Most people who have heard of Jake Bird know him for his hex, but he was an axe wielding serial killer who is still rumored to haunt not one, but two of the prisons in which he was held.
In 1947, Jake Bird bludgeoned two women with an axe. What seemed to be a one time robbery gone wrong would soon be revealed to be one more in a pattern of axe killings from around the country, and result in a fulfilled hex and haunting.
Research:
No author, “Hatchet Slayer Scare Has Spread To Kansas,” Spokane Daily Star, 23 Nov 1928
Wright, Brianna, “Omaha Ax Murders Pt. 2: Jake Bird Arrives In Omaha,” Briannaudreywright.wordpress.com, 23 October 2015, retrieved from: https://briannaudreywright.wordpress.com/2015/10/23/omaha-ax-murders-part-ii-jake-bird-arrives-in-omaha/
Wright, Brianna, “Omaha Ax Murders Pt. 3: The Aftermath,” Briannaudreywright.wordpress.com, 13 November 2015, retrieved from: https://briannaudreywright.wordpress.com/2015/11/13/omaha-ax-murders-part-iii-the-aftermath/
No author, “The Parole Board Did Not Free Jake Bird,” Des Moines Register, 14 January 1948
“Serial Killer Spirits: Axe Killer Jail,” Ghost Adventures (S19 E3), Travel Channel, 19 October 2019
Fosmoe, Margaret, “9 Crimes, Trials in South Bend’s History,” South Bend Tribune, 20 May 2015, retrieved from: https://www.southbendtribune.com/news/local/history/sb150/crimes-trials-in-south-bend-s-history/article_16405d4a-f98b-11e4-83ce-13a4d9501a19.html
McClary, Daryl, “Jake Bird, Convicted of Murdering Two Tacoma Women, Is Hanged on July 15, 1949,” Seattle-Post Intelligencer, 31 October 2006, retrieved from: https://www.historylink.org/File/7973
No author, “Jake Bird Tells of Past Crimes,” The Spokane Review, 2 January 1948
No author, “Killer Grilled in Ax Slayings. Admit Murder of Girl and Her Mother,” The Telegraph Herald, 2 November 1947
No author, “Pueblo Woman Found Dead in Home: Dead Several Days,” The Daily Sentinel, 2 October 1947
Gladwell, Louis, “Lee Kay Walker – Murder Case Solved,” The Ogden (Ut.) Standard Observer, 13 January 1948, retrieved from: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/21489325/lee_kay_walker_murder_case_solved/
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Researched and written by Kim Douthit
Edited and produced by Gabi Fiore.
Music by Dan Moretti.