A Day of Fear - America’s First Serial Killer Panic, 1885

The Illustrated Journal of Sam Bridwell

Jan 08, 2026

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It’s December 26, 1885 - the Christmas Eve double murders of Sue Hancock and Eula Phillips sends the city of Austin into a state of absolute terror. No phones. No TVs. Nothing. News travels only by word of mouth.

These are the records of Samuel Bridwell, 19, printer’s apprentice at the Austin Daily Statesman, born in Bastrop County to a farming family, who came to Austin in 1883 seeking opportunity.

December 26, 1885 — 5:47 AM
Pecan Street Boarding House, Austin, Texas

Photorealistic 16x9 photograph 1885 American interior Cramped boarding house bedroom at pre-dawn blue-gray winter light through single frosted window with torn muslin curtain Young white man 19 years old lean build angular face sandy brown h_image_1

Cold cedar smoke hangs in the cramped second-floor room. A washstand pitcher filmed with ice. The distant lowing of cattle from the stockyards east of town. Stale sweat embedded in straw mattress ticking. Through thin walls, the landlady’s consumptive cough. Sam wakes to church bells tolling—not for service, but for the dead. Two more women murdered Christmas Eve. The whole city knows. Sleep came poorly, if at all.

December 26, 1885 — 6:23 AM
Pecan Street, Walking Toward Congress Avenue

Photorealistic 16x9 photograph winter morning 1885 Austin Texas street scene Pecan Street at dawn frost-covered wooden boardwalk rutted unpaved dirt street frozen solid with visible horse manure and mud ruts Young white man 19 lean sandy bro_image_1

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