Benny Evangelist

Benny Evangelist was a man of many descriptions: a carpenter, a landlord, a published author, and, most notably, a self-proclaimed mystic and healer in 1920s Detroit, Michigan. Born in Naples, Italy, the 43-year-old immigrant had built a unique life for himself, his wife Santina, and their four young children: Angeline, 8, Margaret (also called Matilda), 5, Jean (also called Jay), 3, and 18-month-old Mario. By day, Benny built houses. By night, he practiced a form of folk magic and spiritual healing from his home, charging clients a ten-dollar fee for readings and rituals intended to drive out evil spirits. He authored a book titled "The Oldest History of the World" and constructed an elaborate altar in his basement with wax figures orbiting an electric "sun." While some saw him as a prophet, others considered him a fraud, and he had amassed both a loyal following and a list of disgruntled former clients.

The morning of July 3, 1929, brought a horrifying discovery that would forever mark the city. A man named Vincent Elias, who worked for Benny, arrived at the family’s home at 3587 St. Aubin Street to discuss a lumber delivery. Finding the house eerily quiet with the curtains drawn, he called out for his employer but received no answer. Elias stepped inside and walked into a scene of unimaginable carnage. In a small office, Benny Evangelist sat upright at his desk, fully dressed, with his hands folded. His head had been severed and placed on the floor between his feet. Strewn on the blood-soaked floor were photographs of a baby in a coffin.

The horror continued upstairs. Elias found Santina and the four children brutally murdered in their beds as they slept. They had been bludgeoned and hacked to death, presumably with an axe. The oldest child, Angeline, was found near a doorway, one of her arms severed, as if she had tried to escape the attack. Staggering from the home, Elias raised the alarm, but the scene quickly descended into chaos. Before police could secure the area, hundreds of curious neighbors and reporters swarmed the property, pressing onto the porch, peering through windows, and eventually surging inside. The uncontrolled crowd contaminated everything, smearing handprints and trampling through blood, destroying any chance of collecting untainted evidence.

The Detroit Police Department faced an investigation compromised from its first moments. Detectives had to fight their way through the crowd just to enter the house. Though they managed to lift a bloody fingerprint from a doorknob, it proved useless. No murder weapon was ever found. With the physical evidence ruined, investigators were left to chase theories and rumors. One centered on a planned lumber delivery Evangelist was supposed to pay for in cash that morning; police wondered if it had been a setup for a robbery, but no money was found in the home. Another theory pointed to the Black Hand, an Italian extortion syndicate, after threatening letters were found among Benny’s papers, but the extreme brutality of the murders seemed inconsistent with the group's methods.

Police explored other leads, including a former associate who had escaped from a mental asylum after killing his own children with an axe, but there was no evidence he was ever in Detroit. The strangest theory suggested Benny had orchestrated his own death, as a passage in his book described a character being decapitated with the head placed at his feet, mirroring his own fate. This, however, failed to explain the slaughter of his entire family. The most persistent belief among investigators was that a disgruntled client, feeling cheated by Benny's spiritual services, had returned for revenge. One officer even claimed a prisoner confessed, but the story was fabricated in an attempt to claim the reward money.

A funeral for the family on July 6 drew a crowd of nearly 3,000 people. Police hoped the killer might attend and arrested one man for acting suspiciously, but he was quickly released. A reward of $1,000 was offered for information leading to an arrest. The case, which became known as the St. Aubin Street Massacre, shocked the city and generated sensational headlines. Wayne County Coroner James Burgess called it a "most unusual case," speculating that a "single perverted maniac" was responsible, though he found it impossible that no screams were heard.

Nearly a century has passed, and the brutal murders of the Evangelist family remain one of Detroit’s most infamous and coldest cases. As of October 2025, the slayings are still officially unsolved. The questions of who wielded the axe that night and why they annihilated an entire family in their sleep are lost to time, buried under the weight of a hopelessly compromised crime scene and the fading memories of a city’s dark history.