26 Sunday,March 29, 2020 DAILY NEWSNYDailyNews.com
Victo r L ica ta h a d a b a d
dream on the night of Oct. 16,
1 933. When the 21-year-old
woke up, his family was dead.
And he would soon be-
come known as the dark
prince of reefer madness.
Licata told police that in
hi s d r e a m h i s f a t h e r,
Michael, 47, a barber in Ybor
City, Fla., near Tampa, en-
tered Victor’s room, grabbed
him and pinned him against
awall. At the same time, his
mother, Rosalia, 44, ran into
the room with a huge carving
knife.
Hi s o l d e r s i s t e r, t w o
younger brothers and some
aunts and uncles were also
there, all laughing.
“My father held me on the
wall, and my mother helped
him cut my arms off,” he said.
She then jammed wooden
ar m s o n t o h i s b l e e d i n g
stumps.
“I was scared,” he said.
“My arms were gone.”
Awake now but in fear for
his life, he grabbed an ax, but
he said he seized a “funny”
one that was “flexible” as if
made of rubber, and he hit
his tormentors with it. The
blows knocked them out, but
he insisted he did not kill
them.
When police found him
cowering in the bathroom
the following afternoon, he
had both his flesh-and-blood
arms firmly attached — and
no memory of killing anyone.
The bodies of his father,
mother, sister, and youngest
brother, age 8, were scattered
around the house. All had
been hacked to death.
Reporters dubbed him the
“Dream Slayer.”
A14-year-old bother was
still alive when police ar-
rived but died within a day.
The final victim
was the family ’s
German shepherd.
Licata was the
ne’er-do-well son
of a prosperous
Italian family. His
father owned two
barbershops and
wa s a p p a r e n t l y
well-liked and re-
sp e c t e d i n t h e
community. Vic-
tor, though, was
unstable, a wild-eyed youth
so crazy that his neighbors
and family lived in fear of
him.
Ayear earlier, police had
tried to enforce a lunacy peti-
tion to lock him up. His par-
ents begged to keep him at
home, insisting they could
give him better care than aninstitution could provide.
Psychiatrists diagnosed de-
mentia praecox (now called
schizophrenia).
It appeared to be in his
genes. Four other relatives —
an uncle, two cousins, and
one of the brothers he killed
were insane.
According to newspaper
accounts, Licata had another
demon.
“He is a user of marijuana,
a... weed that is said to cause
insanity,” declared a caption
under a photo that ran in
newspapers across the coun-
try. It showed Licata, his
large pale eyes staring zom-
bie-like at the camera.
The murders, committed
around midnight, followed
an evening spent
drinking moon-
shine and smok-
ing weed, he said.
There was no
trial. Licata was
quickly judged in-
sane and sent off
to the state hospi-
ta l a t C h a t t a -
hoochee, where
he m i g h t h a v e
faded into obscu-
rity, a bad dream
most people would like to
forget. But his story captured
the eye of Harry Anslinger,
the first head of the Federal
Narcotics Bureau (which lat-
er evolved into the DEA).
The bureau was estab-
lished in 1930, as Prohibition
was having its last call. At
first, it focused on heroin andco c a i n e. A n s l i n g e r s o o n
turned his attention to mari-
juana, a more widely used
substance.
Licata’s rampage was a
pe r f e c t w e a p o n f o r
Anslinger’s propaganda war
on cannabis, part of his col-
lection of horror stories that
became known as the “Gore
Files.”
Licata was not the only
tale in Anslinger’s arsenal.
Still, it was one he frequently
repeated as a sensational re-
minder of the drug’s dangers.
He included the murders in
an influential article, “Mari-
juana, Assassin of Youth,”
published in The American
Magazine in 1937.
It was also part of his testi-
mony to Congress that led to
the federal law that effec-tively made marijuana pos-
session and sale illegal.
“In Florida, police found a
youth staggering about in a
hu m a n s l a u g h t e r h o u s e.
With an ax he had killed his
father, mother, two brothers,
an d a s i s t e r,” A n s l i n g e r
wrote. “Ordinarily a sane,
rather quiet young man, he
had become crazed from
smoking marijuana.”
For decades, advocates of
legalized marijuana have
cast doubt on the idea that
reefer madness led to the
carnage. They point out that
there was no proof Licata
had smoked that night. An-
other theory is that Licata
didn’t commit the killings at
all and that it was a mob hit,
aimed at his father.
Licata remained in themental hospital until 1945.
Then, on Oct. 14, he and four
other inmates sawed the bars
off their cage and vanished.
None of the guards heard a
thing, and no one had any
idea how the prisoners got
the hacksaw. It was clearly
an inside job, but authorities
never identified the accom-
plices.
Four of his fellow fugitives
were picked up within days,
but Licata remained free for
five years. Then, in August
1 950, he strolled into a water-
front restaurant in New Or-
leans, owned by his cousin,
Philip Licata, 35.
Ph i l i p w a s n ’ t e x a c t l y
happy to see his long-lost
relative. In the past, Licata
had vowed to murder more
family members if he ever
got out.
“I was afraid of him, all
right, the way you’d be afraid
of any crazy man,” Philip told
areporter.
Nevertheless, Philip fed
his cousin and invited him to
visit again. The next time, Li-
cata stole $170 and took off.
When he returned a third
time, Philip turned him over
to police and he was packed
off to prison at Raiford, Fla.
In December 1950, his
nightmare of a life ended
when he hanged himself
with a bed sheet in his cell.
JUSTICE STORY has been
the Daily News’ exclusive take
on true crime tales of murder,
mystery and mayhem for
nearly 100 years.BY MARA BOVSUN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWSNarcotics Commissioner Harry Anslinger (above) often refered to
the pot-smoking killer Victor Licata (inset) in battle vs. marijuana./DAILY NEWS PHOTOHHooww wwaarr oonn wweeeedd ssttaarrrreedd aann aaxx mmuurrddeerreerr
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