Your Next Listen: Killer Kin

Brothers Makija and Wiley Harp were weaned on war. Their parents were murdered right in front of them. They swore revenge to kill as many people as possible. By the time they were adults, their bloodlust was unquenchable. The Harps came to love a tomahawk. They developed a love for fulfilling a bone crush on the head of that axe. This is coming right upon you, face to face. This is fiendish beyond belief. They make Jack the Ripper look like nothing. They maimed and murdered until their names were legend on the American frontier. If you heard the harp's name, it put chills up and down your spine. The last four words that anybody in any settlement wanted to hear were, the harps are coming. The harps are America's first documented serial killers. Farmer Moses Stiegel comes home to find a crowd surrounding his cabin. Moses is in a panic. He had gone overnight. He comes back. He sees that his house has been burnt, and he can't find his family. Mary! Mary! Stiegel prays his wife and their four-month-old son somehow ran to safety. He walks about, kicking the ashes, trying to figure out what's going on. And suddenly he sees what he knows for sure is a body. Moses sees the body of his wife Mary Mary was not completely burned up And her throat has been cut So now he knows this is not just a house fire This is a murder He keeps looking And he finds another body And it's the body of his baby Stegall is burning with revenge for the murder of his wife and child. Stiegel suspects the killers may have been Native Americans, but there's no way to be sure. Then a witness comes forward. He said he had seen two men leaving the cabin a few hours before. One big man. What did they look like? He saw two men, one small, one big, and one of them had flaming red hair. The description matches the notorious outlaws, Wiley and Makija Harp. The Harp brothers were extremely famous. They were the most dangerous and brutal killers on the frontier. Stegall quickly forms a posse to hunt them down and stop their reign of terror once and for all. You now had the biggest dragnet in criminal history. So you had people all across the frontier looking for them. The brothers' evil deeds stand out, even in a time of great bloodshed and tragedy. The Revolutionary War was a brutal, bloody conflict that tore the American colonies apart. The American Revolution was in many ways a civil war. Brother against brother, father against son, neighbor against neighbor. It was the patriots who supported independence. versus the loyalists who wanted to stay loyal to the king. In Cape Fear, North Carolina, the Scottish immigrant Harp family was determined to stay loyal to England. The Harps came from a family of Tories. If you were a Tory, a loyalist, your neighbors tended not to look very kindly upon you if they happened to be patriots. According to family descendant Don Harp, John and his wife Mary and their sons, 12-year-old Micaja and 10-year-old Wiley, lived in constant fear. They didn't have anything to do with the neighbors. They were scared of the neighbors. The neighbors were the enemy. Isolated from the outside world, the brothers became inseparable. Micaja and Wiley would have experienced paranoia, certainly never knowing when something might happen to their family. Why does everyone hate us? I don't know. They trusted each other implicitly. It was them against the world. The strength of their bond was about to be tested. One day, the brothers returned home to find a Patriot militia unit threatening their parents. Take your hands off of us. You're going to get your hands off of me. The patriots in the area decided they didn't want anyone that had Tory sympathy to stay in the area. No one noticed the two little boys hiding. The patriots wanted the Tory traitors gone, and they were willing to kill to get rid of them. Not my wife! Not my wife! Rebels, you'll pay for this! You dirty rebels! The brothers were helpless as the militia put a noose on their father and one on their mother. The Hart brothers watched their parents being hung. It was shocking to them. It was brutal. Now orphaned, the tragedy only reinforced their bond. They're left in the woods. They have no place to go, nowhere to turn. no neighbors. The brothers swore a sacred oath to avenge their parents' murder. From that moment on, they wanted revenge against the society that had first killed their parents and made them outcasts. One can only imagine what would have been imprinted and burned into their psyche forever, having seen their parents brutally put to death. For almost a year, Makija and Wiley relied on each other for survival. Then they found shelter with an unlikely new family, a tribe of Cherokee. Cherokee took these two boys, they gave them a place to stay. They taught them how to hunt better. For boys who wanted no boundaries and believed that there were no boundaries, they could get that in the Native American tribes. It was a more rough and tumble world that I think matched their personalities perfectly. By the time the Harps grew into their late teens, the brothers were distinctly different. Tall, brawny Makija towered over his smaller brother, Wiley. They became known as Big and Little Harp. Big Harp is about six feet tall, extremely well built, has a very rageful face. and he was a guy who was very excitable. His brother, Wiley Little Harp, was the direct opposite. He was much calmer. He was the brains of the outfit. Some said that no one could look at them without being impressed with the bulldog face and head of Big Harp and the sly lynx and hyena look of Little Harp. The Revolutionary War is officially over in the East, but fighting continues along America's western frontier. The Harps join raiding parties against the new nation, battling side-by-side with Native Americans and outlaw Tory groups. They learn survival from one and murder and rape from the other. And it was from the Native Americans that they learn survival. It was from the white Tories that they learned had a pillage, had a rape, and had a murder without conscience. The brothers' vow of revenge morphs into a sick bloodlust. The Harps, particularly Macija, came to love a tomahawk simply because it was so up close and personal. He developed a love for filling a bone crush under the head of that axe. They seemed to enjoy killing, that they killed for killing's sake. Now, what kind of a monster can do that? Terrible, terrible, terrible people. You never really knew how they were going to act out and what they were going to do. The brutality was really excessive. Soon Big and Little Harp will launch a crime spree that strikes terror across the frontier. There was no other word that adequately describes the Har brothers other than pure evil. The brothers give a whole new meaning to the Wild West. They had more kills than any serial killers in United States history. During the American Revolution, Makija and Wiley Harp saw their parents murdered. They vowed revenge and grew into brutal fighters and killers. The boundaries normal people would have, they didn't have that. So they felt they could do anything, and they did. It was the attitude, well, we're in this together. We're all we've got. After 10 years of fighting against the fledgling American nation, the Harps have no choice but to join it The brothers head to the American frontier town of Knoxville Tennessee Knoxville, at the time, was considered sort of hell on earth. It was a rough, rip-snorting, roaring frontier town, and it seemed perfectly suited for the Harps. The brothers take a stab at respectability. They raise hogs on a farm outside the city. Wiley marries an upstanding young lady named Sarah Rice. He saw an opportunity to maybe take on a better profile in the community because she was a daughter of a minister. She was a very pretty young girl. Mekija's tastes aren't as traditional. Eastake's claim to sisters Susan and Betsy Roberts. Susan married Big Harp in 1795, and her sister considered herself to be his wife, too. Well, I guess you could say she was just along for the ride. In the bedroom, each of the ladies is fair game for either brother. The two brothers shared three women, which would have raised eyebrows for sure. at the time it was morally reprehensible. No one knows for sure if the women are happy partners or reluctant prisoners. We have different stories. The women were kidnapped and then kind of beaten into submission or became their wives. In a way, it doesn't really matter in the 18th century whether the wives came into the relationship willingly or were forced into it because they already knew as women, they didn't have very much choice in the matter. A few months after settling down with their wives on the farm, the brothers can't resist a more lucrative occupation, stealing livestock. People's horses begin to disappear, their cows begin to disappear, their sheep, their pigs, and the harps begin to sell these animals. They believed that the law did not apply to them. All they believed in was the truth of the tomahawk blade and the truth of the barrel of a gun. The brothers are back to being outlaws. Yet they're outraged when the neighbors confront them about the missing animals. Accused people like the Hart brothers of a crime. You better be prepared for the consequences. If you say, you stole my pig, my kajah is probably going to hit you in the head with his tomahawk. After months of accusations, the brothers decide to put a stop to the rumors permanently. They visited a local tavern, and they see a man named Johnson, who turns out to be one of their accusers. They got really, really upset, and they said, man, that's the man that turned us in. That's him, Johnson. He's the one. I'll handle it. As always, the Harps are eager for a confrontation. They have words, and words escalate into combat. Johnson's not going down without a fight. Johnson pulls a knife and stabs Wiley. The brothers take off, but they don't go very far. Wiley's not badly hurt, but now he's burning for revenge. What happened? Drunk old man stabbed me. When Johnson staggers out of the tavern a few hours later, That's him? That's him. The brothers ambush him. They take him into the woods, and then they go to work on him. It's not like poisoning your coffee or even shooting you from ambush. This is coming right upon you, face to face, and cracking your head open with a small axe. This is fiendish beyond belief. That's generally known as the first outlandish murder. It's not the first murder the Hortz are associated with, but it's the first of what they did with that revenge in mind. There were always crimes in serial killers' backgrounds where a switch is thrown, and the next thing you know, they start killing a lot. This is that situation. The brothers know that Johnson's death will be traced to them. They pack up their wives and head out of Tennessee along the Wilderness Road. When thinking of the Wilderness Road, put an interstate highway out of your mind. This basically is a track through the wilderness. It was a very treacherous way to go. The wilderness was full of people who would take advantage of travelers, especially families. It's the perfect training ground for the budding serial killers. The brothers and their wives travel back and forth on the road, robbing and killing unsuspecting travelers. The Harps MO was to meet someone else on the trail and pretend to be fellow travelers so they could put them off their guard. For serial killers like the Harps, it is part of the thrill to befriend someone, con them, and kill them. They get a kick out of that. They began to fly the trade that they became actually very famous for. They began to kill without discrimination. After a year of unchecked murders along the Wilderness Road, the Harps stumble into a small Kentucky inn. All three women are pregnant, and they're desperate for shelter from the brutal winter. They're cold, they're hungry, they're bedraggled. And they come in just as breakfast is being served. And the Harps have no money. Innkeeper, let them sit at the table. A wealthy merchant named Thomas Langford offers to buy a meal for the wretched travelers. Who couldn't take pity on three poor, pregnant women? As Langford breaks bread with the family, the Harp brothers begin charming him. All serial killers are conmen. It doesn't make a difference whether it's 1798 or 2015. Many serial killers are extremely charming individuals. It doesn't take Wiley long to figure out that Langford is traveling alone and that he's carrying a large sum of money. The harps, they said, it's much better if we travel together because there are a lot of bad men on the wilderness road. They neglected to mention that they were the worst of the lot. Foolishly, Langford leaves with the harps. Evening in-keeper. Hello, sir. How are you? News reaches the inn that Langford's body has been found on the trail. Was he by himself? No, he left with a tall fellow, shorter fellow, reddish hair. That was the Harp brothers. We're looking for them. The Harp brothers? At this point, the Harps are finally identified as the killers. They have a good description of them. We're putting together a posse. Would you be interested in going? Yes, sir. This was the first time that anyone actually said, yes, I saw this murdered man left here with the Harps. Yes, sir, I'm with you. And we need to arrest them. They need to be brought to justice. On Christmas Day, 1798, the family is captured. They wind up getting arrested and going to jail. I think they allowed themselves to be arrested simply because they wanted a place where the babies could be born that was out of the weather. The Harp family awaits trial. If found guilty, they will be hanged. While the Harps and their consorts are languishing behind bars, the three women have their babies. Just days later, a jail guard finds the women and newborn babes in their cell, but the brothers are gone. The Harps escaped jail like magic, and people were beginning to believe that they were agents of the devil. Now, how did they get out? There is some speculation that the jailer himself was bribed. Who knows? But the Harps are at large again. In April of 1799, the Harp women stand trial for the murder of Thomas Langford. Well, ladies, what do you have to say for yourself? We were afraid of them. The women looked just dreadful. Here they were holding these newborn infants, bedraggled, their clothing in tatters. They were terrible to us. They had three newborn babes. It was cold weather still. The people felt a very lot of sympathy toward these three women, and they played on that sympathy. But they were so cruel. The men on the juries would have seen that if they did anything if they were participants they would have had to have been coerced or forced by the men God beholden you today All three women are acquitted of Lankford's murder and free to go. The townspeople decided that they were victims, not participants. They gathered up some clothing. They gave them a horse, and they told us to save them as far away from the harp men as they could. But you marked my words. You stay clear of those harps. The women promised to head home to Tennessee, but these housewives perform a disappearing act of their own. The ladies did not go to Knoxville. They wound up selling the mare to buy a canoe. Now, what would be the canoe for? The canoe would be to go down the Green River to rendezvous with their spouses. They always had a plan. If we get separated, we will meet at a certain location. So go there. After years of putting up with Makija and Wiley, the harp women are no shrinking violets. I think that they were vicious, cruel people like the harps. I can think of no other reason to explain this. Their family is with the men who fathered their children. They would not have thought going home and being a single woman with a baby was going to be a very good option. The best thing for them to do in their minds is find their men. As the wives travel by river, the brothers move overland, robbing and killing. They encounter a 13-year-old boy who's carrying a sack of flour. They kill him. They chop his body into bits and throw it down a sinkhole. This is becoming their real M.O., is the mutilation of the body after the murder is done. Basically, if you ran into them, you were dead meat. They were going to get rid of you. They were going to eliminate you as a witness. With no one to stop them, they murder at least five people in less than two weeks. They were so notorious at the time that the last four words that anybody in any cell wanted to hear were, the harps are coming. If you lived in the wilderness and you heard the harps' name, it put chills up and down your spine. The harps make Jack the Ripper look like nothing. News of their bloody rampage reaches the governor of Kentucky. He names the Harp brothers public enemy number one. There's a price on their head, a $300 reward, dead or alive. In those days, $300 is worth about $50,000 today. And lawmen really begin to comb the countryside for them. A hornet's nest has been stirred up here, and the hornets are swarming. The Harps reunite with their wives at a safe haven for outlaws. The Cave and Rock was the most feared place on the lower Ohio River. The 55-foot wide cave is the stronghold to a gang of river pirates notorious for robbing travelers along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. At Cave and Rock, you had the worst of the worst. This was a bright light drawing in all the criminal moths and all the criminal element in the West. Gang leader Sam Mason quickly welcomes the Harp family into the Klan. Over the next several months, the brothers' demented mutilation of their victims spirals into complete madness. The Harps developed the habit of disposing of a body in a very particular way. They would rip the victim from chin to navel, rip out the entrails, put stones to the body, tie the body with ropes, and throw it in the Ohio River. They developed a reputation for brutality and for being almost whimsical in their violence, like thrill killers. Sam Mason worries that the Harp's antics will attract attention from the law. Mason knew that the tales of brutality of these individuals getting back to civilization was going to bring down on him a calamity of unseen proportions. If the women not been there, would they probably kill the Harps on the spot? Get out of here now. We'll have your heads. They told the Harps, in no uncertain terms, to leave. I guess you could say they were giving the place a bad name. You've got to be absolutely evil to be meaner than a pirate. And the Harps were evil. The question was, who was going to bring these guys to ground? Could it be one of the women? As the law closes in, Shut that baby off. the Harp women will learn just how far the brothers will go to escape the hangman's noose. No! No! That is one of the most brutal scenes that you will ever find in the annals of American criminal history. Ah! For nearly two years, the Harp brothers have cut a bloody path across the western frontier. In their wake, they left as many as 40 people brutally murdered. Men, women, and children, and oftentimes, they mutilated the bodies. The Harp family makes it to Kentucky, barely one step ahead of the law. Makija and Wiley realize that traveling with women and children is slowing them down. The nomadic existence that the Harps forced their wives to endure with babies would have been extremely difficult for the women. They're on limb. You've got bounty hunters in effect after the Harps. At this point, it's not a question of if they're brought to justice, but when they're brought to justice. Everyone's nerves are on edge. Big Harp becomes unhinged. Shut that baby up! During a particularly close call. The posse came close, and one of the babies, which actually turned out to be Sarah's, began to cry. She took that baby off. My guy just hardened and desensitized to any kind of feelings. He saw it as a thing that he could prevent from making noise that the posse would hear. He grabs the crying babe from Sarah. In order to keep themselves from being caught, he took the quick and easy route. He picked the baby up by the legs and swung it up against a tree and bashed his head against the tree. That is one of the most brutal scenes in the annals of American criminal history. He didn't stop to think that he was a wireless child, that he was killing. This man was bad to the bone. He was incarnate evil. He did not. at one time say, I'm sorry. If the mother of this child stands up to Makasha, he could kill her. He's the big, strong member of the group, and he says what goes. The brothers have had a narrow escape, but it comes at a price that will come back to haunt them. Days after the murder of Sarah's baby, the family separates. The brothers head north to call on friends who owe them money. The brothers were back in their old stomping grounds and they knew many people in the area. The harps were calling in debts. They were collecting them. They stopped by the house of Moses Stiegel. Moses Stiegel was apparently a man of some shady character as well. and he had had some associations with the Harps. He was one of the people who had too many friends in low places. Stiegel owes the Harps a single dollar, and they want the money now. They knock on the cabin door. The door opens. Mary Stiegel, Moses' wife, answers the door. Evening, ma'am. Is your husband home? No, he is not. Moses owed us a dollar. Certainly, I'll fetch it for you. Mary is happy to repay her husband's debt and send the brothers on their way. When Mary opened her purse to show to pay her the dollar, they saw that she had quite a few more coins in the purse. It is dark out. You need a place to stay. It was common if you're on the trail and you find a house, it's nighttime to ask a place to stay. You need to sleep in the barn. Much obliged. Her decision will have dire consequences. The Harp brothers returned to the cabin to steal the rest of Mary Stiegel's money. Supposedly, there was $40 in the house. They already knew they were probably going to kill her to get the money, but why not use her to make a meal first? Mary said, well, I can't fix breakfast because my baby is sick. I can't tend to the child and fix you breakfast. Perhaps I can help. I'll take your child for you. Now, now. The baby suddenly stops crying Baby sleeping like an angel Well, it's lovely. And you can imagine the smell of bacon, the smell of frying eggs, the smell of toasting bread. You've got this wonderfully welcome warm fire. The guests are sitting on the table enjoying breakfast. Mary finally goes to check on her child and discovers the horrifying truth. Mary found its throat had been slit. The child was dead. She ran back into the kitchen screaming. Oh, my baby! You killed him! You killed him! My baby! You killed him! Little Harp quickly joins the blood fest. So Wiley actually cut Mary Stegall's throat. And then they sat down and finished their breakfast. I mean, they were still hungry. The kind of person who's capable of masking their intentions in the way that the Harps did is a cold-blooded murderer. It's someone without a conscience, which today we would call a psychopathic murderer or a sociopathic murderer. On their way out, the brothers set the cabin ablaze. Word of the cabin fire spreads quickly, and the area is crawling with angry residents by the time Moses Stiegel gets home. Mary! Mary! One can only imagine what he thought. He sees the remains of his wife, his infant, his cabin. Witnesses describe seeing Big and Little Harp fleeing the scene. Moses Stiegel, distinct weight, I told the Harp to come by and collect that dollar. It had to have been there. This is a terrible offense. Stiegel is furious. He wants Makaja killed. He wants him dead. Stiegel and his neighbors band together to get rid of the Harp brothers once and for all. By the 23rd of August, 1799, they have a posse. It includes Moses Stiegel, who's at least out for revenge. Getting justice for Mary Stiegel and her child isn't the posse's only motivation. Remember, there's still $300 on the head of each one of these men. There's a little bit of avidness and greed going on also. A few days later, the posse finds the Harp family's hideout in the woods. They finally came upon a house where Savor Rice and the children were. It seems Makija and Wiley's brutal rampage is finally coming to an end. But they wouldn't be the horrible Harps if they go down without a fight. As they approached him, he drew his tomahawk, began to brandish it. The Harp's latest murders have put the brothers closer to capture than ever before. So you had people all across the frontier looking for them, but specifically you had this posse that started to track them. Once the posse finds the family's hideout, the harp's reign of terror appears all but over. Moses, Stiegel, and his posse creep up to the house, catching Wiley's wife Sarah by surprise. Moses wanted revenge for the brutal murders of his wife and baby, and he was willing to do just about anything to get it. Where are the harps? Sarah doesn't hesitate. She tells the posse... They're heading for the frontier. where they can find the brothers. Come on, boys! Maybe due to the fact that McKay just killed her baby. She's not there beating up. She was on the mind to tell the posse which way the horse went. Which she did, she pointed them in the right direction. A few miles beyond the house, the posse spots the brothers, and all hell breaks loose. The Harp brothers jumped to their feet and ran to their horses. Wiley jumped on the big horse and disappeared in the woods. Wiley manages to escape, but Makija isn't so lucky. One of the men in the posse is a sharpshooter. He takes his musket, he fires, the bullet hits Big Harp in the spine, and he goes down. As it turned out, it paralyzed him. He couldn't use his legs. As they approached him, he drew his tomahawk, began to brandish it. But there's no escaping at this point. I'll see you in hell. They have the most evil man in the world lying on the ground and unarmed. The posse surrounds him and waits for him to bleed out. Macajah was asked why he had killed so many people. His response was that he and his brother had become disgusted with humankind. He said that he was taking out revenge on the whole human race. Harp's admission isn't any solace to Moses Stiegel. He wants Macajah to suffer for killing a defenseless woman and child. Moses Stiegel decides to cut his head off. as he lives. He reaches down, he grabs the outlaw by the hair of the head and pulls him back and takes the knife, places it against the back of his neck and begins to saw back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. He didn't say, don't do it. He didn't say, I'm hurting. He said, you're a damn rough butcher. But cut on and be damned. And he died. Now the head has been severed. what to do with an outlaw's head. They took the head to a crossroads, and they put the head in the crook of a tree. It took 40 murders. But Micaiah Harps' sins found him out, and here he is. Moses Stegall isn't the only one who got his revenge. In the climactic moment of Big Harp's life, It was Sarah who directed the posse to get Big Harp. With Makijah dead and Wiley Harp on the run, the three Harp women once again face judgment for their husbands' crimes. These are terrible crimes you've been associated with. I've always wondered if the Harp wives were actually involved in the killings. And it's really hard to tell. The women's innocent demeanor sways the jury for the second and last time. We cannot hold you responsible for what your husbands have done. They stood trial and townspeople once again looked at the women how forlorn and said they were and looked at the babies and decided that they weren't guilty. You are free to go. They end up going back to their families and having relatively normal lives. In a way, they'd be kind of waking up from a dream or a nightmare. After Wiley's escape from the posse, he returns to Cave-In Rock and rejoins Sam Mason's outlaw gang. Wiley throws himself into what he does best, killing. In the next two or three years, Mason's body count grew at leaps and bounds. That had to have been the result of a lot of a heart joining up with him. A lot of a still love to kill. After three years with the gang, Little Harp's love of death leads him to double-cross Mason. Little Harp didn't have any loyalty to Mason like he had his brother, So he killed Samuel Mason and cut off his head, then took it into the state capitol and turned in the head for the reward. Wiley's greed is his undoing. A man recognizes him and points him out to the authorities. He says, Little Harp was in a knife fight in Tennessee. If he's really Little Harp, he'll have a knife wound under his left breast. They pull off his shirt, they see the wound, they say, it's Little Harp. That's it. They got him. On February 8, 1804, the 34-year-old is tried and sentenced to death by hanging. Like his brother before, Little Harp's head is posted for public display. The Harp's reign of terror is finally over. What's unique about the Harps is their utter brutality. They were killing machines. We think that serial killers are a modern phenomenon, and they're not. They're killing because they enjoyed killing. They killed for the sake of killing. They're monsters. The Harps were both men and monsters. Even their descendants can't escape their bloody legacy. I asked my dad, I said, do you know about this? His explicit words were, yes, I know that story. They are in our family. But we do not discuss the Hart brothers. It's our name. We aren't ashamed of it. I don't offer any explanations for what McKayton and Wiley did. That was 200 years ago.