Many of us are interested in the historical, exotic, even paranormal aspects of New Orleans. How many have taken the opportunity to go visit New Orleans, maybe party on famous Bourbon Street? Maybe stopped into an occult shop, got a palm reading done? How about the murderous side of New Orleans? So many of those stories to tell.
I'm going to talk about one such murder story that happened in New Orleans back in the 1920s. During this time, the French Quarter was home to a lot of working class people. A few of those residents were Henry and Theresa Moity as well as Henry's brother, Joseph, and his wife Leonide. They lived at 715 Ursulines Street. Together they had five children, so a total of nine people were living inside a 1000 square foot apartment. The families had moved to New Orleans from New Iberia, Louisiana, hoping for better job opportunities. Unfortunately, they did not have much luck finding great jobs and striking it rich. Instead, Henry and Joseph worked odd jobs here and there to help make ends meet. The families continued to struggle to pay rent and put food on the table.
One evening, during an argument between Henry and Theresa, she waved a $5 note in Henry's face, telling him that she and Leonide can make more money that Henry and Joseph. Henry took this to mean that his wife had been getting paid from services she provided to other men. Henry was raging mad, but told Theresa that he was willing to forgive her and forget all about it if Theresa was willing to resume and fulfill her duties as a "good wife". Interjecting my own thoughts quickly regarding "good wife": Ugh! Ick! WTF???
By this time, it sounds like Joseph had actually already moved out, living with a sister, due to Leonide supposedly sleeping with other men. So, Henry is living at the apartment with his wife and sister-in-law, their combined children, and now seeing that the ladies are somehow bringing in more money than he was able to provide. Even though Henry said that he would forgive his wife, he was still upset that she had not made him any dinner. Seriously dudes...fix your own damn sandwich!!!
On the afternoon of Thursday, October 27, 1927, a housemaid named Nettie Compass entered the apartment to do her usual cleaning. Henry was out and about, supposedly looking for work. Just inside the front door, Nettie saw traces of blood. She ran out and yelled for help. Two men who were close by to the apartment called the police.
Once the police arrived, they discovered a horrible site. They found two traveling trunks packed with the butchered bodies of two women. There were also mattresses soaked with blood, the bathroom was covered in blood, and severed fingers were found on a floor in the apartment.
Dr. George Roeling, the Orleans Parish Coroner, found that the killer had bludgeoned the women with a lead billy club before decapitating them with a machete and amputating their arms and legs. A gold wedding band was found buried in a deep gash in the back of one of the victims. Was it placed their purposely? No one knows for sure, but what a twisted mind it would be if the killer did leave it there on purpose. Investigators also found clothes thrown about the apartment making them think that the trunks were emptied in a hurry on purpose to be used for the bodies.
The bodies were identified as Theresa Moity and her sister-in-law, Leonide Moity. There's not a lot of personal information about Theresa and Leonide. Most of the focus was on the word of the husbands, speaking about Theresa's and Leonide's supposed affairs and bad parenting. Well...I don't believe Theresa and Leonide ever murdered anyone...so who exactly is the bad parent?
Discovered in the apartment was a story previously written by Leonide, believed to have been a lightly autobiographical story that she was hoping to get published in a women's magazine. A bloodstained rejection slip was also found in the apartment. Her story spoke of finding joy again after a failed marriage. She wrote of living a happy life, although in poverty, with her husband and young children. The story ends with a now ominous warning: "Now to you readers, young girls especially...please think ahead of you and do not make the mistake I've made, because it does not always turn out the right way, you can still be disappointed. Guess it was only my luck to be happy like this, so I warn others not to take the same risk."
With everything that was found in the apartment at the crime scene, somehow Henry Moity seemed to be missing. Henry had previously worked as a butcher and the Times-Picayune had reported: “The manner in which the two bodies of the women were mutilated and dismembered indicated a man familiar with this trade.” Alerts went out to departing steamer ships to keep their eye our for a stowaway passenger fitting Henry's description of tattooed and "singularly hairy". I'm really curious as to how that hairy description helped. Did he have only one hair over his whole body? Was only one area of his body hairy? If so, which area? Was is visible or covered by clothes? I have so many questions!!!
An extensive search was conducted through swamps and shipyards and finally a very haggard man was found by Bayou Lafourche...the man was Henry Moity. Henry had talked his way onto a ship using a false name, but crewmen recognized his tattoos which were reported publicly. I'm not sure Henry was recognized because of his "hairy" situation. Henry's first statement was that a redheaded Norwegian seafarer murdered the ladies and Henry was forced to help. That's seriously the best story he could come up with? By Novemeber 1, less than a week after the murders, Henry Moity made a full confession, admitting that he killed Theresa and Leonide - and there was no redheaded Norwegian man involved. Plot twist!!!
Henry talked about being angry over an affair he believed his wife was having with their landlord. Henry also tried to blame his actions on his mind being messed up by alcohol. I understand impairment from substance use, but does that clear people of any and all wrong doing? Henry said that he was provoked by Theresa's plans to leave him and he resented Leonide as he believed she was a bad influence on Theresa.
Prosecutors had an easy time proving premeditation...using Henry's own words. The housekeeper said that the afternoon before the murders, Henry told her that he should "take a pistol and shoot both of those basterds [sic]". Later that same evening, Nettie saw Henry, Theresa, Leonide and the children leave the apartment in happy moods. Henry had pulled Nettie aside and told her not to be afraid if Nettie and her family heard the children crying the next morning.
A Times-Picayune article reported that the parish coroner, Dr. George Roeling, discussed the killer's skill with a knife, stating, "The killer who decapitated Mrs. Henry Moity...knew enough not to try to cut through the bone, but to cut through the joint. The appearance of the head of the wife of the defendant...indicated that it had been skillfully removed..." Henry had worked as a butcher's assistant in New Iberia before moving to New Orleans.
Henry ended up explaining that at one point, he thought about killing himself and the children, but got angry again when thinking about the alleged affair between Theresa and the landlord. Henry said he stood over Theresa while she was sleeping and started swinging the knife "like a man possessed". "She didn't say a word or move. She just relaxed and the blood rushed." Henry than ran into Leonide's bedroom and struck her as she was starting to get up from the bed where she had been sleeping. After the murders, he then began cutting up the bodies and stuffed the women into the trunks.
The two murders were tried separately by two different judges. Henry Moity was found guilty in March 1928 in both cases and sentenced to two concurrent terms of life in prison. Henry began his sentence at Louisiana State Penitentiary on July 6, 1928.
Henry continued to claim that he still loved his wife; he even claimed to be married in the 1940 US Census. In 1941, his appeal was rejected by the governor and he even had a brief escape from the Louisiana State Penitentiary in 1944. For whatever reason, Henry was allowed to take a trip to the post office and he flagged down a taxi which then took him to Hammond, Louisiana. He then got on the Illinois Central Panama Limited en route to Chicago. The superintendent of the prison camps at that time, George Provosty, didn't seem concerned at all. He believed that Henry would come back of his own accord since he had already served 16 years and had another chance of being pardoned due to temporary insanity (due to his consumption of alcohol) at the time of the murders.
Henry ended up proving George Provosty wrong as Henry was out and about for two years. I wonder if George Provosty started regretting his thinking that Henry would just come back. Henry was stopped by local police in St. Louis, Missouri, for suspicious behavior. He admitted his identity and was returned to prison in Louisiana.
For whatever reasons that I will never understand, the Louisiana Pardon Board actually recommended his release in 1947. On March 26, 1948, Governor Jimmie Davis signed the pardon.
In 1957, a letter from the warden stated that Henry was "one of the best prisoners we've ever had." Ummmmm...are you talking about the same guy who escaped your prison???
Henry did seem to enjoy his time in prison...continued his painting and one of his paintings, a portrait of Huey Long, got put into the Baton Rouge governor's mansion.
Henry Moity was a free man twenty-one years after killing Theresa and Leonide...and escaping prison for two years. What the actual hell??? Well...his early release did turn out to be a huge mistake as it nearly cost another young lady her life. After his release from prison, Henry moved to California in the hopes of restarting his life.
In 1956, Henry was at a Los Angeles hotel with his girlfriend, Alberta Orange. Henry shot Alberta in the chest, puncturing her lung. He was caught, tried, found guilty and sentenced to five years at Folsom Prison for attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon.
Henry died of a stroke in 1957 in California's Folsom Prison and he was buried there.
So...I can understand the anger and frustration when dealing with marital woes...lying, cheating, substance abuse...but can we please just leave the person and move on with our life? Divorce? Why do so many people jump to murder being the only answer they can come up with??? That's a question I don't think we will have get a good answer to.
-- Audre
Photo by: The Historic New Orleans Collection
Photo by: The Historic New Orleans Collection
Sources:
The Historic New Orleans Collection
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