Jake Bird

Kludt murders At around 2:30 am on October 30, 1947, the home of 52 year old Bertha Kludt and her daughter, 17 year old Beverly June Kludt, was broken into by an intruder brandishing an axe. The axe had been taken from a shed, and the intruder had removed his shoes to sneak into the house. Bertha awoke during the break in. When she tried to pull out a weapon the perpetrator hacked her to death. It was reported when she was found, Bertha's head was nearly severed. Beverly Kludt was then murdered in the same fashion when she came downstairs to confront her mother's killer.

Two police officers sent to the Tacoma residence to investigate reports of screams from inside, saw a man run out of the back door and subsequently gave chase. The suspect was captured and taken to the Tacoma City Jail, where he confessed to the killings and identified himself as Jake Bird, claiming the murders were the result of a botched burglary.

The 45-year-old Bird had an extensive criminal record, including many counts of burglary and attempted murder, and had been incarcerated for a total of 31 years in Michigan, Iowa and Utah. Bird was a transient who had been born in Louisiana in a location he could not remember. He supported himself as a manual laborer and railroad gandy dancer, who laid and maintained tracks. His work on the railroad kept him moving from place to place. "I was given no chance to defend myself. My own lawyers just asked you to hang me. They apologized for defending me. If they were so reluctant to defend me, why did they contest the prosecutor’s proof of murder, and now say that everything is proven?"

These interviews enabled the various police departments to declare many outstanding murder cases as solved. In addition to his Washington state murders, Bird had apparently killed people in Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wisconsin. He mostly preyed on Caucasian women and dispatched his victims with an axe or hatchet. He was hanged on the morning of July 15, 1949, at 12:20 a.m., before 125 witnesses. Family did not come forward to claim his body after his death. Several law enforcement officers took pieces of the noose as a souvenir. Bird was buried in an unmarked grave in the prison cemetery.