WI Carl Panzram murders Ex-President Taft in August 1920?

It's not often paid attention, but in August 1920, ex-president (and future supreme court chief justice) William Howard Taft came close to a gruesome death. Carl Panzram, a serial killer and rapist with a talent for grudge-holding, invaded Taft's home to gain revenge for his first prison sentence at the age of 15, which Taft had personally approved while Secretary of War. IOTL, Taft was away from home and Panzram just looted Taft's house and stole his M1911A. He used the money and the gun to go on a decade-long crime spree that, according to Panzram's own account, ended with 21 bodies to his name and over 1,000 men forcibly sodomized.

Now, many doubt the extent of Panzram's rampage, but no one can doubt that Taft was unbelievably lucky to not be home. Panzram was 6 feet tall and 190 lbs of ferocious muscle, with a bone-deep hatred for all humanity. Without some serious guards or a steady shot from that pistol, I've no doubt that Panzram could and would have torn Taft limb from limb.

Suppose, then, that Taft is not lucky? Suppose that he's home, and he and his wife Nellie (and, knowing Panzram, any servants or relatives unlucky enough to be in the house) are killed. What are the immediate effects and butteflies? Two scenarios present distinct possibilities in my mind.

Scenario 1: Panzram finds the house full of family and staff, and murders his way through the Taft household to the ex-president himself, but is eventually restrained and captured by neighbors and New Haven police. The shock would be profound, but perhaps more understandable. Presidents way more often back then, but it might encourage congress to afford ex-presidents some real protection.

Scenario 2: Panzram finds the Tafts mostly alone, kills them, and escapes with the loot he did OTL, allowing him to make a clean getaway on the yacht Akista, eventually ending up in Angola like OTL. The murders are a blood-soaked mystery, and might cause a genuine panic. Perhaps it ends up being blamed on communists, inflaming the burgeoning Red Scare?

Broader Butterflies: The elections are coming, and IOTL Taft had a lot of work ahead of him. He was a grandee of the Republican party, and would in short order be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. How likely is this to affect the court's leanings in the years to come?

Further down the line, how might this affect his son Robert Taft, who was to become a power in US politics in his own right? Could the shock turn the great conservative into an outright reactionary, or could it move him away from politics entirely?

I'm interested to hear what people think.
 
Or, here's an alternate scenario: Panzram murders his way through the Taft house (like in your first scenario), but ex-president Taft, out of genuine grief and rage at his murder of his wife Nellie, shoots him once (or multiple times) with his M1911A...

Effects, anyone? (Assuming his Chief Justice appointment isn't butterflied away, how interesting would it be to have a Chief Justice who actually killed someone on the Court...)

IMO, I doubt Taft gets charged with anything, given the circumstances...
 
Taft was actually a very good wrestler and heavier, he might have had a shot!

Well, the difference being that Taft is 62 with bulk made of blubber and good humor, while Panzram is 28, made up of little more than muscle and hate. Taft could get very lucky, but Panzram was no tyro, essentially the Michael Jordan Peterson of his day. He made a career of brutally raping other men in what was already quite a violent, physical era. He terrified other prisoners in the system, and met constant tortorous punishment from the guards with nothing but defiance. Even at the end of his life, after recovering from having his back broken by a fall, he was able to beat a guard's head to bloody jelly with an iron bar, then rampage through the prison beating fellow prisoners and guards with the bar until he finally grew exhausted and just returned to his cell. I don't mean to be too lurid, but I just wouldn't give the elderly Taft good odds in a fight against this monster.

Or, here's an alternate scenario: Panzram murders his way through the Taft house (like in your first scenario), but ex-president Taft, out of genuine grief and rage at his murder of his wife Nellie, shoots him once (or multiple times) with his M1911A...

Effects, anyone? (Assuming his Chief Justice appointment isn't butterflied away, how interesting would it be to have a Chief Justice who actually killed someone on the Court...)

IMO, I doubt Taft gets charged with anything, given the circumstances...

I considered adding that as a scenario, but decided it would not be nearly as significant or interesting as ones where Taft actually dies. It probably has similar effects to Scenario 1, overall, though more muted.
 
I kind of doubt that Panzram would be able to get away with it in the long term. Even considering the police technology and tactics of the time I figure it's only a matter of time before he slips up. I mean the size of the manhunt is going to be absolutely phenomenal and Panzram doesn't really seem terribly subtle. He was able to rampage for so long because most of his victims seem to have been fairly unimportant and often people that frankly wouldn't be missed. Slaughtering an ex Prez and his entire family in a horrific way is going to create such a furor that it will make the Lindbergh kidnapping look like a Sunday picnic.

Unfortunately I can easily imagine a number of innocents being imprisoned or lynched during that furor (probably some combination of drifters, the mentally ill, immigrants, and blacks).
 
I kind of doubt that Panzram would be able to get away with it in the long term. Even considering the police technology and tactics of the time I figure it's only a matter of time before he slips up. I mean the size of the manhunt is going to be absolutely phenomenal and Panzram doesn't really seem terribly subtle. He was able to rampage for so long because most of his victims seem to have been fairly unimportant and often people that frankly wouldn't be missed. Slaughtering an ex Prez and his entire family in a horrific way is going to create such a furor that it will make the Lindbergh kidnapping look like a Sunday picnic.

Unfortunately I can easily imagine a number of innocents being imprisoned or lynched during that furor (probably some combination of drifters, the mentally ill, immigrants, and blacks).

Oh yeah, I think the odds are 9-1 against him getting away to Angola clean. Panzram was vicious and clever, but impulsive and not really smart. J. Edgar Hoover is going to be combing the Eastern Seaboard with every single man he can get, and success here may well be able to make his bureau's reputation much earlier than OTL. If he does manage to get away, the "Taft House Massacre" will go down in history as another of the great unsolved crimes, on par with Jack the Ripper or the Zodiac. It would, I think, also leave a profound scar on the nation's psyche as a bookend to the Great War era.

While this POD is horrifying, I think the real reverberations will be felt in 10-20 years, given the enormous Taft-sized hole in Republican politics, and especially the impact on his son. I'm not much of an expert on the 1920's GOP or Robert Taft, though he in particular seems to be a very popular figure in alt-30's/40's timelines.
 
Oh yeah, I think the odds are 9-1 against him getting away to Angola clean. Panzram was vicious and clever, but impulsive and not really smart. J. Edgar Hoover is going to be combing the Eastern Seaboard with every single man he can get, and success here may well be able to make his bureau's reputation much earlier than OTL. If he does manage to get away, the "Taft House Massacre" will go down in history as another of the great unsolved crimes, on par with Jack the Ripper or the Zodiac. It would, I think, also leave a profound scar on the nation's psyche as a bookend to the Great War era.

While this POD is horrifying, I think the real reverberations will be felt in 10-20 years, given the enormous Taft-sized hole in Republican politics, and especially the impact on his son. I'm not much of an expert on the 1920's GOP or Robert Taft, though he in particular seems to be a very popular figure in alt-30's/40's timelines.

At the time it seems J Edgar wasn't in charge of the whole Bureau of investigations but instead was head of the "Radical" Department. While I could easily see at least initially the perception being that this was a political act by bolsheviks or anarchists it's not neccesarily true that Edgar would have been placed in charge of the investigation.

Actually now that I think about it at the time I don't believe murdering an ex Prez was a federal crime so this would probably be state or local jurisdiction. Unless there's some relatively minor charge that would allow the Feds to claim jurisdiction. Sort of like in the 1960's investigating "denial of Civil Rights" charges in regards to murdered civil rights workers in the south.
 
At the time it seems J Edgar wasn't in charge of the whole Bureau of investigations but instead was head of the "Radical" Department. While I could easily see at least initially the perception being that this was a political act by bolsheviks or anarchists it's not neccesarily true that Edgar would have been placed in charge of the investigation.

Actually now that I think about it at the time I don't believe murdering an ex Prez was a federal crime so this would probably be state or local jurisdiction. Unless there's some relatively minor charge that would allow the Feds to claim jurisdiction. Sort of like in the 1960's investigating "denial of Civil Rights" charges in regards to murdered civil rights workers in the south.

Hmm, interesting point. I think this could be the catalyst for a lot of things, in that case. Suppose that the manhunt falls to the Connecticut state authorities, who are absolutely unprepared to deal with the absolute deluge of manpower, rumors, and outright histrionics they're about to be bombarded with. G-men and volunteer policemen from all neighboring states, the US marshals, etc. all fighting over jurisdiction, lodging, food, pay, etc. Then the citizen mobs roving around looking for "reds" or assaulting black and immigrant neighborhoods. And on top of that, yellow press from all over the country spreading every kind of idiot story around to sell the story. Whether they find Panzram by sheer weight of numbers or let him slip away in the confusion, the chaos is going to be immense, and afterwards there's going to be a lot of people arguing for a "federalization" of such manhunts.
 
Hmm, interesting point. I think this could be the catalyst for a lot of things, in that case. Suppose that the manhunt falls to the Connecticut state authorities, who are absolutely unprepared to deal with the absolute deluge of manpower, rumors, and outright histrionics they're about to be bombarded with. G-men and volunteer policemen from all neighboring states, the US marshals, etc. all fighting over jurisdiction, lodging, food, pay, etc. Then the citizen mobs roving around looking for "reds" or assaulting black and immigrant neighborhoods. And on top of that, yellow press from all over the country spreading every kind of idiot story around to sell the story. Whether they find Panzram by sheer weight of numbers or let him slip away in the confusion, the chaos is going to be immense, and afterwards there's going to be a lot of people arguing for a "federalization" of such manhunts.

Exactly my thought. The chaos over jurisdiction would likely lead to significantly expanded Federal Law Enforcement agencies and capabilities. The Secret service being expanded and charged with protecting Ex Prez's seems like an obvious result but what Federal Law Enforcement would end up looking like is far less assured. If Parzam manages to leave the state (which considering his state and country skipping habits seems likely) the chaos will be even worse. Newspapers would be shouting rumors about suspects from Alaska to Puerto Rico and beyond. If Parzam manages to leave the country (but is realized to have done so) it very well might have propelled Interpol further along. Not necessarily as some sort of international law enforcement agency but like OTL as a method of allowing different nations police forces to share information. You might also see the emergence of more extradition treaties earlier. If for whatever reason Parzam can't be extradited from abroad you might see something like what we did after the murder of DEA agent Kiki Camarena in the 80's. Namely bounties being placed on Parzam by various US authorities and private individuals and bounty hunters scattering across the world looking to make a massive payday.
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
I think this might have a negative effect on the reputation of German-Americans. I can easily imagine some yellow press outfit running a story about how Panzram did it out of revenge against America for WWI.
 
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