True Crime Friday: Jake Bird, the Bird Hex serial killer
Jake Bird was born on December 14, 1901, in the State of Louisiana. He murdered at least eleven people across the United States between 1930 and 1947. Bird confessed to at least forty-six murders before he was executed by the State of Washington. Jake Bird gained the moniker of the Bird Hex Serial Killer because he put a verbal hex by announcing "All you guys who had anything to do with this case are going to die before I do." Five people connected with the trial died from heart attacks within a year and they died before he was executed. Bird murdered white women going out of the serial killer method of murdering in his own community. Birds’ choice of weapon was an axe or hatchet. In those days, Bird challenged the stereotype of serial killers only being white males and murdering within their own communities.
The Early Childhood of Jake Bird
Jake Bird grew up in a neglectful environment. Not much is known about Jake’s early childhood. He stated that he was abused and neglected in the parental household. He got a job at the age of nineteen as a railroad section hand. He eventually started drifting via the railroads, traveling the country committing murders. He was also a burglar which led to him murdering women when he broke into their homes. He was arrested for attempted murder in the states of Michigan, Iowa and Utah. As in the early days due to good behavior, he received early release from prison. He supported himself as a manual laborer laying and maintaining tracks. His work on the railroads kept him moving from place to place.The Victims of Jake Bird
- Bertha Kludt, 52
- Beverly June Kludt, 17
The Suspected Victim of Jake Bird
- Judge Edward D. Hodge, 69
- Joseph E. Karpach, 46
- Sherman W. Lyons, 46
- George L. Harrigan, 69
- J.W. Selden, 76
- Arthur A. Steward, Age Unknown
Lady Justice
Jake Bird was found guilty of two murders on November 26, 1947. He was sentenced to death. His attorney Selden said after the sentence “I feel whenever any man 45-years-old gets an idea that no lives are safe to anyone, except his own, that man is a detriment to society and should be obliterated." After his conviction and death sentences were announced, Bird "I was given no chance to defend myself. My own lawyers just asked you to hang me. They apologized for defending me. If they were so reluctant to defend me, why did they contest the prosecutor’s proof of murder, and now say that everything is proven?"Jake Bird confessed to murdering people in Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wisconsin. For his last meal he requested fried chicken, strawberries and ice cream, and orange soda. He was hanged on the morning of July 15, 1949. His family did not come forward to claim his body after his death. Several law enforcement officers took pieces of the noose as a souvenir. Bird was buried in an unmarked grave in the prison cemetery.