Rice Belt

Goes into the history of the area.

This was the rice belt at the time.

So rice was originally grown in South Carolina, was the source of massive fortunes in South Carolina and a lot of the slavery in that part of the world.

After the Civil War, most of the rice plantations in South Carolina were destroyed, and rice farming moved down to Southern Louisiana, Southern Mississippi into Texas, and so they called this the Rice Belt.

And there's a railroad line that ran along the Rice Belt from basically Mississippi all the way to Texas.

And wouldn't you know, many of the murders we're going to talk about happened right along that railroad line.

For some of you, that'll be a hint as to a possible theory about this case.

They have very similar traits.

In April 1912, newspapers across the globe printed headline after headline proclaiming a sensational story.

A young Black woman named Clementine Barnaby had confessed to murdering over a dozen people in the Rice Belt region of the United States.

Supposedly, the 19-year-old Louisiana native had been driven by religion to slaughter entire families up and down the Southern Pacific Railroad's Sunset Route, using an axe to wreak havoc on unsuspecting victims.

Although Clementine claimed she killed four families, comprising 17 people— Along a 25-mile stretch of the railroad in southwestern Louisiana, newspapers quickly exaggerated her victim count and geographic reach.

In so doing, the press made Clementine Barnabé into an even more notorious serial killer.

Yet manufacturing Clementine into a murderous monster was not simply a matter of journalistic flair.

For years, entire Black families had been brutally axed in their own homes, the assailants slipping away in the night only to reappear in another rice belt town in southwestern Louisiana or southeastern Texas with a similar mission, eventually dubbed the Axeman.

The elusive killer seemed to be both everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

In April 1912, newspapers across the globe printed headline after headline proclaiming a sensational story.

A young Black woman named Clementine Barnaby had confessed to murdering over a dozen people in the Rice Belt region of the United States.

Supposedly, the 19-year-old Louisiana native had been driven by religion to slaughter entire families up and down the Southern Pacific Railroad's Sunset Route, using an axe to wreak havoc on unsuspecting victims.

Although Clementine claimed she killed four families, comprising 17 people— Along a 25-mile stretch of the railroad in southwestern Louisiana, newspapers quickly exaggerated her victim count and geographic reach.

In so doing, the press made Clementine Barnabé into an even more notorious serial killer.

Yet manufacturing Clementine into a murderous monster was not simply a matter of journalistic flair.

For years, entire Black families had been brutally axed in their own homes, the assailants slipping away in the night only to reappear in another rice belt town in southwestern Louisiana or southeastern Texas with a similar mission, eventually dubbed the Axeman.

The elusive killer seemed to be both everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

In April 1912, newspapers across the globe printed headline after headline proclaiming a sensational story.

A young Black woman named Clementine Barnaby had confessed to murdering over a dozen people in the Rice Belt region of the United States.

Supposedly, the 19-year-old Louisiana native had been driven by religion to slaughter entire families up and down the Southern Pacific Railroad's Sunset Route, using an axe to wreak havoc on unsuspecting victims.

Although Clementine claimed she killed four families, comprising 17 people— Along a 25-mile stretch of the railroad in southwestern Louisiana, newspapers quickly exaggerated her victim count and geographic reach.

In so doing, the press made Clementine Barnabé into an even more notorious serial killer.

Yet manufacturing Clementine into a murderous monster was not simply a matter of journalistic flair.

For years, entire Black families had been brutally axed in their own homes, the assailants slipping away in the night only to reappear in another rice belt town in southwestern Louisiana or southeastern Texas with a similar mission, eventually dubbed the Axeman.

The elusive killer seemed to be both everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

In April 1912, newspapers across the globe printed headline after headline proclaiming a sensational story.

A young Black woman named Clementine Barnabet had confessed to murdering over a dozen people in the Rice Belt region of the United States.

Supposedly, the 19-year-old Louisiana native had been driven by religion to slaughter entire families up and down the Southern Pacific Railroad Sunset Route, using an ax to wreak havoc, uh, havoc on unsuspecting victims.

Although Clementine claimed she killed four families comprising 17 people along a 25-mile stretch of the railroad in southwestern Louisiana, newspapers quickly exaggerated her victim count and geographic reach.

I'm gonna come back, I'm gonna come back to that, for sure.

[laughs] But let's, let's set the scene a bit more for people.

Um, this book is set in the Rice Belt in the early 1900, early 1900s.

Set, set this geographic and, and temporal scene for us.