Atlanta, Georgia, was the scene of a grisly string of slayings just after the dawn of the twentieth century that drew horrifying comparisons to London's infamous Jack the Ripper.

The homicides began at a frenzied pace on May 20, 1911. On that and the next six Satuday nights the knife-wielding madman took a victim, all attractive black women. The victims were apparently choked into submission or unconsciousness (none were raped) and then had their throats slit before their murderer mutilated them sexually in a fashion similar to his London counterpart.

The only clue police really had was a description of the killer provided by a woman who was stabbed in the back by a strange man while searching for her tardy mother late on the night of July 1. This surviving victim managed a look at the attacker and described him as a well-dressed black man. Unfortunately, the woman's mother was later found dead: victim #7 of Atlanta's Jack the Ripper, a fate her own daughter apparently narrowly escaped.

The mysterious killer apparently also felt the pressure of a narrow escape and slowed down the pace of his murders. In the next ten months, however, he would still claim thirteen more victims and then disappear forever. All told this unknown man claimed the lives of thirteen black Atlanta women.