In the spring of 1927, a shadow of fear stretched over Tampa, Florida, as a series of brutal slayings terrorized the community. This reign of terror would culminate in the horrific massacre of an entire family, a crime that would lead to the capture of one of Florida's early serial killers. The final victims of this spree were a carpenter named Herman “Looney” Merrell, his wife Nettie, and three of their young children, who had only recently moved into their home on the corner of 1st Avenue
and 31st Street.
On the morning of May 27, 1927, the Merrells' 15-year-old son, Kenneth, returned home from a night spent with friends in St. Petersburg to a scene of unimaginable horror. Inside the quiet house, he discovered the bodies of his family members. His father, Herman, his mother, Nettie, who operated a drink stand, and three of his siblings had been brutally murdered in their sleep. The victims included 11-year-old Ralph, 5-year-old Mildred, and the family's youngest member, 5-week-old infant son Lester. Miraculously, another brother, 8-year-old Hugh, survived the slaughter by hiding under his bed, unseen by the killer.
Investigators found the murder weapon left behind in a bedroom: a railroad spike maul, an unusual tool that suggested the perpetrator might have worked for the railroad. The city was already on edge from a string of unsolved axe murders that had begun the previous year, and the savagery of the Merrell family massacre intensified the public's panic and demand for justice.
The day after the discovery, a Tampa police lieutenant found a clue that would break the case open. In a lumber yard not far from the Merrell home, he found a newspaper article about the murders alongside evidence that someone had been sleeping there. Police staked out the location and soon arrested a 38-year-old itinerant worker named Benjamin Franklin Levins. In custody, Levins' behavior and statements were erratic. He initially blamed a friend, Leonard Thompson, for the murders. However, evidence, including a peculiar way he broke a matchstick that matched those found at the crime scene, pointed toward his involvement.
Levins eventually confessed to the Merrell killings, but his story shifted multiple times. He claimed he had killed Herman Merrell in self-defense after being caught breaking into the house, and that Thompson had killed the rest of the family. In another version, he admitted his guilt but revealed a tragic mistake: he had intended to murder a different family, the Ryles, who had previously lived in the house and had provided police with information on an earlier murder case. Levins stated he only realized he had killed the wrong family after reading about it in the newspaper the next day. His confessions also implicated him in the earlier axe murders of the Rowell family in 1926.
The news of Levins' arrest and confession sparked public outrage. An angry mob of thousands descended on the county jail, attempting to lynch him in a riot that resulted in several deaths and injuries. To ensure a fair trial, Levins was moved to Orlando, where he was tried in July 1927. His defense argued that his confessions were coerced by police who threatened to return him to the mob in Tampa. Despite his claims, a jury convicted him of five counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of the Merrell family. His associate, Leonard Thompson, was acquitted in a separate trial.
On November 22, 1927, just six months after he ended the lives of the Merrell family, Benjamin Franklin Levins was executed in the electric chair at the state prison in Raiford. He maintained his innocence to the end, but his execution closed a terrifying chapter in Tampa's history. His body was buried in an unmarked grave on the prison grounds, leaving behind the memory of a violent spree that claimed at least nine lives and devastated multiple families, none more so than the Merrells, who were tragically killed simply for being in the wrong house at the wrong time.
