Tag Archives: Ottis Toole

The Volstead, the Knight Building, and Ghosts of the Fire of 1901

Posted on May 26, 2023 | Leave a comment

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The W.A. Knight Building stands on the old homesite of Edward Cleaveland, “the man who burned down the town,” whose business negligence started the Great Fire of 1901. When the building was new, it was illegal to buy or sell alcohol. It now houses the Volstead, a bar named in irony for the Prohibition Act.

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Tagged All Florida Sand Company, Bolles Hall, Charlie Patton, Cleaveland Fibre Factory, Diamond Interlachen Sands Company, E.E. Cleaveland, Edward Cleavelend, Edward Cleveland, Edward Jelks, Epping Forest, Florida Rock, Greenleaf and Crosby Building, Kazu Sushi Burrito, Knight Lofts, Lyla Dore, Marsh and Saxelbye, Mike Langton, Ottis Toole, Riverside Hospital, San Jose Hotel, Teri Youmans, The Row Riverside, Tim Gilmore, Volstead, W.A. Knight, W.A. Knight Building, W.W. Cleaveland

The Life and Multiple Deaths of the Drew Building

Posted on November 25, 2019 | Leave a comment

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The story of the building at 45 West Bay Street concerns a bear, Jacksonville’s first bookstore, Ottis Toole, the tragic deaths of construction workers, multiple demolition plans, the ghost of a third floor and the love of an architect who refused to let this building die. Now Urban Grind Coffee, Folio Weekly and other businesses call the Drew Building home. Click below for the story.

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Tagged Claire Goforth, Clements Rumpel, Columbus Drew, Deluxe Cleaners, Don Ingram, Doug Hutchins, Downtown Development Authority, Drew Building, Drew's Bookstore, F. Kyle Marshall, Fletcher Morgan, Florida Alligator Farm, Florida history, Florida Whig Party, Folio Weekly, George Sonnenberg, Great Fire of 1901, H. and W.B. Drew, H.J. Klutho, Henry John Klutho, Hodson Drew, Horace Drew, Independent Life Building, Jacksonville history, James Clements, Jaquelin Daniel, Julie Delegal, Lenny Curry, Loading Dock Restaurant, Lyman Fletcher, Madeleine Peck Wagner, McConihe Building, Morgan's Department Store, Osky’s Alligator Store, Ostrich Farm, Otis Perkins, Ottis Toole, Peter Rumpel, Pine Street Fire of 1891, Regina Hersey, Richard Martin, Robert Broward, Robert LeMoine, Rocco Morabito, Shelton Hull, Sohrab Fracis, Stalking Ottis Toole, The Architecture of Henry John Klutho: The Prairie School in Jacksonville, The City Makers, Tim Gilmore, Urban Grind Coffee, W.B. Camp, Wilbur Bacon Camp, William L'Engle

Halloween-week story: Spence Auto Sales and Ottis Toole Death Car

Posted on October 30, 2019 | Leave a comment

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It was November 1983, six months since Spence had last seen Ottis Toole, the great fake serial killer. Detectives thought they could pin the Ottis Toole death car and a rusty machete to Spence Auto Sales. Two months later, Spencer Bennett was dead.

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Tagged 708 Day Avenue, Adam Walsh, Becky Powell, Betty Goodyear, Bob Harley, Buddy Terry, Catlin Truck Accessories, Clyde Miller, Drusilla Arzetta, Drusilla Arzetta Toole, Drusilla Toole, Florida Turnpike, Frieda Lorraine Powell, Frieda Powell, Henry Lee Lucas, Historic Springfield Jacksonville, Hollywood Police Department, Jack Hoffman, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, jaxpsychogeo, Larry Hoisington, Oakwood Street, Ottis Toole, Ottis Toole death car, Panama Gardens, Ron Hickman, Sarah Harley, Spence Auto Sales, Spencer Bennett, Spencer C. Bennett, Spencer Clement Bennett, Springfield Jacksonville, Stalking Ottis Toole, Standard Oil Station, Tim Gilmore, Vero Beach, William Catlin

New Story: Ottis Toole’s Mother’s House (Until He Burnt It Down)

Posted on July 27, 2019 | Leave a comment

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The first time Ottis Toole burnt down his mother’s house, he was 10 or 11 years old. When he burnt down his mother’s house on Day Avenue in 1981, his name wasn’t yet famous as either one of the worst serial killers in history, or one of the biggest fakes.

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Tagged Adam Walsh, Becky Powell, Buddy Terry, Day Avenue, Death Diploma, Drusilla Powell, Drusilla Toole, Frank Powell, George Sonnenberg, Hammond Grocery, Henry Lee Lucas, Jacksonville history, Joel Norris, Murray Hill Heights, Ottis Toole, Springfield Jacksonville, Tim Gilmore

New Story: Jacksonville Beach: New Trinity, Killing the Devil, and the Murder of Vera Gould

Posted on November 8, 2018 | 1 comment

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After the three young people stabbed K.’s grandmother to death in her Jacksonville Beach home, newspapers quoted them calling her “Satan,” themselves “the New Trinity” and Lex Hester, one of the most prominent men in Jacksonville’s political history, “the Antichrist.”

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Tagged Al Capone, Antichrist, Anton LaVey, backmasking, Bill Magnuson, Billy Lee Magnuson, Bob Price, Carole Magnuson, Chittenango High School, Chittenango New York, Church of Satan, Consolidation, Dayspring Farms, Devil Worship, Duval County, Eduardo Sanchez, Ernest C. Miller, Ernest Miller, Fletcher Junior High, Fletcher Middle School, Florida Times-Union, Folie à deux, folie à trois, Frank Brunson, Hans Tanzler, Henry Lee Lucas, Hotel California, Hotel Statler, House of David Ministries, J.J. Daniel, Jacksonville Beach, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, Jake Godbold, jaxpsychogeo, Jessie-Lynne Kerr, Kill Devil Hills, Kill Devil Hills North Carolina, Led Zeppelin, Lewis Alexander Hester III, Lex Hester, Local Government Study Commission of Duval County, Louis C. Corbin, Louis Corbin, Michelle Remembers, Mike Gould, Neptune Beach, Ottis Toole, Outer Banks, Renee Magnuson, Richard Bowers, San Pablo Elementary, Satanic Bible, Satanic Panic, Satanism, schizophrenia, shared psychosis, Steve Parker, TacoLu, Tim Gilmore, Tommy Hazouri, Vera Gould, Virginia Beach, William Magnuson

Part Two: What Ever Happened to Beverly June?

Posted on July 29, 2017 | Leave a comment

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Emmett Spencer was in jail on charges of two murders and told police he’d dreamt about seven others. Soon headlines would refer to Spencer as the “Dream Killer.”

“I knew I couldn’t go on living as I had those six months. If I had, I believe I would have become totally insane.”

Tim Gilmore’s talk on the case will take place at Chamblin’s Uptown, August 16th, at 7 pm.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1637767666267952/

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Tagged Ann Platt, Beverly Cochran, Beverly Jean Cochran, Beverly June Cochran, Dale Carson, Donald Coleman, Dream Killer, Emmett Spencer, Ethel Jarrell, Folio Weekly, Henry Lee Lucas, J.C. Patrick, J.C. Patrick Jr., James Cochran, James Edward Cochran, James Wingate, John Keen, Leon Hammel, Leon Hammell, Mary Catherine Hampton, Mary Hampton, Mary Katherine Hampton, Ottis Toole, Raiford State Prison, Roland Lee Lindsey, Ronald Lee Lindsey, Susan Clark Armstrong, Virginia Tomlinson, William Johnston

Part One of a New Series: What Ever Happened to Beverly June?

Posted on July 22, 2017 | 1 comment

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Every day, he replayed the Wednesday he’d come home from work at 6 pm—February 24, 1960—to find his wife gone, the baby crying alone in her crib.

Neighbors said the stranger had been parking a blue 1958 Ford across the street from the Cochrans’ for three weeks and reading a newspaper for hours at a time.

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Tagged B.B. McCormick, Benjamin Thornal, Beverly Cochran, Beverly June Cochran, Clarence McCormick, Dale Carson, Duval County, Emmett Spencer, Florida Supreme Court, Folio Weekly, Harbor View, Henry Lee Lucas, J.C. Patrick, Jacksonville, James Cochran, jaxpsychogeo, John Keen, Johnnie Keen, Mary Catherine Hampton, Ottis Toole, Ribault River, Ribault Scenic Drive, Susan Clark Armstrong, Tim Gilmore

Posted on June 6, 2017 | Leave a comment

Click below for the fourth story in a series of seven about the KKK in Jacksonville. On June 13th, come to Coniferous Cafe in downtown Jax at 7 pm, to hear Tim Gilmore’s talk “The Klan in Jax: Its Repugnant Rise and Hysterical Collapse.

For most of his life, he’d not realized the full traumatic effect of the Klan’s bombing of his childhood home as retaliation for his being the first black child to attend Lackawanna Elementary School.

Can anyone feel the brutality and tragedy in the landscape? Does the Klan’s hate and the Godfreys’ fear and sorrow and determination remain in the soil or the air or the trees? I can’t tell, because I can’t not know what happened here.

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Tagged Beloved, Bob Gray, Donal Godfrey, Jacksonville, jaxpsychogeo, KKK, Ku Klux Klan, Lackawanna, Lackawanna Elementary, Murray Hill Heights, Ottis Toole, Robert Gray, Sethe, Terianne Summers, Tim Gilmore, Toni Morrison, Trinity Baptist Church, We Shall Overcome

New Story: The Strange History of Springfield’s Bungalow Court

Posted on May 7, 2017 | 1 comment

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In these old photographs, Harry Walters still smiles forward, six years old, holding his Easter basket on a Sunday slipping further and further behind us.

Ironically, by the time Dancy Terrace’s front porches appeared in the 2006 movie Lonely Hearts, starring John Travolta and Salma Hayek, the entire court was abandoned.

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Tagged bungalow court, Charles E. White, Dancy Terrace, Hailing Zhong, Harry Walters, Jacksonville, jaxpsychogeo, Johannes Ullrich, John Travolta, Lonely Hearts, murmuration, Ottis Toole, Porch Fest, Redell Street, Salma Hayek, Springfield, starling, Tim Gilmore, Victorian architecture

New Stories: Barnett Mansion and Springfield Tunnels

Posted on December 4, 2016 | Leave a comment

Two stories. Scroll down for both.

Click below for the full story about Barnett Mansion:

“There are so many stories in this house,” he says.

In the 1970s, the police saw William Barnett, 1824-1903, standing in the shadows and drew their guns.

Click below for the full story about Springfield Tunnels:

Billy says he and his friends slipped through an aperture into a system of extensive tunnels beneath the Barnett Mansion in Springfield.

The great strength of conspiracy theories and urban legends is that you can’t prove a negative.

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Tagged "The O'Possum Hunt", Barnett Bank, Barnett Mansion, Bion Barnett, C. Adrian Pillars, Charles Adrian Pillars, Great Fire of 1901, Hogans Creek, Jacksonville, Jim Krahn, Joel McEachin, Ottis Toole, Solomon Lodge, Springfield, Stalking Ottis Toole, The Mad Atlas of Virginia King, Tim Gilmore, Virginia King, William Barnett