In the winter of 1912, a wave of terror was sweeping through communities along the Southern Pacific railroad line in Louisiana and Texas. An unidentified serial killer, armed with an axe, was preying on families in the dead of night, leaving a trail of unimaginable carnage. The press would dub him the Mulatto Axe Murderer, as his victims were often mixed-race families.
In January of that year, this specter of death arrived at the small home of the Broussard family in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
Felix Broussard, a male resident of Lake Charles, lived with his wife, Matilda, and their three young children in a modest house at 331 Rock Street, just a few feet from the railroad tracks that bisected the northern part of the city. Their children were eight-year-old Margaret, six-year-old Louis, and little Alberta, just three, who was affectionately called “Sissie.” They were a family like any other, their lives filled with the simple routines of work and childhood, unaware of the horrific fate that awaited them.
On the night of Saturday, January 20, 1912, an intruder entered the Broussard home. The killer, using the blunt end of a pole axe, bludgeoned the entire family as they slept. The crime was discovered on Monday, January 22, revealing a scene of utter devastation. Felix, Matilda, and their three children had all been killed in their beds. The brutality was consistent with the string of murders that had begun the previous year, but the killer did something in the Broussard home that set it apart from the others.
On a door, the murderer had scrawled a chilling message in pencil. It was a Bible verse, Psalm 9:12: “When He maketh the inquisition for blood, He forgetteth not the cry of the humble.” Beneath the verse, the killer added the words, “human five.” This was the only time the Axeman was known to have left a written message, a cryptic and terrifying glimpse into a warped mind. The community, already on edge from previous slayings in nearby towns like Crowley and Lafayette, was plunged into a state of panic.
The investigation into the Broussard family massacre was one part of a much larger, multi-state effort to stop the killings. The pattern was horrifyingly clear: the killer chose a family, entered their home at night, used an axe found on the property to commit the murders, and then vanished. Robbery was never a motive. The slayings seemed to follow the path of the railroad, leading law enforcement to believe the killer was transient, moving from town to town with ease.
In the wake of the Lake Charles murders, police looked into various theories. Some suspected a religious mania was at play, a belief bolstered by the note left at the Broussard home. Matilda Broussard was believed to have attended a revival meeting of a group known as the Sacrifice Church, and investigators detained individuals associated with the sect. A 19-year-old woman named Clementine Bernabet even confessed to some of the Axeman's crimes, but the murders continued while she was in custody, and her claims were ultimately dismissed. Despite numerous arrests and intense investigation across two states, no one was ever convicted for the murders of the Broussard family.
The Mulatto Axe Murderer is believed to have killed at least 15 people, with some estimates as high as 49, between 1911 and 1912. The reign of terror eventually stopped as suddenly as it began, leaving dozens of unsolved murders and grieving communities in its wake. The brutal killing of Felix Broussard and his entire family remains one of the most haunting chapters in this terrifying saga. Their case, like all the others attributed to this phantom killer, is officially unsolved, a cold testament to a family destroyed and a killer who was never brought to justice.
