In the pre-dawn hours of October 30, 1947, a night of unimaginable violence shattered the peace of a home in Tacoma, Washington, ending the lives of a widowed mother and her teenage daughter. The victims were Bertha Kludt, a 52-year-old female, and her 17-year-old, Beverly June Kludt. Their brutal murders marked the end of one of the most prolific and far-reaching killing sprees in American history, leading to the capture of a man who would confess to dozens of homicides across the country.
Bertha Kludt, who had immigrated to America from Russia, was a mother of five. After her husband, Edward, a carpenter, passed away, she continued to raise her family in their Tacoma home. By the autumn of 1947, only her youngest child, Beverly, a high school student, still lived with her. Their lives were quiet and unassuming until a transient laborer named Jake Bird chose their house for what he later claimed began as a simple burglary.
In the early morning darkness, neighbors were jolted awake by blood-curdling screams coming from the Kludt residence and immediately called the police. Two Tacoma police officers, Andrew Sabutis and Evan Davies, were dispatched to the house on South 21st Street. As they arrived around 2:30 a.m., they saw a man burst out of the back door, crash through a picket fence, and flee into the night. The officers gave chase, eventually cornering the suspect in an alley. The man, who was barefoot, pulled a knife and attacked the officers before being subdued.
Inside the home, police discovered a horrific scene. Both Bertha and Beverly June were found dead on the kitchen floor, having been bludgeoned to death with an axe. The weapon, which had been taken from a shed on the Kludt's property, was left leaning against a wall near the door. Investigators later determined that the intruder, after removing his shoes to move quietly, had stolen $1.50 from Bertha's purse. It is believed he first attacked Bertha, and that Beverly was killed when she heroically ran downstairs to try and save her mother.
The man captured fleeing the scene was 45-year-old Jake Bird, a Louisiana native with an extensive criminal record spanning 31 years of incarceration for burglary and assault. He worked as a railroad laborer, a job that facilitated his transient lifestyle and, as it would turn out, his decades-long trail of violence. At the Tacoma City Jail, Bird quickly confessed to the Kludt murders, initially framing them as a burglary that had gone wrong. The evidence against him was overwhelming: blood and brain tissue from both victims were on his clothing, and his bloody fingerprints were found in the house and on the axe.
Bird's trial for the first-degree murder of Bertha Kludt was swift, lasting only three days. On November 26, 1947, a Pierce County jury took just 35 minutes to find him guilty and recommend the death penalty. At his sentencing, Bird delivered a rambling 20-minute speech, ending with what became known as the "Jake Bird hex," proclaiming that those involved in his conviction would die before he did. His execution was initially set for January 1948, but Governor Monrad C. Wallgren granted a reprieve after Bird made a stunning claim: he had committed 44 other murders across the nation and offered to help solve them.
Detectives from multiple states interviewed Bird on death row. He provided details that substantiated his involvement in at least 11 other homicides, and he was considered a prime suspect in many more. His preferred method was an axe or hatchet, and his victims were predominantly white women. After his appeals were exhausted, Jake Bird, known as "The Tacoma Ax-Killer," was executed by hanging at the Washington State Penitentiary on July 15, 1949. His body was buried in an unmarked grave in the prison cemetery. The brutal and sudden end to Bertha and Beverly Kludt's lives brought to justice one of history's most prolific, yet lesser-known, serial killers.
