8. Early America’s Most Depraved Monsters
Generations before Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, or Garry Ridgway, there were the Harpe Brothers. Micajah “Big” Harpe (circa 1748 – 1799) and Wiley “Little” Harpe (circa 1750 – 1804) was born in Colonial America before the United States had even come into being. The brothers were highwaymen, river pirates, and sadists who went on a years long crime spree along the then-frontier west of the Appalachian Mountains. From at least the days of the American Revolution, they left a trail of mayhem, depravity, and terror, throughout Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, and Mississippi.
By the time their crime spree ended, the Harpes had claimed the lives of over fifty people. The crime-prone siblings, who were British Loyalists during the American Revolution, fought for King George III as volunteer militia and irregulars. After their side lost the war, they became outlaws and took to robbing and killing settlers west of the Appalachians. They seem to have been driven by sheer bloody-mindedness and blood lust, rather than financial gain. That has led scholars to designate them as the country’s first documented “serial killers”.
