Americas' First Serial Killers

Americas first serial killers were at large at the end of the 1700s in the state of Tennessee. The area was heavily forested with mountain tracks cutting their way through the forest, and traders and travellers would use these tracks to travel from one part of the country to another. The main passage through these forests was called the Natchez or Chicasaw Trail, the same trail exists today, but not many drivers on there now realize how dangerous and bloody the trail once was

The Natchez trail was used by many prominent people of the time, traders used the 440 mile long pass to carry their goods from one town to the next, and priests would use to to do their lords work. It became a popular and much used trail, and this led to highwaymen being lured here by the lucrative pickings of the travelers purses. The most notorious new towns along this track was the port of Natchez Under the Hill. The town attracted gamblers and traders, who would make their money then head back home through the forest, where teams of bandits would lay in wait for them, amongst them were two men, who grew notorious even among their fellow outlaws, for their cold cut-throat ways.

The two men were the Harpe cousins, Micajah and Wiley Harpe, who emigrated from Scotland and found themselves a new home in Tennessee. The oldest, Micajah, kidnapped a woman called Maria Davidson, then made her his wife. Later he kidnapped another woman and mentally and physically abused both women, making them stay with them through fear. Although stories will vary, the Harpe cousins had already killed by now, whenever these women got pregnant, the men would kill their own children after they were born. On one occasion, the two men stripped naked a man they had just robbed, tied him to a blindfolded horse, and sent both of them galloping over a cliff, killing both on the rocks below.

The Harpes went into Kentucky to start a reign of terror, once they came  across a little girl by the river, they smashed her head against the rocks till she was dead, as a warning to the locals. After this they killed a boy on his way to a mill, and just killed another man for no reason. They shot dead who they believed had done them a wrong, then ripped open his stomach, took out his intestines and filled him with rocks. Often the men would take their wives with them to lull their prey into a false sense of security, they would ride along with other travellers and befriend them, then shoot them. The cousins slaughtered a family who were camping and shot a local magistrate who threatened to have them arrested, then Micajah held his four month old daughter by the ankles and swung her at the trees, smashing in her head, killing her.

The Harpes wore scalps in heir belts and always sought different ways of bringing misery and torture to those they captured and robbed. The people they robbed, were mainly never seen alive again, then had no distinction between, men, woman or children.They stayed at a farm house, and whilst the hostess went to make breakfast, they slit the woman's infants throat in the cradle, and watched it bleed to death, when the mother came to check on her child, the men stabbed her through the chest.

The cousins were blamed for at least 100 murders, and the reason they gave were that they were sick of mankind.