The Midnight Assassin: The Hunt for America's First Serial Killer

When I was a teenager, I devoured the first of several books I’ve read about the infamous Lizzie Borden (“Lizzie Borden took an ax, gave her mother forty whacks; when she saw what she had done, gave her father forty-one.”) I became fascinated with true-murder stories, and over the years I’ve read several. Perhaps as I matured, my thirst for murder, thank goodness, lessened, so it has been quite a while since I delved into true crime. But when I heard about Skip Hollandsworth’s The Midnight Assassin, I knew I had to read it. It has one of the things I like in a book: a compelling story set in Texas, my home state. Hollandsworth’s book is compelling, indeed. He spent hours and hours perusing old news stories, interviewing descendants, and peering over vintage photographs to piece together the story of the first serial killings in the US. We find, in the epilogue, that the author became so engrossed in his research that he had an overwhelming desire to solve these murders from well over a century ago. I won’t tell you if he did or not, for that would spoil the hunt. Hollandsworth, a journalist, does not just relate the murders, however. He also “sets the scene,” giving us copious details about Austin, Texas, at the time of the murders. And his writing style is far from cold journalism. While leading up to yet another murder, the author regales the good times, the calm, the everyday living going on in the town, and then he whops us with a two sentence chapter ending that sets us smack in the middle of yet another killing. And what makes this technique even more compelling is that not every chapter that utitilizes the “fun times” narrative ends with a gruesome murder, so we, the readers, are constantly wondering if he is leading up to another horrific crime or not. And along the way, we are treated to tales of the politicians, the lawmen, the doctors, the servants, the prominent citizens, and the blunders that made Austin the town it was in the late eighteen hundreds. This is fascinating journalism and fascinating story-telling.

Skip Hollandsworth does an excellent job of taking you back in time to the late 1800s in Austin, Texas as a serial killer terrorizes the city. Layered with details about what was happening in Austin at the time the story comes to life as the citizens and lawmen hunt the murderer. The story ultimately covers years as the search and theories evolve. Most interesting was the timing of the murders, which happened around the time of the Ripper in London and HH Holmes in Chicago (Devil in the White City). Not that there was a connection with those, but the speculation is there and an interesting historical side note. Well done and would be enjoyed by anyone who enjoys reading true crime stories.

Lot's of colorful Austin history and political drama, but not so much on the actual murders. I did not like that there was only speculation and no resolution. The one thing they said at the beginning somewhere was that once so and so was locked up there were no more killings. Not sure why they said that if it was not going to be elaborated upon. Also, the tie to Jack the Ripper was nonsense. Why would a killer all of a sudden change his tool of choice. Didn't they have axes in England at that time? I learned some things about Austin and it's history and I verified many of the facts stated in the book. So as a learning experience about a town in its infancy, it was good. But it was 90% history of the city vs around 10% facts about the murders.

I was born in San Marcos, spent a good deal of my life in Austin. I had never as much as heard a whisper about this case. I recall with great fondness the Moonlite Towers, there was one in my neighborhood on the corner of S. First and W. Monroe. My family moved from East Austin to South Austin in 1959, I don't recall any Towers in East Austin. If there had been they would have been close to I35, the line that then divided "white" Austin from black and Hispanic, north of the Colorado. Today, areas east of I35, north of the river, are no longer strictly reserved to racial minorities. The land became to valuable and too close business Austin just west of I35. I was near the University the day Whitman went on his killing spree. One of my Travis High School classmates was wounded in that incident. Seems I vaguely recall another serial killing in either Round Rock, TX or Hutto, Tx, shortly after the UT Tower shootings. Being a person that was raised under segregation and Jim Crow laws, nevertheless I never really understood why my Mom hated white people so. She was born in 1922 Texas, the daughter of a sharecropper in Hays and Caldwell counties. The racial atmosphere she experienced would have been like that of 1890's Austin, but worst in counties south of Travis. It is fascinating to have born in such interesting times, between the 1950's and present day I have seen changes, not unlike my maternal grandmother that was born in Texas, in 1898 and passed in 1998. She too saw walls fall and a man land on the moon. Which, she adamantly refused to believe happened. Great book, excellently written and documented.

Despite knowing that the book is about an unsolved murder, the story Is one of suspense, each chapter taking the reader hot on the trail of the 'assassin'. While the murderer is never revealed, the city of Austin and its people emerge as more than the historical setting and supporting cast.

Amazing. Love the story, very well written, well documented .

Vivid storytelling of a city on the rise caught up in the fear of a serial murderer.

Author Skip Hollandsworth first read about the events in this book when he picked up a pamphlet about Jack the Ripper, which speculated that the Ripper was the same man who committed a series of similar murders in, “a small city in Texas.” In December, 1884, a series of attacks and murders began in Austin, Texas. At first, these attacks were mainly on servant girls, usually housed in shacks, outside the affluent houses where they worked. As the vicious attacks continued, the perpetrator was given the rather unwieldy title of, “the Servant Girl Annihilator.” Most of the women attacked were black, although two Swedish girls were also injured’ although, to be fair to the authorities, they took these attacks extremely seriously and there was no hint they were not taken seriously due to the class/race of most of the victims. There was little in the way of description to aid those hunting for the attacker– the killer was variously described as ‘black,’ ‘white,’ ‘yellow,’ or even reported as fleeing the scene in a dress. Servant women in Austin lived in fear of going to sleep – afraid that they would be axed in their beds. However, even sleeping in their employee’s kitchens did not keep them safe. It seemed as though this attacker could walk into anywhere and wreak havoc. In despair, various detectives were brought in, men arrested and even charged, but there seemed no real evidence, or clues. Tracker dogs were at a loss to discover any scent. There were no real descriptions or clues and why did the killer sometimes just seem to want to terrorise and, at other times, seem intent on killing? When two white women were killed in one night, the city rose in uproar, demanding answers and justice, but still those charged with investigating the crimes seemed at a loss. This is very much a picture of a time and place, as well as a well investigated true crime book. I loved all the details of this – the message sent for Pinkerton’s detectives, which ended up being delivered to the wrong detective agency, the undercover detectives whose cover was blown almost as soon as they arrived, the political concerns about the crimes and the panic which spread through the town. The author does a good job of recreating the feeling of a new town, trying to create itself as a successful and affluent place to live and work and keep its citizens safe against an unknown attacker. A good read if you enjoy historical true crime.

An enjoyable read, albeit with a slightly anticlimactic conclusion. The true story of a series of brutal murders in Texas in the 1880s and Skip Hollandsworth's obsessive (by his own admission) search for information in an attempt to solve whodunnit. It makes you appreciate today's modern detective methods and the wonders of forensic science. It also underlines the damning racial prejudice and social imbalance that impacted on the community post-crime. Written in a very accessible novel-like style and featuring many interesting photographs from the era. Well worth a read.