Charles "Carl" Panzram (June 28, 1891 – September 5, 1930) was an American rapist, serial killer, and habitual offender. In prison confessions and in his autobiography, Panzram confessed to having murdered twenty-one boys and men, only five of which could be corroborated. He is suspected of having killed more than a hundred boys and men in the United States alone, and several more in Portuguese Angola.
Panzram also confessed to having committed more than a thousand acts of rape against males of all ages. After a lifetime of crime, during which he served many prison terms and escaped from many prisons, Panzram was executed by hanging in 1930 for the murder of a prison employee at the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas.
Carl Panzram was born on June 28, 1891, on a farm near East Grand Forks, Minnesota, the sixth of seven children born to East Prussian immigrants Johann "John" Gottlieb Panzram, and Mathilda Elizabeth "Lizzie" Panzram (née Bolduan).
Panzram later reflected on his early childhood with the sentiment that he was not liked by other children. By the age of five he claimed that he was a liar and thief, and recalled that he became meaner the older he grew. Panzram's father abandoned the family when he was seven years old. Around the same time, Panzram developed an infection in the mastoid process of his temporal bone, which forced him to undergo surgery, which was performed at home and only worsened the infection, so he was later taken to the hospital for further surgery.
It is unknown whether he suffered brain damage as a result of the incident. Eventually, four of his five older brothers left as well. One of them, his older stepbrother Louis Price, drowned in May 1905 while working as a lumberjack.
Panzram's run-ins with the law started in 1899, at age 8, when he was charged in juvenile court with being drunk and disorderly. In 1903, at age 12, he was arrested and jailed for being drunk and "incorrigible". Not long after this second arrest, Panzram stole cake, apples and a revolver from a neighbor's home.
In October 1903, Panzram's mother sent him to the Minnesota State Training School, purportedly a reform school. Panzram later wrote in his autobiography that he was repeatedly beaten, tortured and raped by staff members, in a workshop the children dubbed "the paint shop" due to leaving the room "painted" with bruises and blood. Panzram hated the school so much that he decided to burn it down, and did so successfully and without detection on July 7, 1905.
Some accounts claim Panzram killed a 12-year-old boy here. In January 1906, Panzram was paroled from Red Wing Training School, where he had been detained after stealing money from his mother's pocketbook. By his early teens Panzram exhibited alcoholism and had a lengthy criminal record, mostly for burglary and robbery offenses. At age 14, a couple of weeks after his parole and two weeks after attempting to kill a Lutheran cleric with a revolver, Panzram ran away from home to live on the streets. He often traveled via train cars, and later recalled having been gang raped by a group of homeless men on one of these occasions.
In the summer of 1906, Panzram was arrested for burglary in Butte, Montana, and sentenced to one year's imprisonment at Montana State Reform School in Miles City. He later claimed that after a guard named Bushart punished him, Panzram assaulted and critically injured him with a wooden board. As punishment, Panzram had to spend some time in solitary confinement. In 1907, Panzram and a safecracker, James Benson, escaped from Montana State Reform School and stole guns in Terry, Montana. In the coming weeks, Panzram and Benson robbed people, houses, and repeatedly broke into stores and burned down buildings, especially churches, in acts of arson in the towns of Glendive, Crane, and Sidney. In Fargo, North Dakota, the two men separated.
Later in 1907, after getting drunk in a saloon in Helena, Montana, Panzram enlisted in the United States Army and was assigned to the 6th Infantry at Fort William Henry Harrison. Refusing to take orders from officers and being generally insubordinate, he was convicted of larceny for stealing $88.24 worth of supplies. He served a prison sentence at hard labor in the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, between 20 April 1908 and August 1910. U.S. Secretary of War William Howard Taft approved Panzram's sentence. Panzram later claimed that while he had been a "rotten yegg" before imprisonment at the military penitentiary, "any shred of goodness left in him was smashed out" during his time at Fort Leavenworth.
After his release and dishonorable discharge, Panzram resumed his criminal activities. Stealing items that ranged from bicycles to yachts, he was caught and imprisoned multiple times. He served prison sentences under his own name and aliases in: Fresno, California; Rusk, Texas; The Dalles, Oregon; Harrison, Idaho; Butte, Montana; Montana State Prison; Oregon State Penitentiary; Bridgeport, Connecticut (as "John O'Leary"); Sing Sing Correctional Facility, New York; Clinton Correctional Facility, New York; Washington, D.C., and Leavenworth, Kansas. While incarcerated, Panzram frequently attacked guards and refused to follow their orders. The guards retaliated, subjecting him to beatings and other punishments.
In his autobiography, Panzram wrote that he was "the spirit of meanness personified" and that he would often rape men whom he had robbed. He was noted for his large stature and great physical strength—due to years of hard labor at Leavenworth and other prisons—which aided him in overpowering most men.
Panzram claimed in his autobiography that after escaping from a chain gang at Rusk, Texas, he went to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico in the winter of 1910 to try to enlist in the Federales. After being refused, Panzram met a half-Indian from Oregon who had just been released from prison in Yuma, Arizona; together they took a train to Del Rio, Texas, a small town 425 miles (684 km) east of El Paso. He later claimed to have abducted, assaulted and strangled a man about a mile from the town and then stolen $35 from the victim.
The two men later parted ways and Panzram crossed the border into Mexico again, this time to Agua Prieta, where he joined the Mexican Army's Foreign Legion, known as the Northern Brigade Mexico. During his short service, which lasted about a month, he was disappointed to discover that looting had become widespread throughout the country, and that all the places he visited had been plundered long before. He deserted, stealing weapons and a horse, riding it towards the border until it died of exhaustion. He then began to make his way to California.
In the summer of 1911, going by the alias "Jefferson Davis", Panzram was arrested in Fresno, California for stealing a bicycle. He was sentenced to six months in county jail, but escaped after thirty days. He claimed that after his escape, while riding on a boxcar in California, he disarmed a man, a "railway detective" or "railway brakeman" and forced him to rape a homeless man at gunpoint before throwing them both off the train. Then he proceeded to Oregon, where he made a living as a logger.
Panzram admitted years later that once, when hiding in a bordello, his wallet was stolen, and he was infected with gonorrhea. He became paranoid, claiming that the law was always on his trail but could never catch him. In 1913, going by the alias "Jack Allen", he was arrested in The Dalles, Oregon for highway robbery, assault and sodomy. He broke out of jail after two months. He was arrested again in Harrison, Idaho under the alias "Jeff Davis", but escaped from county jail.
On April 7, 1913, under the alias "Jeff Davis," Panzram was arrested in Malta, Montana: "A fellow giving his name as Jeff Davis was arrested Monday morning for disorderly conduct and placed in the county jail. During the day information came from Chinook that he was wanted there for breaking into a dentist's office and stealing a lady's fur lined coat and a tube of gold. A Chinook officer came after Jeff Tuesday. The coat in question was sold in Malta for $5.00 and by the way it looks like the party bought $5.00 worth of experience instead of coat." In Chinook, under the alias "Jefferson Davis", he was sentenced to one year in prison for burglary, to be served at the Montana State Prison.