John Hannes Dove born about 1858 in San Augustine County, Texas, the son of Samuel Dove and Hannah Dove. John is recorded in the following United States Federal Census:

1870 United States Federal Census - Hannes Dove
1880 United States Federal Census - John Hunina Dove
1900 United States Federal Census -John Dove
1910 United States Federal Census - John H Dove
Texas, U.S., Death Certificates, 1903-1982 - Harmos Dove - {Missouri Brooks}

Spouse: Harriett Garrett Dove - married about May 8, 1892 in San Augustine County, Texas

Children: Jessie Ann Dove, Earnest Dove, Ethel Dove and Eutis Dove

Daughter: Missouri Garrett Dove Brooks - {her mother was Louisa Garrett}
Birth: 5 Mar 1887 - San Augustine County, Texas, USA
Death: 27 Jun 1956 (aged 69) - San Augustine, San Augustine County, Texas, USA
Burial: Pisgah Cemetery - San Augustine, San Augustine County, Texas, USA
Memorial ID: 101273986

Siblings: Caroline Dove Johnson, Dan Dove, Jessie Ann Dove Haynes, Adeline Dove Haynes and Randle Dove

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Harriett and her children Jessie Dove Quirk, Earnest and Ethel moved to Beaumont, Jefferson County, Texas. Per their Certificate of Deaths, on February 18, 1912, Harriett and her three children skulls were crushed with an ax.
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SOUTHEAST TEXAS TALES

Littered throughout Beaumont's history are stories that strike the same kind of fear obtained from watch classic slaughter films - the kind that keeps audiences on the edge of their seats as villains round corners to hack away at victims.

For a moment, we are more sensitive than usual to the possibility of a Hannibal Lecter on the edge of the shadows or those long, winding pitch-dark roads in small towns where bad cops turn you over to monsters bent on mutilating your body.

They exist. They have even found spots in our local history. Some are just odd turns of events consisting of betrayals or a drunken brawl gone wrong.

Then there are cases that have slipped into the cracks. The "ax-man" is one of those.

The lives of the Dove family, among the ax-man's victims, will forever be entangled in perhaps the largest series of slayings by the same mass murderer in Texas history.

Archived stories say an "ax-man" scoured cities from Rayne, La., to San Antonio - mercilessly slaughtering "mulatto" families. It was even suggested, based on the damage done, that the murderer was targeting women, similar to a plot currently being played out in "American Horror Story: Coven" on the FX network.

A 1912 Beaumont Enterprise article described the scene a neighbor came upon one February morning: "Piled upon the beds were the almost nude bodies of the unfortunate victims, with their brains oozing from large rents in the head, made by an axe, the instrument the murderer used."

The Dove family: Hattie Dove, the mother; Ernest Dove, 16-year-old son; Ethel Dove, 12-year-old daughter; and Jessie Quirk, a married daughter; were sound asleep in their home on Cable Street in Beaumont when the "fiend" crawled stealthily through a window near the back of the house.

He started with Hattie and Ernest Dove, who slept in the same back room. There appeared to be no struggle – because the bodies lay in natural sleep positions, the article said - as the ax-man began to bludgeon their heads.

The sound of the metal bashing downward onto bone roused Ethel Dove and Jessie Quirk, the article said. It was apparent a struggled occurred with Ethel and Jessie because "furniture had been overturned and the bed cloths had been torn from the bed, while blood was everywhere."
Officers first suspected John Dove, Hattie's husband, as the murderer, but he was in Nacogdoches, the only place he could find work.

Investigators of the crimes believe the slayings were fueled by religious fanaticism, mostly because of a note left behind that read: "When He maketh the Inquisition for Blood, He forgetteth not the cry of the humble - human five."

According to the "Encyclopedia of Unsolved Murders," some of the stops included:

n January 1911: Rayne, La., A mother and her three children
n February: Crowley, La., three members of the Byers family
n March: Lafayette, family of four
n April 1911: San Antonio, the Cassaway family
n Nov. 26, 1911: Lafayette, six members of the Norbett Randall family
(A woman was held on suspicion of the murders but was released later when the murders continued.)
n Jan. 19, 1912: Crowley, La., woman and her three children
n Jan. 21, 1912: Lake Charles, five family members killed
n Feb. 19, 1912: Beaumont, the Dove family

More deaths continued in Glidden, Hempstead and ended back in San Antonio.

By the time the serial killer disappeared, he had left behind 49 corpses in this region - all hacked to death with an ax.

A string of ax murders spanning approximately 30 years stretched beyond the 357-mile stretch from Rayne, La., to San Antonio. Reports of similar murders also came in from Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Colorado, W. Virginia, California and even as far north as Minnesota.

Several suspects had been identified by police, but the lack of real evidence forced authorities to release them.

This is one Beaumont case in the past 100 years that remains unsolved.

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