In the pre-dawn hours of October 30, 1947, the quiet of Tacoma, Washington’s Hilltop district was shattered by terrified screams coming from a small house on South 21st Street. Inside, a night of unimaginable horror was unfolding for 17-year-old Beverly June Kludt, a local high school student, and her widowed mother. The two women were victims of one of America’s most prolific, yet lesser-known, serial killers, a man whose capture would unravel a history of violence that spanned more than a
dozen states.
Beverly’s mother, 52-year-old Bertha Kludt, was awakened around 2:30 a.m. by an intruder in her home. The man, a transient railroad worker named Jake Bird, had grabbed an axe from a shed on the property, removed his shoes, and slipped inside through an unlocked back door, intending to commit a burglary. When Bertha confronted him, he brutally attacked her with the axe. Hearing her mother’s screams, Beverly rushed from her upstairs bedroom to help. As she entered the kitchen, she too was met with the same savage violence, murdered as she tried to come to her mother's aid.
Neighbors who heard the screams had called the police, and two Tacoma officers arrived just as a barefoot man burst out the back door. The officers gave chase, pursuing the man as he crashed through a picket fence and scaled several more backyard fences before being cornered in an alley. The fugitive, agitated and cornered, pulled out a jackknife and attacked the officers, stabbing one in the shoulder and cutting the other’s hand before he was subdued and arrested. The man, whose clothes were spattered with blood and brain matter, was identified as 45-year-old Jake Bird. Back at the Kludt home, police discovered the horrific scene: Bertha was found in her bedroom, and Beverly’s body was on the kitchen floor. The bloody axe had been left leaning against a wall.
At the Tacoma City Jail, Bird confessed to the killings. He initially claimed it was a burglary that had gone horribly wrong, stating he only brought the axe to scare anyone who might bother him while he stole $1.50 from Bertha’s purse. He alleged that a struggle broke out when the women discovered him, resulting in their deaths. However, evidence suggested Bird had attempted to sexually assault Bertha before killing her. The evidence against him was overwhelming: his bloody fingerprints were on the axe and in the house, and his shoes were found at the scene.
Charged with two counts of first-degree murder, Jake Bird’s trial was swift, lasting only three days. A jury deliberated for just 35 minutes before finding him guilty on November 26, 1947, and recommending the death penalty. At his sentencing, after his request for a new trial was denied, Bird was asked if he had anything to say. He stood and spoke for 20 minutes, ending with a chilling declaration that became known as the "Jake Bird Hex." He proclaimed, "I'm putting the Jake Bird hex on all of you who had anything to do with my being punished. Mark my words, you will die before I do."
Scheduled to hang in January 1948, Bird won a 60-day reprieve from the governor by making a shocking claim: he had committed 44 other murders across the country and offered to help police solve them. Detectives from numerous states interviewed him, and authorities were able to substantiate at least 11 of the murders, linking him to a violent trail of bludgeoning deaths, mostly of white women, in states including Florida, Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska. This revealed the man who killed Beverly and Bertha Kludt to be a serial killer who had preyed on victims for nearly two decades while traveling the country as a laborer.
In the year following his conviction, the legend of his hex grew as six men involved in his case died, including the trial judge, two officers who took his confession, and one of his own defense attorneys, most from heart attacks. Despite numerous appeals that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, Bird’s conviction was upheld. On July 15, 1949, he was executed by hanging at the Washington State Penitentiary before 125 witnesses. His reign of terror, which ended with the tragic and heroic final moments of Beverly June Kludt, was finally over. He was buried in an unmarked grave in the prison cemetery.
