The Servant Girl Annihilator Terrorized Austin Three Years Before Jack the Ripper

For one year in the 1880s, Austin was afraid of the dark.

Between late 1884 and Christmas Eve 1885, a killer slipped into homes at night and murdered eight people, according to the Travis County Archives.

PBS's History Detectives points out that it happened three years before Jack the Ripper struck London.

Nobody was ever convicted for good. Officially, the crimes are still unsolved.

A Boomtown With No Streetlights

In 1885 Austin was a growing city of about 23,000 people, Texas Monthly reported in its long investigation of the case.

Workers were building the new Capitol, and on July 4, 1885, a crowd of about 6,000 gathered for the laying of the Driskill Hotel's cornerstone.

But once the sun went down, most of the city was dark.

Austin had no outdoor lighting until 1894, according to the design podcast 99% Invisible.

The Attacks Begin

In late 1884, a Black cook named Mollie Smith was found dead in the snow behind her employer's home, Texas Monthly reported.

A few months later, a cook named Eliza Shelley was killed in the room where her children slept.

Three weeks after that, a servant named Irene Cross was attacked with a knife and died of her wounds.

The victims had something in common. Most were young Black women working as domestic servants in white households, the Travis County Archives notes, which is how the case got its name.

The list kept growing. Eleven-year-old Mary Ramey was killed late that summer, and in September, Gracie Vance and her boyfriend Orange Washington were murdered behind the house where she worked.

A Name From O. Henry

The writer William Sydney Porter, later famous as O. Henry, was living in Austin at the time.

In a letter dated May 10, 1885, he joked darkly that the town was dull "except for the frequent raids of the Servant Girl Annihilators."

The letter was later published in Rolling Stones, a collection of his writing, and the nickname stuck.

Bloodhounds, Rewards and Hundreds of Suspects

Police had no fingerprinting and no blood typing. They relied on bloodhounds, led by a dog named Old George, Texas Monthly reported.

A committee of businessmen offered a $3,000 reward, and the governor added $300.

Strangers were stopped in the street and questioned. The police arrested several suspects, but nothing could be proven, according to the Travis County Archives.

Christmas Eve, 1885

On the night of December 24, 1885, the killer struck twice.

Susan Hancock was found by her husband in their backyard, struck with an ax. About an hour later, Eula Phillips was found dead in an alley behind her father-in-law's home, Texas Monthly reported.

Both women were white, and neither was a servant. The city, the Travis County Archives says, was on the verge of chaos.

Two Husbands on Trial

In early 1886, police arrested both victims' husbands, Jimmy Phillips and Moses Hancock.

A jury convicted Phillips and sentenced him to seven years. Six months later, the Texas Court of Appeals overturned the verdict for insufficient evidence.

Hancock's trial ended in a hung jury. Neither man was ever tried again, according to Texas Monthly.

After that December, the killings simply stopped.

What About the Moonlight Towers?

You will often hear that Austin built its famous moonlight towers to stop the killer.

The Handbook of Texas dates the towers to 1894 and 1895, nearly a decade later, and 99% Invisible says there is no evidence directly linking the two.

How to Visit Today

Texas Monthly reported that Mary Ramey and other victims were buried at Oakwood Cemetery in East Austin, where Eula Phillips also rests.

Many of the old grave markers in the cemetery's historic Black section have been lost, the magazine noted.

More than 140 years later, nobody knows who the Servant Girl Annihilator was.

Had you ever heard of Austin's first serial killer? Tell us in the comments.