Trollheart

Killer: Sam Mason
Epithet: “Mason of the Woods”
Type: Profit/Comfort
Nationality: American
Hunting ground(s): Saline River, Tennessee
Years active: 1792 - 1803
Weapon(s) used: Unknown
Signature (if any): Literally signed his name, or nickname anyway, in victims’ blood on trees to be found later.
Victims: 20+
Survivors: 0
Caught by: Originally, Spanish colonial police but later turned on by his own men and killed by them.
Fate: Unsure, but certainly beheaded. May have been shot by Little Harpe.

We’ve come across Mason in the previous entry, when he partnered up with the notorious Harpe Brothers. A river pirate by trade, Mason made a name for himself attacking slow-moving flatboats along the Saline River at Tennessee, mostly from his base in a big depression in the rock called Cave-in-Rock. It was from the top of this bluff that the Harpes threw their naked victim over on a blindfolded horse, an action so savage and unnecessary that Mason demanded they leave. Mason, however, though a vicious thug in later life, had a far better and more noble start than had the Harpes. He was a captain in the Virginia Militia during the War of Independence (fighting for the colonies, in direct opposition to the Harpes, who fought - ostensibly - for the Crown, though really for the rape, murder, burning and looting) and later even served as a justice of the peace in Pennsylvania.

I can’t find any account to explain why he turned to crime (although he had stolen horses in his early teens) but around 1792 he arrived at the Ohio River and took up a new career on the opposite side of the law, becoming a river pirate. In 1797 he moved southwest of the river to Cave-in-Rock, where he continued and expanded his piracy efforts. As noted, the Harpes joined him there but were soon kicked out due to being too bloodthirsty, and in 1799 a group of “exterminators” led by Captain Young forced them out of Kentucky and he moved to Spanish Louisiana (Missouri) where he changed careers slightly and became the feared highwayman “Mason of the Woods”. It was in this guise he would write notes in the blood of his victims to advise who had killed them, coining his own nickname.

In 1803 Mason and his gang were arrested by the Spanish colonial authorities, and when evidence of their being river pirates was confirmed, they were to be extradited back to American territory, as all of their crimes pertaining to river piracy had taken place on American land and against Americans. During the trip though they escaped. Mason eventually fell victim to the disproving of the old adage, “honour among thieves”, when Little Harpe and one of his own men killed him and took his head in for the bounty. As related above, this action backfired on them as they were recognised, arrested, tried and hanged.

Killer: Sophie Ursinus
Epithet:
Type: Comfort
Nationality: German
Hunting ground(s): Berlin
Years active: 1800 - 1803
Weapon(s) used: Poison
Signature (if any):
Victims: 3
Survivors: 1
Caught by: Police, after her servant shopped her
Fate: Sentenced to life “imprisonment” (see below) but only served thirty years, after which she was released.

In general, it does seem that poison is the weapon of choice for female serial killers. Leaving aside Countess Bathory and Darya Saltykova, who could, after all, kill with impunity and had no reason to believe they needed to cover up their crimes, given that women are not often very strong and also not always in a position to obtain or use weapons men could, and also given that they are the ones who would usually prepare and serve up food, poison has always been the way to go for the aspiring murderess. So it was with Sophie Ursinus, who was pushed into an arranged marriage at the tender age of 19, but who took a lover despite - or perhaps with the tacit approval of - her much older (and richer) husband. Both went the way of all flesh, her lover dealt with first as she feared he was to leave her, and then her husband, whom she killed to get her hands on his money.

Having successfully got away with both crimes, she was emboldened to continue her murder spree when her aunt fell victim to her poisonous touch, but she came unstuck when a servant whom she tried to do away with realised what was happening, and took evidence of her poisoned food to the police. Arrested, she was held for trial when the bodies of the three people she had killed were exhumed. Proving that her husband had been poisoned proved problematic, but in the case of her aunt it was easier (doesn’t say why; there were a few years between the deaths so maybe the more recent one showed signs of poison?) and she was convicted of her murder and the attempted murder of her servant.

Sentenced to life imprisonment, she must have bewailed her lot indeed. Incarcerated in a lavish apartment usually reserved for the warden at Glatz, she was allowed servants, fancy furniture and also allowed keep the inheritances she had killed for. She threw lavish parties until she was released in 1833, whereupon she rejoined society, with apparently her crimes all hushed up or forgotten about. She only lived another three years, but it’s a typical example of how the rich and the upper class were treated so very differently than the poor, even when they were convicted as heartless murderers.

Killer: Patty Cannon
Epithet:
Type: Profit
Nationality: American
Hunting ground(s): Delaware
Years active: 1821 - 1829
Weapon(s) used:
Signature (if any):
Victims: 4 - 11 or more
Survivors: 0
Caught by: Authorities after bodies accidentally discovered
Fate: Died in jail while awaiting trial; possibly committed suicide by taking poison

The leader of a gang who operated in the Delaware area during the first half of the nineteenth century, Cannon would capture runaway slaves and sell them back to plantation owners in the south. If she came across free black people, they would do just as well. She had no time for children, especially black ones, beating one severely when the infant cried and then burning it alive in a fire. She also had no morals (if you can attribute such a thing to slavery) when it came to slave owners, happily bashing the head of one in so that she could steal his slaves and sell them. She murdered indiscriminately, without mercy or sometimes reason, leading to the local press to call her, incorrectly, Lucretia Cannon (after Lucretia Borgia, already discussed).

Nobody will be surprised to hear that there was little if any interest in slaves going missing in neighbouring Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from where Cannon adbucted her victims, the state having the largest population of free black people in the north and no real police force, and she was never prosecuted for or even accused of the crime of kidnapping; it was the murders that did for her. Surprisingly, one of her gang was sentenced though for kidnapping, thanks to the honest efforts of Philadelphia’s mayor, and given a staggering 42 years. He died after five though.

When a tenant farmer accidentally uncovered the bodies of four people at Cannon’s farm, the jig was up. Tried for four murders (though it’s believed she is responsible for at least five times that number) she is said to have taken her own life, or alternatively, died of natural causes while awaiting trial. Given that she was in her seventies by now, quite an old age for that time, the latter cause is certainly possible.

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