Friday, November 15, 2013

American Horror Story Coven's Delphine LaLaurie & The Axeman Are Actual Historical Real Killers

Currently I think my favorite show currently on TV may be FX's American Horror Story: Coven. Wednesday, 10/9 C.

I find the hour viewing American Horror Story: Coven goes by faster than any other show I am currently viewing, thus indicating I must find American Horror Story: Coven entertaining.

Entertaining and educational.

The first episode of the 3rd iteration of American Horror Story started off in the early 1800s with Kathy Bates being a human horror, torturing, terrorizing, maiming and being a racist pig via a character named Marie Delphine LaLaurie.

Well.

I was quite surprised when I learned that Marie Delphine LaLaurie is an actual historical character who actually did the type stuff we have seen depicted in American Horror Story: Coven, well, except for being risen from the dead and brought alive in to the present time where she reacts in horror to learn that America has a black president.

Below is a blurb from the Wikipedia Delphine LaLaurie article, and below that more surprising reality horror from American Horror Story: Coven...

Marie Delphine LaLaurie (c. 1775 – c. 1842), more commonly known as Madame LaLaurie, was a Louisiana-born socialite and serial killer known for her involvement in the torture and murder of slaves.

Born in New Orleans, LaLaurie married three times over the course of her life. She maintained a prominent position in the social circles of New Orleans until April 10, 1834, when rescuers responding to a fire at her Royal Street mansion discovered bound slaves within the house who showed evidence of torture over a long period. LaLaurie's house was subsequently sacked by an outraged mob of New Orleans citizens, and it is thought that she fled to Paris, where she is believed to have died.

The latest episode of American Horror Story: Coven's first segment was set in 1919, showing the Axeman of New Orleans terrorizing the town with random ax murders, culminating in a night were the Axeman, via a letter to a local newspaper, warned the locals that they'd better be playing jazz music on a certain night or face ax annihilation.

Well, imagine my surprise at finding a Wikipedia article titled Axeman of New Orleans, which details the serial killer crime spree of a never caught murderer, including the following blurb...

"The Axeman" was not caught or identified at the time, and his crime spree stopped as mysteriously as it had started. The murderer's identity remains unknown to this day, although various possible identifications of varying plausibility have been proposed. Most notoriously, on March 13, 1919, a letter purporting to be from the Axeman was published in the newspapers saying that he would kill again at 15 minutes past midnight on the night of March 19, but would spare the occupants of any place where a jazz band was playing. That night all of New Orleans's dance halls were filled to capacity, and professional and amateur bands played jazz at parties at hundreds of houses around town. There were no murders that night.

The night of no murders on the Axeman's jazz night, was the night depicted on American Horror Story: Coven with the witches luring the Axeman into their lair by playing a non-jazz recording, where the coven then murdered the Axeman, thus ending his axed reign of terror.

I can find no Wikipedia article about an actual witches coven in New Orleans, or any speculation that it actually was a coven of witches who did in the Axeman.....

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