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- In my lifetime I
have murdered 21 human beings.

I have committed
thousands of burglaries,

robberies, larcenies, arsons,

and last but not least,

I've committed sodomy on more
than 1,000 male human beings.

For all of these things I
am not the least bit sorry.

I have no conscience, so
that does not worry me.

I don't believe in
man, God nor devil.

I hate the whole damn human
race, including myself.

I am Carl Panzram.

I'm Robert Ray.

I'm Head of Special Collections
& University Archives

here in the library at San
Diego State University.

And what you see here
are three examples

from the diary of Carl Panzram.

Panzram was arrested

for a housebreaking
charge, relatively minor.

And when the police
brought him in he said,

"This is a very small charge."

"I've committed numerous
murders over the years."

"This is nothing."

- Authorities had no idea that
he was arrested in Oregon,

that he was arrested in Montana,

and these other
jurisdictions out West

because he always
used a different name.

Upon his arrest he begins to
talk about a couple of murders

that he committed.

This is the very first
time that we can confirm

that he ever even talks
about his prior crimes.

The story makes its
way into the newspapers

and the story begins to gather
momentum about this prisoner

that is being held in
a Washington D.C. Jail,

who is confessing
to lots of murders.

Inside the Washington
D.C. Jail at that time

was a very young,
25-years-old jail guard

by the name of Henry Lesser.

Lesser was a new guard
and somewhat idealistic,

very unlike the stereotypical
prison guard of his day.

- I found out he was alive
and he'd been Panzram's guard.

That's all I knew.

- Today we're going
to be interviewing

a very unique individual,
Mr. Henry Lesser,

who was the guard
to Carl Panzram,

the most renowned
murderer in his time.

He was a husky man.

He walked with a limp.

After I was a jailer
for a short time

I happened to hear
there was a prisoner

in the south wing where I
was working at that time

who seemed to be a very
interesting person.

And the first opportunity
I went past his cell

and got talking to him.

- Lesser befriends Panzram
while Panzram is in his cell.

He gives him cigarettes
and treats him nicely

and Panzram takes a
liking to the young guard

and they begin to have
a friendly relationship.

- I asked him
what was his record.

And he said.

How do you know?

I had to be diplomatic.

I said I just had an idea.

- I'm being held
for investigation.

I reform people.

I kill them.

Put them out of their misery.

- This was something
that was contrary

to the rules of the profession,

but which of course
was totally consistent

with the rules of humanity.

- Colonel Peak was
a superintendent

at the Washington D.C. Jail

when Henry Lesser was
employed as an officer there.

- Colonel Peak had
all of us into his office

going on that shift,
afternoon shift.

He told us that he was informed

that we had a very
dangerous man in our midst

and to be extra careful.

- The guards would come into
the cell just to take a look

because they know of his
previous escape attempts

and they find that some
of the bars are loose.

Panzram is then taken
out of that cell.

He is brought into the
basement of the institution.

- Colonel Peak ordered
him to the post

down in the basement
of the jail,

with supported
beams and ceiling.

He was tortured at the post,

his back up to the post.

He was manacled, his hands
were manacled in the back.

He was forced off his
feet some distance.

He was kept there all night.

The first night he didn't
know where he was going,

so he didn't put up a fight,

but the second night
he knew and he fought.

They subdued him with clubs

and he was kicked and dragged
down to the post again.

- The D.C. Jail where
Panzram was tortured

was a jail where slaves had
been tortured 100 years earlier.

It was something that
had to be conducted

in the most subterranean
part of the institution

and something that people
were really ashamed of.

- The next morning,
after the second night,

I came to work and I was told

by the head tiersman,
the prisoner,

who had charge of selling
the men as they came in,

I was told about the
torture of Panzram,

and I almost hit the ceiling.

I was greatly
distressed about it.

I felt he was a man in
the clutches of the law

and they had no right to
do what they did to him,

even though he was a
murderer and so on.

And I told the tiersman

to take a dollar into him,

because I knew he had no money

and we always had a canteen

we could buy smokes,
sweet stuff, and so on.

So this man went past his cell,

he went to his cell and said,

"Carl, there's a guard
here, Henry Lesser,"

"sent in a dollar to you."

- What, guard
sending me a dollar?

What the hell, are you
trying to do, kid me?

For Christ's sake,
a guard they trusted

and they sending me
a dollar, cut it out.

- Once Panzram develops a
sense of trust with Lesser,

Panzram begins to
open up to Lesser.

Thanks for the buck!

- And begins to tell him the
story of his miserable life.

- And then I felt he
had a story to tell.

I have an idea that he
had something to tell us,

and I encouraged him to
write his autobiography,

and he demurely said, "Jesus
Christ, I can't do that."

"I went to school, got
out at sixth grade."

"I've never written."

I said, "You start
it, start it."

And I encouraged him.

It took a couple of weeks

until he finally
started writing.

- He smuggles in
paper and pencil,

because prisoners are not
allowed to have these objects,

but Lesser provides him
with the writing materials.

- True statement
of some of my actions,

including the times and places

and my reasons for so
doing these things,

written by me of
my own freewill,

at the District Jail,
Washington D.C.,

November 4th, 1928.

If after reading what I write

your faith in human nature
isn't all destroyed,

then it never will be.

We had an arrangement,

by the time I was on the
midnight shift, 12 to eight,

so we arranged that when
he gets through writing

10, 15, 20 pages,

he should leave it on
the bar of his cell.

And I started reading
this, you know,

and it wasn't more
than a week, 10 days,

that I felt I had
something worthwhile.

There was an honest
attempt on Panzram's part

to tell his story, society
should know his part of it.

- I want society to
know my side of the story,

even if only one man
reads it, suits me.

Lesser was probably thinking

that it may be an example
for people to understand

what makes somebody
like Panzram.

Eventually Panzram wrote
about 40,000 words.

- I was born
a normal human being.

I was born on a small
farm in Minnesota.

My parents were
of German descent,

hardworking, ignorant, poor.

The rest of the family consisted

of five brothers and one sister.

My father and mother split up

when I was about seven
or eight years old.

The old man pulled out
one day and disappeared,

which left my mother
with a family of six

and a small worked-out farm.

- He already had that
kind of temperament

where he was resentful
and reactive,

so he's probably going to go up

against his mother's authority
and he doesn't like it.

- He got attention, but
it was negative attention.

And that's the sad
part of this thing,

because infants born healthy

that are nurtured

will not grow up to
hurt other people, fact.

- He had five brothers,
I think, and a sister.

None of them came
forward to say,

"Yeah, this was a
really bad situation."

"We were all abused."

And in fact, they seemed to
have grown up and become okay.

- When I was a boy,
six or seven years old,

I always had
trouble with my ears

always aching and
running with matter.

My people were too poor
to have me in a hospital

so I was operated
on in our own home,

on the kitchen table.

This was a mastoid operation
behind my left ear.

- It could certainly
have affected him.

If you had any kind
of brain damage

or unbalanced brain chemistry
or something like that,

it could explain
free-floating anger.

You just don't feel right.

Something's wrong,
you react to it,

you put labels on it,
and find causes for it,

but you don't really
know what it is.

It's just a complete sense
of things not being right.

- He broke into a
neighbor's house.

I stole everything

that to my eyes
had the most value.

Those things were some
apples, some cake,

and a great big pistol.

This is a resentful kid

who looks at what
other people have

and wants it for himself
so he decides to take it.

That's not necessarily
a product of abuse.

That's just his own personality.

- I walked to
the railroad yards

where I caught a freight
train going to the West,

where I intended to be a
cowboy and shoot Indians.

- It wasn't that long
before his birth,

40 years before,

that there had been
tremendous massacres

of Indians by settlers
and settlers by Indians.

Genocidal Indian
wars had gone on

and there was tremendous
racism toward Indians.

This may have contributed
to his talk about going out

and playing cowboys and
Indians and shooting Indians,

because many young
people at that time

were really trained, conditioned

to think in terms
of killing Indians.

- It's more
than 20 years ago;

I would have been
a cowboy since.

I was caught, brought back home,

and beaten half to
death, and sent to jail.

And from there the Minnesota
State Training School

at Red Wing, Minnesota.

Right there and then
I began to learn

about man's inhumanity to man.

- We're looking at punishment
slips, some other records,

a statistical record book
regarding Charles Panzram,

who was an inmate, 12
years old at the time,

of the Minnesota
State Training School.

According to the record book

his relations with his
parents was quarrelsome.

His environments defined as bad.

And in the character
of his associates,

that's described as bad as well.

Trying to determine what's
fact or fiction with him

is very difficult.

But he did say that he
had a mastoid infection

behind his left ear and
he had an operation.

And when you look
at the record book

there's a line for
special marks and scars.

There is a notation that says

he has a scar
behind the left ear.

- We were all supposed
to go to school a half a day

and work a half a day.

These were institutions

that had been devised
in capitalist society

to train people for
the industrial system,

to train them to become
good industrial workers,

to be obedient, to be silent,

to perform the tasks that
were needed by industry,

and there also was a great
deal of regimentation.

- And the
rest of the time

learn how to love
Jesus and be good boys.

- Yeah, like they said that
Jesus was the Son of God,

you know, and maybe Panzram
was the son of the devil.

At the frame of the painting,

Panzram have Red Wing
on the top left side.

I chose Red Wing because
that was his formal education

into what it was like to
live among human beings.

The beginnings of
it was at Red Wing.

- They had a system
in the institution,

a demerit and a credit system,

where if Panzram would
act up or misbehave,

he was given a demerit slip.

- There are 27 punishment
slips for Charles Panzram,

which are from his case file.

They're for such things
as stealing food,

talking back to the teachers,

being disorderly, whispering,

calling a boy a snit,

putting sugar in his
pocket, talking loud,

he is impudent all the
time, doing very poor work,

disobedience, breaking two
dishes, using bad language.

- He has that sense
of callous disregard.

Kicking another boy.

Probably hyperactivity.

- Throwing a piece
of crayon at another boy.

A bit of ADD.

Throwing food.

- He doesn't have
a sense of focus

and a sense of life direction.

He just does what he
wants for himself.

Stealing butter.

- Acts that wouldn't really
be considered serious

if he was outside
the institution.

Playing in school.

Just the acts of a child.

- He wasn't motivated
to earn those credits

so he could get out of there.

- He will constantly
be hitting his head

against a brick wall

and all they'll do is put
further restriction on him,

put him in isolation,
punish him.

They started me off

by trying to beat the
Christian religion into me.

The consequences were that the
more they beat and whip me,

the more I hated them
and their damn religion.

Aren't we the same country

that praises the
Judaeo-Christian ethos,

the ethic, you know,
that we're Christians

and we want to help people,

we want to work with people,

but we're sure not showing it.

- They had various
methods of punishing us

for doing wrong and for
teaching us to do right.

The most popular with them

was to take us to
the paint shop,

so-called because
there they used

to paint our bodies
black and blue.

- And this will also
intensify his feelings

of abandonment
and victimization.

- The first time he finds
himself in an institution

and he begins to get his footing

and see the others around him,

he's going to realize that
he's got a creative persona.

- I began to hate
those who abused me.

Then I began to think

that I would have my
revenge just as soon

and as often as I could
injure someone else.

- He wants to one
up other people,

because that's his personality.

He also likes attention.

Anyone at all would do.

If I couldn't injure
those who injured me,

then I would injure
someone else.

- I think this is where he
begins to create this idea

that he's the
worst of the worst.

Nobody better mess with him.

- The best predictor
of future behavior

is what's happened in the past.

Carl Panzram attempted
a number of escapes

when he was very young.

- One of the punishment
slips dated March 16th, 1904,

he'd attempted to
escape from school.

- I was too dumb to
learn anything in school

so they took me out
and put me to work

all day washing dishes

and waiting on tables in
the officers' dining room.

Once each week I used to
be sent to the laundry

to get the clean linen
for the dining room.

One cold winter day I went
there and I didn't come back.

I attempted to escape,

but I got caught, brought back,

damn near beaten to death.

- After fully investigating
the above report

I would recommend that
he has a spanking.

I can only imagine what
their spankings were like.

- Unfortunately, the spanking
was just an early indicator

of the type of
punishment or torture

that he would have
had inflicted on him

in other prisons
later in his life.

- I began to try to
figure out some other way

to punish those who punished me.

The only thing I
could figure out to do

was to burn down the building

in which the paint
shop was located.

This I did.

We can see evidence of kids

who may grow into
psychopaths very early,

as young as three years old.

And those kids will have
a tendency to blame,

they'll lie, they'll steal,

they'll be cruel to
animals and other kids.

- After serving
about two years there

I was pronounced
by the parole board

to be a nice, clean
boy of good morals.

I'd been taught by the Christians
how to be a hypocrite,

and I had learned more

about stealing, lying,
hating, burning, and killing

from the treatment I
received while there

and the lessons I
learned from it.

I had fully decided
when I left there

just how I would live my life.

That night I resumed
my journey to the West

that had been cut
short two years before.

I was about 13 or 14
years old at the time.

I started out a hobo

and soon learned how
to ride freight trains

and passenger trains inside
and out without paying my fare.

One experience that I had
during that time I never forgot

and it had a direct bearing

on a lot of actions
later in life.

- He claims that he was
assaulted, gang-raped,

by four other individuals
who were on that train.

- Just as soon as
we all got into the car

and shut the door and
the train pulled out,

they all began to tell
me what a nice boy I was.

First, they wanted me to do
a little something for them.

I told them no.

What they couldn't get
by moral persuasion,

they proceeded to get by force.

I left that boxcar
sadder and sicker,

but wiser boy than I
was when I entered it.

After that, I always went alone

wherever and whenever possible.

I learned to look with suspicion
and hatred on everybody.

Forcing might make right.

Perhaps things
shouldn't be that way,

but that's the way they are.

Those were the days when
I was learning the lessons

that life teaches us all

and they made me
what I am today.

- He turned it
around, got angry,

and decided this is what
I'm gonna do to others.

- Another lesson
I learned at that time

was there were a lot of very
nice things in this world;

among them were
whiskey and sodomy.

When he did leave home

and found out pretty
quickly by riding the rails

that he was a vulnerable person,

he saw the way to
dominate others

was through rape or
beating someone up.

And so he set himself to do that

and those were the people who
are available, men and boys.

It wasn't women or
girls riding the rails,

it was men and boys,

so clearly his early patterns

of dominance were
set right there.

- Whenever I met one
who wasn't too rusty looking

I would make him raise his
hands and drop his pants.

I rode them old and young, tall
and short, white and black.

It made no difference
to me at all

except that they
were human beings.

I knew more about sodomy

than old boy Oscar Wilde
ever thought of knowing.

- Because he was abused himself
in that way at Red Wing,

on the trains, and
in other instances,

he may have seen this as a way,

a twisted way of getting
revenge on the people

that did it to him.

- I was so
busy committing sodomy

that I didn't have any
time left to serve Jesus

as I'd been taught to do
in those reform schools.

You're raping your own equals,

so you're showing that you're
the one who's in power.

It has nothing to do with
getting you sexual pleasure.

Even if you do get that,
that's not the point.

The motive is to dominate others

and make sure everyone
knows you're the guy,

you're the boss.

- While he's in the
city of Helena, Montana,

he's 16 years old at that time

and he's in a bar and an
army recruiter comes in

and gives a speech
about joining the Army.

- I joined the U.S. Army
in 1906 at Helena, Montana,

stationed at Fort Harrison

and in the 6th Regular U.S.
Infantry and A Company.

- He lies about his
age and joins the Army.

- He was trained in the
military ways as a young man

and then went into the Army,

which was another
form of prison.

Left, right, left.

Left, right, left.

Left, right, left.

Left, right, left.

The regimentation of Army life

does not fit in with
Panzram's personality.

He steals some property
from the supply house.

- I was only in
the Army a month or two

when I got three years in
the U.S. Military Prison

at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

My number was 1874 and
my name was Carl Panzram.

One of my tasks and
punishments while there

was to be shackled to a 50-pound
iron ball for six months.

My part was to load my iron
ball and 18-pound hammer,

a pick and shovel,

and a six-foot iron crowbar
all into a wheelbarrow

and march behind
the line of cons,

three miles out to
the rock quarry,

and there work for 8 1/2 hours

in the hot Kansas sun
busting big rocks.

But all that treatment
did one good thing for me.

The harder they worked
me, the stronger I got.

I was discharged from
that prison in 1910.

I was the spirit of
meanness personified.

- What recourse he had was
to get out of Leavenworth,

he is a young man and reform.

- In theory, yes, it
is that easy in theory.

- He'd already created a
certain persona of this bad guy.

70% fail within three years.

- And now he's gonna
go act that out.

- He is a product of his
psyche and his environment.

- I had not at this time
got so that I hated myself.

I only hated everybody else.

- What you see here is the
first page of the diary

where Panzram goes
through all the prisons

that he had been incarcerated
in throughout his lifetime.

- I've been in
two reform schools,

seven big prisons,
and hundreds of jails.

None of them were any
different from the others.

- Jesse James and Dillinger
had a certain amount of bravado

and Baby Face Nelson did,

but none of them compare
to the bravado of Panzram.

They would ask him
what his profession was

and he would say thief.

- I could have
been taught properly,

and if I had been I feel sure

that I would have led a far
different life than I have done.

Some of the blame is yours for
not making it your business

to see to it that
such conditions

should not exist
among your fellowman.

Torquemada, the Chief Inquisitor
of the Spanish Inquisition

was known as the world's
greatest torturer.

The rack,

the wheel, the red-hot
irons to burn out the eyes,

pinchers to pull off
parts of the body,

fire to burn, and
water to drown.

But they were very crude
compared to those in use today.

During my 20 years

in all the various prisons
and jails I've been in,

I've undergone every kind
of abuse and punishment

that the ingenious minds
and many men could devise.

In the United States

we are not aware that we have
such a very long and rich

and dark history
of imprisonment.

There was beating, there was
torture that was administered

in the American prison
system for generations.

These are all things that
are not reflected at all

in the textbooks,

in the sanitized version of
history of American prisons

that we're all accustomed to.

- We like to forget
the bad history,

but we are a product of our
history, as was Panzram.

- They kicked
the hell out of me.

Put me in the cooler.

- Cold, dark, that was
completely isolated in a prison,

within a prison,
within a prison.

Confined to that kind of space,

one gradually lost touch

with reality.

Panzram was subjected to
this for long periods of time

in many of the prisons.

- The more
cooler you get,

the more heat and hate there
is generated in your heart.

He's gonna be the one

who will attract the
tougher, meaner guards,

who themselves are trying
to prove something.

- He was constantly refusing
to give into the primary thing

that the prison system
was trying to do to him,

which was to break his will.

He maintained his will.

He tried to maintain
his dignity,

twisted as it was, as he saw it.

- They stripped naked
and chained us up to the door

and then turned
the fire hose on us

until we were black and
blue, deaf, and half blind.

Many a man has paid

for what those men had done
to me that Sunday morning.

- Panzram is tortured
by the guards

who used several
different methods

to control the population.

One is the snorting pole.

When the lash begins

to take away little bits of hide

and blood begins to run

and the sucker begins to jerk
and yelp, jump and snort;

that's why it's called
the snorting pole.

If you ever get it,

it's not the same as
I did when I got it.

When a man is let down
after being well-whipped,

he has blood on his back
and murder in his heart.

- He's somebody who
was very much produced

by the prison system.

- They are after
all only convicts,

they're only criminals,
so what the hell?

That attitude is what's sad.

- Back in the
early 20th century,

wardens were the kings of
their own autonomous kingdom.

They could do mostly
whatever they wanted.

And the inner workings
of the institutions

were not exposed to
outside supervision.

- One of the things that
he and others endured

was something called
the hummingbird.

- A device
that would inflict

the maximum of
corporal punishment

with the minimum
of harm to himself

and the most exquisite
anguish on the victim.

He was put in a steel bathtub.

- In his hands he
holds a common sponge.

This sponge is connected to
an electric battery by wires.

- He was wet down,
given electric shock.

- The sensation
of the victim are that

there seems to be millions

of red-hot needles
sticking into him.

The agony is intense.

- It was something that
started in the 1870s in Ohio.

As soon as the
battery was invented,

there was somebody
to use that battery

to deliver this kind of
demonic treatment to convicts.

- Two or
three minutes of this

and the victim is
then already free

to the grave or madhouse.

- You can appreciate
through empathy

why the guy was so
angry, so outraged,

because these are the people

that you're trusting to look
after you, to guide you,

you know, to punish you,

but constructively,
not destructively.

- To some extent he
is a logical product

of the prison system, of
a brutal prison system.

But on the other hand,

it's not the only possible
product of the prison system,

so while it's logical,
it's not necessary causal.

- If you think
that you can stop crime

by catching us, locking us up,

punishing us by
brutal treatment,

hanging or electrocuting us,

sterilizing or castrating us,

then you are a fool
for thinking that way.

That only makes
bad matters worse.

I fired and fought until
my gun was empty of bullets

and I was empty of courage.

Panzram was successful

in escaping again from
Oregon State Prison.

Panzram stole a white
prisoner's uniform,

spread the bars, and walked
right out of that prison.

- I made a break from
the inside of the walls.

I still owe 14 years there.

- His ability to escape from
prison was very remarkable.

I've never seen
anything like it.

- He was kind of the
Houdini of outlaws.

One time he
broke into a prison

to help a fellow convict
break out, he was caught,

but he did manage to
get inside the prison.

- For all the
misery and tortures

that I have went through,

I have made other men go through

many times over, only worse.

After escaping from the
State Prison at Salem, Oregon

in May 1918, I changed
my name to John O'Leary,

took out seamen's papers,
passenger's passports,

and went to South America,
Europe, and Africa.

For the next five years I was
in 31 different countries.

I went up to New
Haven, Connecticut.

I robbed the home of
someone in that place.

I got about $40,000 worth of
jewelry and Liberty bonds.

The bonds were
signed and registered

with the name of W.H. Taft.

William Taft of course

was the former President
of the United States,

who after he left the office,

became a law professor
at Yale University,

and that's why he was living
in New Haven, Connecticut.

- With that money I
bought a yacht, the Akista.

- After he purchases the
boat, he lives on this boat

in Long Island Sound
for several months.

- Then I figured
it would be a good plan

to hire a few sailors
to work for me,

get them out to my yacht,

get them drunk,
commit sodomy on them,

rob them, and then kill them.

My motto is, "Rob them
all, rape them all",

"and kill them all."

They are there yet, 10 of 'em.

You're to blame more so than I.

If you're going to
go on teaching others

as you have taught me, then
you must suffer the same as I.

- Panzram was
clearly a psychopath.

Psychopaths tend to blame

and not take responsibility
for anything.

- He gets on a ship as a seaman
and sets sail for Africa.

He gets a job with the
Sinclair Oil Company.

He comes across a small boy.

He sexually assaults
the boy and murders him.

- His brains were
coming out of his ears

when I left him.

He will never be any deader.

I went to town, bought a
ticket on the Belgian Steamer

to Lobito Bay down the coast.

There I hired a canoe.

- Panzram pulls out a gun
and shoots all six men.

I threw them overboard

and the crocodiles soon finished
what I had left of them.

This lesson, I was taught by
others, might makes right.

At Salem, Massachusetts,

I murdered an 11
or 12 year old boy

by beating his brains
out with a rock.

I left him laying there

with his brains coming
out of his ears.

I met a fellow who said
he wanted to buy my boat,

he tried to stick me up,
but I shot him twice.

A few days later I
went to New Haven

where I killed another boy.

I committed a little
more sodomy on him also

and then tied his belt around
his neck and strangled him.

Man made me what I am today.

- He's a cold-blooded killer

who did not care who he hurt

and he was killing people
who did not hurt him.

- We can either accept
it at face value and say,

this is the story

of one of the most
ferocious serial killers

America has ever seen before,

or we can say it's just the
empty boast of a braggart.

- We do get a lot of false
confessors among serial killers.

In those days 21 was
an impressive figure

and so I think we can still say

there is some possibility
he exaggerated his numbers.

I don't know that he did,

but I suspect he did given

all the other patterns
of his behavior,

which were to make him look
like the big bad tough guy.

- The only thing
that I am aware of

that Panzram was
not 100% accurate on

was when he would talk about
burning a flax mill down

in the Oregon State
Prison in Salem.

He would say...

- And that was another
$100,000 to my credit.

When they did research on it,

they found out it was only
about $25,000 instead of 100.

He claims that a
photograph was taken of him

while he was in Africa

and he was working with the
local native population.

He claimed that this
photograph appeared

in an edition of The
Saturday Evening Post,

although it's very difficult
to say that it's him.

The photograph is
there of a white man

driving a group of natives,

and I haven't been able to
disprove anything that he said.

One night while he was in
the village of Larchmont,

he breaks into the
local train station.

A local police officer sees
Panzram who's armed with an ax.

The officer manages to
knock Panzram unconscious.

He's arrested and
charged with burglary.

Panzram is sentenced to five
years at Sing Sing Prison.

It's decided by the
prison authorities

that because he's a
rebellious prisoner,

he can't be controlled,

that he should be
sent to another prison

called Clinton Prison, which
is in Upstate New York.

- There were many,
many punishments

that were used against
the convicts at Dannemora.

Being put it out in the open

and covered with
water, left to freeze.

Dannemora, as it was known,

named after the village
that it was in was one

of the most repressive penal
institutions in America.

It's a prison that is
encircled by a wall,

30-foot-high wall.

It also extends 30
feet below the ground

so that nobody can
tunnel under the wall.

- It was thought
of as a hellhole,

the last stop for the prisoners
in the State of New York.

It's in a very remote place.

It's hundreds and
hundreds of miles

from the nearest
population center.

- It was made for
the most incorrigible

of the incorrigible.

- I was there
only a few months

when I made a time bomb and
tried to burn down the shops.

The screws found it but
didn't blame me for it.

After about six months of this

I was feeling pretty
hot, mad, and disgusted,

I attempted to escape.

- He almost gets to
the top of a 30-foot wall.

- Officers there still
talk with reverence

about what Carl Panzram
attempted to do.

He made a ladder out
of fencing material

and the ladder broke
under his weight.

- I fell about 30
feet onto a concrete walk,

breaking both of my
ankles, both of my legs,

fracturing my spine,
and rupturing myself.

In this condition I was
carried to the prison hospital

where I lay five days
and dumped into a cell

without any medical or
surgical attention whatever.

- That's gonna be a
message to others.

Don't try this.

This is what you'll get.

- My broken
bones were not set.

My ankles and legs were
not put into a cast.

In that condition I was
left for eight months,

crawling around like a
snake with a broken back,

seething with hatred,
and a lust for revenge.

- There were many people
who did die in the prison.

- They should have for
humanitarian reasons

certainly had him
treated right away.

- The last two
years and four months

confined in isolation with
nothing to do except brood

upon what I thought
was the wrongs

that had been done to me.

This went on for all
of my five years.

And the more they misused me,

the more I was filled

with the spirit of
hatred and vengeance.

I was so full of hate

that there was no room in me
for such feelings as love,

pity, kindness, or
honor, or decency.

I hated everybody I saw.

He is unable to walk.

His spinal injury
gets worse and he,

as a result, he remains
permanently crippled

for the rest of his life.

Panzram becomes even more
embittered, if that's possible.

- I used to spend
all of my time figuring out

how I could murder
the most people

with the least harm
or expense to myself.

I'm writing it down

with a fervent wish
that someone may see it

and make good use of it

to decimate some of the excess
population of this world.

It was my intention
to go to a place

I had picked out at
a railroad tunnel.

I intended to have
a large contact bomb

in the middle of
the tunnel fixed

so that when the engine
struck the obstruction,

the bomb would explode.

The explosion would set off

and burst some large
glass containers

of formaldehyde and other gas.

The gas fumes thus generated

and let loose in
the closed tunnel

would in a very few minutes
kill every living thing

in the whole train
and the tunnel.

I would be stationed
at the rear entrance

to the tunnel
behind the barricade

and armed, ready to
shoot down anyone

who had life enough left

to try to get out of the tunnel.

As soon as I was assured
that all were dead,

I would put on a gas mask

and enter the cars and
rob the whole train.

With unlimited
funds in my hands,

I then intended to steal
millions of dollars

and kill millions of people.

This I intended to
do by starting a war

between England and the USA.

Sounds fantastic all right,

but I am positive that I
could and would have done it.

I could do a better job
than the Borgias had done.

They were pikers.

They didn't kill half enough.

They should have
killed everybody

and left this world for the
only good things in it, nature.

This would be a damn fine
world if man was out of it.

- Even to the point of
planning the destruction,

you know, of the
entire human race,

not unlike people that
were working in ammunitions

or some kind of war efforts

to manufacture more
successful weapons

at destroying the
most amount of people

with the least amount of cost,

but they're getting paid and
they're getting rewarded.

Oh yeah, you're doing a great
service to your country.

- War, in
the final analysis,

is merely murder and robbery

at the expenditure
of life and property.

- The psychology of a
mass murderer is somebody

who wants to add one big event

to take out as many
people as they can,

has to do with a measure
of their own pain

and they want as many people
to pay for it as possible.

Everyone now knows, I was
in pain and you did nothing.

During the summer of 1928,

he's finally released
from Dannemora.

I had a goal in view.

I was working toward it
as quickly as I could.

- Panzram eventually makes
his way into Philadelphia,

where he meets a paperboy,
a 12-ear-old boy.

Panzram sexually assaults
this child and murders him.

It was the murder of
Alexander Uszacke.

We were able to confirm that
murder to an arrest warrant

that was issued by the
city of Philadelphia.

My whole mind was bent

on figuring out different ways

to annoy and punish my enemies,
and everybody was my enemy.

My intentions was to rob, rape,

and kill everybody I could,
anybody and everybody.

- After Panzram
leaves Philadelphia,

he goes into the
city of Baltimore

where he commits a number
of burglaries and assaults.

He leaves Baltimore

and makes his way down
to Washington D.C.,

where he gets arrested
for the last time.

- He assumed that he was made
this way, but not altogether.

I think Panzram is trying to
probe his own responsibility,

and he says he doesn't
have a conscience,

so the 21 people he
murdered doesn't bother him.

But if you read
the other letters,

one wonders if he
felt that entirely.

- All of my life I've
been trying to figure out

just what ails me and why,

not looking for the
remedy or the effect.

It's too late for the remedy

and I already know the effect.

The only way I want
to be cured is to die

and get completely
out of this world.

All I want is to find out
the reason why I am what I am

and why I act the way I do.

I've been puzzled all
my life about this.

I would sure like
to know the answer

before I leave this world.

- I went to examine
the laws on the set.

I was pretty sure he
wouldn't do anything to me,

so he jumped up see, after
I got close to the bars.

- I thought you were
trying to get me

to look the other way
so you could hit me.

You're brave, but don't
ever do that again,

turning your back
on me like that.

You're the only man in the
world I don't want to kill.

But I'm so erratic, I'm
liable to do anything.

- Panzram receives a
sentence of 25 years to life

at the Leavenworth
Prison back in Kansas.

- 25 years is an outrageous
sentence for stealing a radio

and some very inexpensive items.

- I'm doomed to pass
out of the picture pretty soon.

I've fully decided
that I want to die.

There will be no turning aside.

In some way I shall surely
accomplish my desire to die.

- When Panzram entered the U.S.
penitentiary in Leavenworth,

his name was spelled
P-A-N-Z-R-A-N instead of M.

- The head clerk working
for the Records Clerk,

was a man by the name
of George Kelly Barnes,

who history would know
as Machine Gun Kelly.

It's probably just
a written error

or a typographical error.

Panzram pretty much basically
wanted to set the ground rules

when he first got
to Leavenworth.

- I wanted them all to
lay off me and leave me alone.

I told everyone that I
came in contact with that

I would sure knock off the
first guy who bothered me.

- He's assigned to
the laundry room,

and while he's in
the laundry room

he meets a civilian employee
by the name of Warnke,

who is the supervisor
of the day shift

where Panzram works.

- Leavenworth was under
the administration

of the Federal Bureau of Prisons

and there was an effort to
try to create a model prison.

- Prisoners were
allowed to write

to other people,
receive correspondence.

Henry Lesser maintains
his correspondence

with Carl Panzram under
a pseudonym, Henry James,

because they knew that
the staff in Leavenworth

would be monitoring
Panzram's correspondence.

April 23rd, 1929,

your letter of April
18th reached me today.

I found the $1 enclosed

or at any rate I got it to
my credit here on the books.

Many thanks for both.

I have only had your
letter about an hour

and I've read it
three times already

and liked it better each time.

You ask me what sort
of work I'm doing.

Well, to tell the truth
I have an easy job,

not very much to do
and that little easy.

I don't mind it much,

but I am trying to
get a different job

where I'll be more by myself.

Perhaps later on I'll manage it.

Carl Panzram, Number 31614,
Box 7, Leavenworth, Kansas.

- Wharton's book, "The
House of Whispering Hate,"

is almost one of the most
non-biased books I've ever read.

Charles Wharton was sentenced

to the institution
for conspiracy

to commit mail train robbery.

- Warnke, civilian
informant of the laundry,

whom the convicts regarded
as a brute and a bully,

delighting to torment
his prison slaves.

It was his favorite
diversion to taunt Panzram

about his reported moral habits.

- Panzram had
conflicts with him.

He asked for a job change

and the Bureau of Prisons
would not honor that.

They did not want Warnke

to lose face with
the other prisoners.

- I have worked
with Panzram in the laundry

since February 1st this year.

- Panzram and
Mr. Warnke had a few words

over three handkerchiefs
which Panzram had

and was washing in a
bleacher in the laundry.

Warnke told him that
he was not permitted

to use that bleacher.

That he was not any better
than any of the rest of us

and that no one was allowed
to use that bleacher.

Panzram remarked that if
Warnke did not lay off him,

he would get Warnke.

- He remained working
in the laundry.

June 15th, 1929,

I'm still on my same job
and like it less each day.

I'm getting all
set for a change.

It won't be long now.

- Panzram gets a steel bar
that was in the laundry room,

sneaks up behind Warnke,
and smashes the bar

over the back of the man's head.

- Here's another one
for you, you son of a bitch.

- And beats him
down to the ground.

He kills him in front of
a dozen other inmates.

Panzram then turns his
rage on the other inmates

and begins an all out war.

- Panzram made his way back
to the Deputy Warden's office

where Phil Holtgrave
was standing.

And just as soon as he
got up to Phil Holtgrave,

he dropped the iron bar

and said, "Do with me
what you want to do"

"because I can't get
any more of them."

- Before I
finished I killed one man

and tried to kill a dozen more.

- Building 63, which
back then was known

as the Deputy Warden's office,
the segregation building,

is immediately where
Panzram was taken.

October 31st, 1929,

I thought I would write
you a letter today

because I feel
pretty good just now.

In fact, I feel
pretty near human.

For several different
reasons here are a few.

It's so long since I've been
beaten or kicked around,

chained up or knocked down

that I have almost forgotten
how it feels, but not quite.

I still remember.

Another reason is that I
have just finished my supper

and, man, what a feed.

I started with bacon and eggs,

candied sweet potatoes,
bread and butter,

stewed prunes, and
four fresh pears.

That's a sample of the meals
we gather everyday lately.

After I finished throwing
this feed into myself,

I sat down to smoke and
read the daily paper,

in peace, quiet, and comfort.

Now perhaps you will know

why this letter
is a bit different

from some of the others
I've written to you.

I walk into a cell fully
expecting to be chained up

and beaten to death,
but what happens?

The exact reverse of that.

No one lays a hand on me.

No one abuses me in any way.

I have been in the past
three or four months

trying to figure it out

and I have come to
the conclusions that

if in the beginning I had
been treated as I am now,

then there wouldn't
have been quite

so many people in this world

that have been robbed,
raped, and killed,

and perhaps also very probably

I wouldn't be where I am today.

Maybe I am wrong though.

I am too dumb to know
what might have been

but I am not so dumb

that I can't see a little
way into the future.

Not very far, but far enough
to see the end of Carl Panzram.

- Compared to some other
institutions that he had been in,

it was a relatively
progressive regime.

- At that point in time
you had Robert Stroud,

who was occupying two
cells in the cell house.

Robert Stroud today
is very famous

as the Birdman of Alcatraz,

even though he kept his
birds at Leavenworth,

and he kept them when he
was there with Panzram.

During his long imprisonment,

Robert Stroud
secretly wrote a book

about the history
of American prisons

and the history of the
Federal Prison System.

"

"A History of the United
States Prison System,"

at Alcatraz Penitentiary,
where he was,

had been transferred from
Leavenworth Penitentiary.

- Stroud had written
this manuscript.

However, it was said that
it had been confiscated

by the Federal Prison
Authorities and destroyed.

- The Director of
Bureau of Prisons said,

"No, you can't publish these."

"These glorify crime."

"These contain pornography."

"These tell lies about
prison officials."

However, it was later revealed

that a copy of it had
actually been preserved.

- I got those four
handwritten manuscripts,

still have them.

Stroud was in cell number 10.

In that manuscript

he devoted a chapter to Panzram.

- Panzram was across
the hallway, in cell 13,

so they were within
earshot of each other.

- Segments of it
have been obtained

and consulted for
use in this film.

- And in
this box is Part III

of Stroud's "History of the
United States Prison System."

Here's Chapter XIX, Part
III on Carl Panzram,

in Stroud's own handwriting.

- Panzram was
put in number 13.

He told of sea
murders by the score.

He varied the number of
victims from one to 48.

He told of boxcar
murders by the hundreds,

of boys he had met on the road,

induced to catch trains
with him, raped, strangled,

and thrown out along
the right of way.

It was obvious to
anyone listening

who knew anything
about such things

that the stories
were pure fiction.

- There is quite a
lot of similarity

between Carl Panzram
and Robert Stroud.

They managed somehow after
many, many years of deprivation,

they somehow managed to
leave something behind.

- Because Warnke was murdered
inside a federal prison,

Federal Bureau of Investigation
had jurisdictional authority

on conducting the investigation.

They determined that
Carl Panzram was writing

to Henry James, who they
verified as being Henry Lesser.

Lesser was never chastised

for his correspondence
with Carl Panzram

because he explained
that he was writing

to Panzram for
criminology purposes.

- He's eventually
brought to trial

and he's convicted of
murder in the first degree.

After his death sentence,

while he's waiting in cell
for the execution date,

a local anti-death penalty group

tried to intervene
on his behalf,

and without Panzram's
cooperation or approval.

Panzram contacted the group and
said, "Look, don't help me."

- I choose
to die here and now

by being hanged by the
neck until I am dead.

I look forward to that
as a real pleasure

and a big relief to me.

He wanted to die

because he didn't want to
stay in prison all his life.

I prefer death

before spending more
years in prison.

My belief is that life without
liberty is not worth having.

- If you let him out,
he didn't want to die.

If you're gonna keep him
in prison, he wants to die.

- The only thanks you
or your kind will ever get

from me for your
efforts in my behalf

is that I wish you
all had one neck

and that I had my hands on it.

June 5th, 1930.

There's nothing I can do for you

to repay you for the many
favors you have done for me.

- And for the vast majority
that can be reached,

you need to hire people
like Henry Lesser,

but you have to have a system

that rewards that kind of
person, and they don't.

- Henry Lesser, with
very little training,

knew to treat these
people as human beings.

- I would like to be
able to truthfully tell you

that I do thank you,
but this I cannot do,

simply because there
is no such thing

as gratitude left in me.

There was at one time, but
that time is long gone.

Gratitude is one
of the many things

that have been kicked out of me.

I can and do truthfully
wish you good luck.

- In the isolation building
there's a doorway out the back.

The back has a courtyard

that was used for recreational
purposes back then

and they constructed
gallows in that courtyard.

Up to that point
the U.S. Government

hadn't really held an
organized execution.

This was a method of execution

that was very much associated

in the public mind
with lynching.

More people were
lynched every year

than were executed
by the government.

People of Kansas, as a result

of various populous
movements that went on,

beginning in the
mid-19th century,

elected not to carry
out executions.

This was effectively broken
with the execution of Panzram.

It's a vengeance.

We want our pound of flesh.

- Panzram sees two
ministers standing there,

he immediately starts hissing

and demanding that
they be told to leave.

- I don't
mind being hanged,

but I don't want any
preachers at my hanging.

- Like he did a lot of
other times in his life,

he took on a mood of bravado.

- If you don't run
those Bible backs out,

you're gonna have
one hell of a time

getting me out of this cell,

and you're gonna have to
fight every step of the way.

I can't win, but I have
nothing to lose either.

Every man I get one of my hands
on is going to a hospital.

All right, let's get going.

What in the hell are
we stalling around for?

Said Panzram,

leading the procession
down the hall,

almost dragging his longer
legged attendants along,

like a bull on a leash.

- In "The House of
Whispering Hate,"

I read this other
prisoner's account

which proves the fact

that it did happen
the way he described.

The people that were in
authority in the prison would,

had blocked off
like all the windows

so that the prisoners could
not witness the execution,

But they forgot one window.

It did not look directly
down on the yard

yet it permitted
a slanting view.

Through it we could
see the gallows

and the commencement of
the ghastly death march.

- That very last window
in the parole dorm,

which was what we
called a dormitory

when I first started
to work there,

that window was in
perfect alignment

with the courtyard where
Panzram was executed.

He perfectly describes the
fact that all of the inmates

were all jammed in
that window watching,

so probably it is
an accurate account

of what occurred
at that execution.

- When he came out the back
door, talking about Panzram,

we saw 200 pounds of flesh

possessed of but one
virtue, brute courage.

He was less to be pitied than
the ashen-faced officials

shrinking from the
task they had in hand.

There was no
faltering in his step

as he marched out of the
door into the open courtyard.

Then suddenly he
bellowed, "Boo,"

and whipped around to
enjoy the fear he inspired.

A frightful grin
spreading over his face

as everyone startled in
alarm at the sound.

Apparently this was
not enough to satisfy

the brute in him, for as
he passed out of sight

I saw him wheel around again

and spit full in the face
of the captain of the guard,

which is what he
always promised to do.

So he actually did it.

- He actually led the guards
to go up the scaffold steps.

He was first.

Hurry it up you.

Hurry up you bastard,

I could kill 10 men while
you're fooling around!

- Yeah, you Hoosier bastard,
I could hang a dozen men

while you're fooling around.

Whether he said anything

to the executioner
is still up in air.

- Hurry it up
you Hoosier bastard,

I could hang a dozen men
while you're fooling around.

- It was all over in
a matter of seconds.

- A lot of those grave
markers in that cemetery

are pretty much basically
nothing more than a cement post

that sticks approximately,

I'd say probably, six, eight
inches above the ground.

The inmates' names
were generally stamped

in a copper plate
or brass plate.

It was his last name and
his inmate reg number.

Their name tags
disappear all the time.

At Panzram's grave site,
it was actually just

the stone post is sticking
up above the ground.

His grave is unmarked.

- We have a portion of
the rope from the noose

that was used to
hang Carl Panzram.

We also have the blindfold cloth

that actually went over his eyes

and the weighted black hood

that was placed
over Panzram's head

before the noose was
put around his neck.

- I don't want any
Bible-backed hypocrites

at my funeral!

Run them out and I will
go out under my own power.

I don't want to
cause any trouble

for I'm as anxious to get
it over with as you are.

- We also have a leather
and chain harness here.

It's on a metal
frame for display,

but this leather and chain
harness was placed on Panzram.

It was used six different
times in the Kansas City area.

Merle Gill was a
ballistics expert

in the Kansas City
area in the 1920s.

He sold the noose, the hood,

and the eye band to the
United States Marshals.

We actually have
invoices for those items.

At some point later on, we
don't know exactly when,

they came back into
Gill's collection.

Merle Gill had been
collecting firearms.

He turned that collection into
kind of a traveling museum.

By 1948, he was broke.

He sold his collection
to Mr. Davis,

and Mr. Davis put
it all on display.

- Henry Lesser used to
carry those documents

out of the Washington D.C. Jail

every night under his coat.

He spent 40 years trying to
get that manuscript published.

It's an amazing story.

- He treated, you know,
Panzram's writings,

you know, like they
were the Magna Carta.

Without Henry Lesser

you'd never know anything
about Carl Panzram.

- It was Gitchoff that
brought Henry Lesser

to San Diego State

to speak at Scripps Cottage
about prison reform.

- Just for him to come down
and speak to the class.

In 1979, he came down.

- He was very well-received.

If Mother Teresa had come in
and was talking to the group,

or Gandhi or somebody,

I mean he inspired
that kind of awe

when they found out,
wow, this little guy,

you were dealing
with this monster?

One of my graduate students
was just really enthralled

with Henry Lesser as well,
him and Joel Goodman.

- While he was at
San Diego State,

we recorded an
interview with him.

Did he ever express any fear

about going to Leavenworth?

Oh no, no, because he had been

to quite a few maximum
security prisons.

The following year, in 1980,

he decided to donate the
original Panzram manuscript

to the Special
Collections Department

of the library at San
Diego State University.

Did he express other emotions?

Did he love anyone else?

Could he get along
with anyone else?

- I never said anything
about his papers

or him donating them
or anything like that.

It didn't even dawn on me.

It didn't occur to me.

And somewhere along the
line he made the offer,

"Would you like the
Panzram Papers?"

And I said, "Well,
sure, why not?"

You know, I wasn't
enthused about it,

okay, I guess, I guess so.

And then I didn't realize

just how big a thing
this really was,

and I notified the library,

and said, "Yeah, we'd
be happy to get them."

I want to thank you very much

for traveling down
from Los Angeles...

Yeah, it's a pleasure.

- And spending your
day with us here.

Pleasure.

And I want to thank all of you

for inviting me down here.

It's a great day.

- And especially from the
students because they would...

- That's right,
it was wonderful.

- It was their emphasis in
pursuing this that got you here.

Wonderful!

It's encouraging to
see young people today,

you know, with this interest,

socially minded,
inquiring minds,

and wanting to do something
good for criminology.

He passed away in 1983.

Lesser is a heroic sort.

- I wanted to read this
portion from the papers,

the Panzram Papers,

that deal with Panzram's view

of the crime problem

and where it begins
and how to prevent it.

Every child has
some criminal tendencies.

It is your place to
correct those traits

and teach them the
right way to live

while they are young and
their minds are forming.

Then when they do reach the
age of reason and action,

- It will be quite
natural for them to live clean,

upright, honorable lives.

In that way, you will stop crime

in its source before it begins.

The main causes of
why we are what we are

is because of our
improper teaching,

lack of knowledge
and our environments.

Teach them the meaning
of such things as truth,

lie, honor, hate, love.

For each lesson
just take one word,

for instance take
the word truth.

Teach them by example,
word, and deed

until they thoroughly
know that one word, truth.

- He said it all and he
wasn't a pediatrician

or a sociologist
or a psychiatrist,

but he sure knew what
he was talking about.

- If you are
really sincere in wanting

to teach those boys how
to grow up to be good men,

then you will have to
go at it far differently

than the way I was taught.

- It's timeless
because here is a man

who has tried to tell us

what's wrong and
what we need to do,

and a man who has no education,

but had the foresight, insight,

to see it, to live through it,

and basically, you know,
gave his life for it.

- Apparently, Carl Panzram
had a last will and testament

but it has not been located.

In the case file there's a letter
from a Dr. C. B. Van Horn,

who was the attending physician

at the Kansas Industrial
School for Boys.

I have a photostat copy of
his last will and testament

in which he
bequeaths his carcass

to the city dog catcher of
East Grand Forks, Minnesota,

to be used as dog meat.

He terminates by leaving
a curse to all mankind.

- I think Panzram
himself was telling us

that he should be a warning.

- He's just trying
to let you know,

look what you did to me.

If you keep it up,
you're gonna get me

a hundredfold, a million fold,
a trillion fold, so beware.

Either listen to me or die.

- I am sorry
for only two things.

These two things are,

I am sorry that
I have mistreated

some few animals in my lifetime,

and I am sorry that
I am unable to murder

the whole damn human race.

All that I leave
behind me is smoke,

death, desolation and damnation.

Carl Panzram.