Panzram: A Journal of Murder [Paperback]

PANZRAM: A Journal of Murder by Thomas E. Gaddis and James O. Long


In his time Carl Panzram murdered twenty-one human beings and committed just about every kind of impulsive psychopathic crime imaginable. Others have killed more - doubtless done as much damage - but because he wrote with such lucid unrepentance about his life and acts, Panzram stands out, leaving behind as eloquent a testimony as any criminal who put pen to paper.

I am 36 years old and have been a criminal all my life. I have 11 felony convictions against me. I have served 20 years of my life in jails, reform schools and prisons. I know why I am a criminal. Others may have different theories as to my life but I have no theory about it. I know the facts. If any man was a habitual criminal, I was one. In my life I have broken every law that was ever made by both man and God.

Sadistically punished at the reform schools he attended after his family broke up around 1899, he hit the road at fourteen, riding boxcars, robbing and setting fire to churches, and escaping whenever he could from jail. His descriptions of the tortures he experienced in prison at the hands of the warders are like something out of the Inquisition's annals. Travelling on steamers to Mexico, the Belgian Congo, and Europe, he became a proficient and remorseless murderer, despatching boys and young men (often his lovers) with rocks and pistols. Later on in captivity Panzram was to be very clear about who and why he became so wild.

If someone had a young tiger cub in a cage and then mistreated it until it got savage and bloodthirsty and then turned it loose to prey on the rest of the world, to go anywhere and kill anyone it wanted to, then there would be a hell of a roar from those in danger of the mad tiger. Everyone would believe that to be the wrong thing to do. But if some people do the same thing to other people, then the world is shocked, surprised, offended [...] They done it to me and then don't like it when I give them the same does they gave me [...] If you are going to go on teaching others as you have taught me, then you must suffer the same as I.

So while he would never admit it, decrying his religious schooling at length, Panzram's indoctrination at the hands of the reform school priests had burned an indelible philosophy straight from the Old Testament on the young Carl, one of righteous vengeance. Panzram sets out his life and crimes, brilliant stories of terrible deeds. He writes of his ideas of the roots of crime and institutional corruption, the scope of American crime, demolishes all fiction-romanticised ideas about criminals, and compiles the best glossary of criminal argot I've read.

Had it not been for a meeting in 1928 with Henry Lesser, the life of Panzram would have been forgotten after his execution in 1930. For the next two years Lesser, a prison guard with a modernist reforming ethos, worked at making Panzram his friend, encouraging his writing and, despite Panzram's firm position that it was impossible, working to nurture some kind of conscience back into the convict's dark soul. It was to be of no use for Panzram who argued with a terrible finality (that must have been crushing for Lesser) that he was a unchangeable product of the cruelties inflicted against him. Lesser's efforts on his behalf though meant that Panzram's book (of which lengthy sections feature here) was eventually published thirty years after his death and brought to public attention the horrors of the unreformed system.

A most timely book that should be read by anyone interested in extremes of the mind or life inside the American penal system in the first half of the 20th century.

I've always wondered what made people like this do such awful and disgusting things as described in this book. I now have a better understanding after reading it. Not all criminals are made by bad parenting skills or savage prison systems but in this case it can't be mistaken what lead this man into what he would eventually become. Everything about Carl Panzram's story is a tragedy. His days as a child, adulthood, his confessed murders,the sickening natures of these murders and even his own death (which he gladly welcomed with open arms) will make anyone thankful they were not subject to these conditions.

Carl Panzam, a Minnesota farm boy grew up in incredible poverty on a worn out dirt farm near the town of Warren. he had no toys except for a shovel and hoe, never had a birthday, subject to vicious beatings at the hands of family members. he was sent to the 'reform' school, a type of institution little better that a prison where spendingtax money on stone construction and heating systems and cafeteria meals were immensely, more important that helping troubled boys so that they can become usefull honest citizens. There Panzram, was subjected to vicious beatings administered by the local cracker staff because he was 'recalcitrant' in his english studies.He was probably, deslexic and had a great deal of difficulty with his studies. it was a thoroughly mean horrible place to grow up in. his experiences in this place, (just being in a place like this would stygmatise a person for life) and the tortures imposed on him in his adult life spent mostly in prison, he was probably molested by a reform achool staff member, help turn him into an utter unredeemable monster. he was remarkably, frank about his evil selfand his unredeemableness and about his sole goal in life to murder as many as possible, men, women, and even children. a classic example of how the state and its minions, are supposed to reform criminals into usefull citizensbut, in fact turn them into frankensteins.A must for people seriously interestedin criminalogy and a very unusual book.

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