Frank Carter (1881 – June 24, 1927) was a notorious murderer and self-confessed

serial killer A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A * * * * with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest cit ...

. Confirmed to have committed two murders, Carter claimed to have murdered 43 people. However, reporters doubted most of his claims. The '' Lexington Herald-Leader'' called most of the alleged murders "obviously fictitious".

Crimes

Carter was born in

County Mayo, Ireland County Mayo (; ga, Contae Mhaigh Eo, meaning "Plain of the yew trees") is a county in Ireland. In the West of Ireland, in the province of Connacht, it is named after the village of Mayo, now generally known as Mayo Abbey. Mayo County Council ...

, as Patrick Murphy. The crimes for which he is known began in

, where he worked as a laborer. At the beginning of February 1926, a mechanic was murdered with a

.22 caliber .22 caliber, or 5.6 mm caliber, refers to a common firearms bore diameter of 0.22 inch (5.6 mm). Cartridges in this caliber include the very widely used .22 Long Rifle and .223 Remington / 5.56×45mm NATO. .22 inch is also a popular ...

pistol with a silencer attached. Soon after, a doctor was murdered, and then a railroad detective was shot six times in neighboring Council Bluffs, Iowa. On February 15, Omaha's newspapers recommended the city black out all lights after an exposé on previous murders showed that the victims had been standing in their windows at home when they were shot. During daylight hours, the sniper shot another in the face and fired through more than a dozen lighted windows. Businesses in Omaha came to a standstill, streets cleared and the city's entertainment venues emptied for more than a week. Other crimes included shooting indiscriminately into a

Downtown Omaha Downtown Omaha is the central business, government and social core of the Omaha-Council Bluffs metropolitan area, U.S. state of Nebraska. The boundaries are Omaha's 20th Street on the west to the Missouri River on the east and the centerline ...

drugstore. More than two weeks after his first murder, Carter was captured in Iowa, 30 miles south of Council Bluffs at Bartlett in

Fremont County, Iowa Fremont County is a county located in the U.S. state of Iowa. As of the 2020 census the population was 6,605, making it the state's seventh-least populous county. The county seat is Sidney. The county was formed in 1847 and named for the mili ...

. Carter readily admitted his crimes. After a month-long trial where Carter's lawyers pleaded

insanity Insanity, madness, lunacy, and craziness are behaviors performed by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity can be manifest as violations of societal norms, including a person or persons becoming a danger to themselves or t ...

, Carter was convicted on one count of first degree murder for killing Dr. A.D. Searles. He was also charged with first degree murder for killing mechanic William McDevitt, but that charge was withdrawn. After his conviction, Carter further admitted to being a parole breaker. (He had been released from the

Iowa State Penitentiary The Iowa State Penitentiary (ISP) is an Iowa Department of Corrections maximum security prison for men located in the Lee County, Iowa, community of Fort Madison. This facility should not be confused with the Historical Iowa State Penitentiary, w ...

in 1925, after serving time for killing cattle.) Frank Carter's Nebraska Prison Number was #9277. He was

executed Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

electrocution Electrocution is death or severe injury caused by electric shock from electric current passing through the body. The word is derived from "electro" and "execution", but it is also used for accidental death. The term "electrocution" was coine ...

on June 24, 1927, at the

Nebraska State Penitentiary The Nebraska State Penitentiary (NSP) is a state correctional facility for the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services. Located in Lincoln, it is the oldest state correctional facility in Nebraska, opening in 1869. Until after World War I, ...

Lincoln, Nebraska Lincoln is the capital city of the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Lancaster County. The city covers with a population of 292,657 in 2021. It is the second-most populous city in Nebraska and the 73rd-largest in the United Sta ...

. Carter was quoted as saying "Let the juice flow" just before he died.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carter, Frank 1881 births 1926 crimes in the United States 1927 deaths 20th-century executions of American people American criminal snipers Crime in Omaha, Nebraska Executed people from County Mayo History of Omaha, Nebraska Irish people convicted of murder Irish emigrants to the United States Irish people executed abroad People from County Mayo People executed by Nebraska by electric chair Prisoners and detainees of Iowa People convicted of murder by Nebraska Executed suspected serial killers

Crimes

See also

References