previous Friday, the boys told their neighbors, and their mother was visiting her family in Liverpool. Over the next 10 days, Robert and Nattie spent extravagantly, pawning their parents' valuables to fund trips to the theatre and the seaside. But as the sun beat down on the Coombes house, a strange smell began to emanate.
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What listeners say about The Midnight Assassin
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Lynn Beaver
- 09-01-21
A wonderful history of old Austin.
Though some simple but distinctly Texan words were badly Mis pronounced poorly I nearly gave up on this book. But I kept going and was well rewarded with a great read.
Seriously, who provinces Seguin as San Gwen?!?! They’ve never been to Texas for sure!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Thomas
- 06-07-16
America's Jack The Ripper
Would you listen to The Midnight Assassin again? Why?
I don't think so - Once is enough
What does Clint Jordan bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
A good cadence that made listening to the book 'easy on the ears'
Any additional comments?
An account of a set of murders in America that I was unaware of and a group of murders which changed physically an entire municipality - A few relics are still standing
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- Buzz Smith
- 06-25-19
I used to think I knew Texas history...
From New Year's Eve, December 31, 1884 until Christmas Eve, 1885, the city of Austin, Texas was terrorized by a killer. Possibly the first serial killer in the country. The victims, in the beginning, were black servants of white families. The police, the newspapers and the white population of Austin assumed the killer was a "bad black," or a gang of "bad blacks." The murders were horrific, in their violence. Even children were not safe, as was seen when an 11 year old daughter of a servant woman was butchered. By modern standards, the lack of urgency shown by the white officials would have been a scandal. If it had not been for the fact that the murders were occurring in or near the servants' quarters, located on the property of the white employers, one wonders if they ever would have had the focus of the authorities. Then, on Christmas Eve, two prominent white women were butchered, in separate incidents, across town from one another. Austin was living in fear and the history books seem to have forgotten these killings ever happened. Skip Hollandsworth has written a great account of what is known of the killings and sets the scene with lots of background information of those days. You can easily get lost in time and feel you lived in Austin back in the late 19th century. Before reading this book, I'd walked the streets of Austin at night and visited some of the locations mentioned in the book. It will not feel the same, the next time I do so.
A great book!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Curtis Mitchel
- 03-11-17
fantastic experience,
great narrative , it was a page turner. Free up in Austin Texas never even heard anything about the murders
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- Amazon Customer
- 05-25-16
Good story a little slow in parts
Good but information seemed unnecessarily. A lot of the society and political information was not interesting
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- Amazon Customer
- 03-14-19
pleby of Austin history
was good but focused more on Austin's history than the murders. extra four words here.
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- Carrie Mac
- 04-15-16
Very intriguing and detailed
I found myself listening to this book every second I could. I loved the narrator's voice and pace. I worried that a book with such rich detail and facts would be boring. This was far from boring. Very much enjoyed it! Great book for Ripperologists, too.
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- Jim Hughes
- 05-24-21
I Love Lost History
This is a Texas story I had never heard. The author did a wonderful job of sprinkling the historical references throughout. Every Texan should read this book.
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- Douglas
- 06-20-16
Amazing Literary Accomplishment...
An enthralling true crime story of America's first documented serial killer. An absolute must for the true crime lover!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Brenna
- 04-18-16
Captivating
Although it is read just factually without added drama (doesn't need it), the story held my attention completely!
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