From the Axeman to the Robert Charles Riots: 6 Notorious Crimes in New Orleans History

Regarded as one of the most haunted cities in the United States, New Orleans has experienced crime waves throughout its history marked by scandal, homicide and unsolved mysteries.

Historically, racial tensions, New Orleans’ role as a major trade hub and its diverse mix of transient people fueled both the city’s vibrant culture and crimes that remain etched in its residents’ collective memory. Here are six notorious examples.

For roughly 18 months between 1918 and 1919, an unidentified suspect broke into the homes of residents in and around New Orleans—most of them Italian grocers—and bludgeoned them in their sleep using axes he usually found in their homes. The so-called Axeman of New Orleans attacked at least 17 people, killing at least four, according to People.

In the early 1900s, Italian immigrants faced racial prejudice as they moved to New Orleans more than any other Southern city, Smithsonian magazine reports. In March 1919, the Axeman allegedly wrote a letter to The Times-Picayune newspaper stating he would spare any household playing jazz at 12:15 a.m. Many families and public venues obliged, even as some doubted its authenticity. 

The Axeman spread fear across New Orleans and beyond—but was never identified.

On the evening of Sunday, June 24, 1973, a fire broke out at the stairwell leading to The Up Stairs Lounge, a gay bar in the city’s French Quarter. Thirty-two lives were lost, and over a dozen were injured in the tragedy.

Evidence of arson surfaced and pointed to bar patron Roger Nunez as the primary suspect. But police didn’t thoroughly investigate the case, documentarian Robert Camina told VICE, and elected officials never publicly responded, likely due to the widespread stigma against homosexuality.

Nunez had been ejected from the venue shortly before the fire, reportedly screaming, “I’m going to burn you all out.” Doused in lighter fluid, the entrance soon erupted into flames. 

Nunez died by suicide in 1974. The case officially remains unsolved and, until the Pulse Nightclub shooting claimed 49 lives in 2016, it was considered the deadliest instance of gay violence in U.S. history.

Madame Delphine LaLaurie, a wealthy New Orleans socialite, lived in a neoclassical mansion with her third husband, Dr. Leonard Louis Nicolas LaLaurie, in the French Quarter. Madame LaLaurie had a reputation as a sadist who severely mistreated the people she enslaved.

On April 10, 1834, a fire broke out at the LaLaurie mansion. There, local bystanders discovered a torture chamber with “seven slaves, more or less horribly mutilated” and bound by chains, the French-language newspaper The New Orleans Bee reported. The newspaper described Madame LaLaurie as “a demon in the shape of a woman.”

Rescuers encountered an elderly Black woman trapped in the kitchen who reportedly admitted to starting the fire to commit suicide so she could escape LaLaurie’s torture, according to HISTORY. As news of LaLaurie’s torture spread, a mob ransacked what was left of the mansion in protest. 

The LaLauries fled the United States and ultimately moved to Paris. The mansion upholds its reputation as one of the famous haunted houses of New Orleans.

On the evening of July 23, 1900, three white police officers reportedly harassed Robert Charles, a Black man, in New Orleans’ Central City for sitting on a porch in a white neighborhood. A fight broke out, and Charles fled to his home. Police later showed up, and two officers were killed in an exchange of gunfire with Charles, triggering a four-day, deadly race riot. 

In the Jim Crow South, a mob of white New Orleans residents called for Charles’s lynching, also violently assaulting and shooting African Americans in the streets and burning down Black schoolhouses. On July 27, they joined police in surrounding another house where Charles had taken refuge. Officers engaged in a shootout with Charles and set fire to the building. Then, a bystander fatally shot Charles as he escaped. 

The crowd continued beating and shooting Charles’s body until New Orleans Mayor Paul Capdevielle called in special police and the state militia. A total of 28 people, including Charles, were killed in the riots, and dozens were injured.

In March 1995, New Orleans police officer Antoinette Frank, 23, reportedly robbed a family-run Vietnamese restaurant on Bullard Avenue with a male accomplice, 18-year-old Rogers LaCaze. During the robbery, the pair fatally shot the restaurant owners’ two children and a fellow NOPD officer. 

The Guardian stated that the case “gripped Louisiana [as] part of an extensive list of violence and corruption scandals tied to local law enforcement at the time.” Both suspects were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death, but LaCaze was removed from death row in 2019 following a deal with the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office.

The case has generated headlines over the years as Frank has continuously appealed and challenged her conviction and sentencing. In May 2025, a judge granted Frank a new trial.

In October 2006, New Orleans police discovered the body of military veteran Zackery Bowen, 28, on top of a parking garage. A suicide note in his front pocket stated, in part, “I had to take my own life to pay for the one I took,” pointing police to a gruesome crime scene at his French Quarter apartment.

There, they found the dismembered corpse of Bowen’s girlfriend, 30-year-old Addie Hall, whose body parts had been cooked on the stove and in the oven.

Bowen’s note indicated that he was haunted by past failures in “school, jobs, military, marriage, parenthood, morals, love,” according to ABC News. The couple got together at the onset of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and their relationship reportedly became volatile after the storm, when the city experienced widespread trauma and nearly 1,400 fatalities. The pair had refused to evacuate.

Bowen and Hall reportedly had been arguing the night of the killing. Bowen later jumped to his death from a New Orleans hotel.