For the kind of small-time thief that he was, handsome, 25-year-old Kenneth Neu figured out that gay men must be easy pickings. Pretending to be gay himself, he was invited to their homes, and once inside he killed and robbed them. He killed Lawrence Shead in his New York flat with an electric iron, and murdered Sheffield Clark in New Orleans by strangling him.
Neu was caught by police in New Jersey in the act of changing the number plates on his car. At his trial in Louisiana in December, 1934, his lawyer told the court: My client has had sex with hundreds of women, and is now insane as a result of suffering from syphilis. Even so, he was found guilty.
About to be sentenced, he tossed a coin in the air and wished the judge Good luck. While awaiting execution, he sang in his cell and composed a verse, Im fit as a fiddle and ready to hang. He was duly hanged in New Orleans on Friday, February 1st, 1935.