Grand Trunk Railroad Police Department, Railroad Police
End of Watch: Sunday, January 20, 1929
Age: 39
Tour of Duty: Not available
Badge Number: Not available
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: January 20, 1929
Weapon Used: Officer's handgun
Suspect Info: Apprehended
Sergeant Walter Awe was shot and killed at 2:30 am while patrolling the company's rail yards near Goldner Street in Detroit, Michigan. Sergeant Awe was confronted by a man who attempted to rob him. The man overpowered him and shot him with his own service weapon.
In 1958 "Texas" Jim Baker, now age 51, serving a life sentence for a murder in New York, confessed to Sergeant Awe's murder. He had been in New York prisons since February 1930 for the murder of a fellow New York lab worker he forced to swallow cyanide on December 27, 1929. He also confessed to murders in New York, Ohio, Michigan, and other countries of 12 more men he either shot and killed or killed with cyanide. For a man with such a past no more information could be found about him beyond 1958. History refers to him as the forgotten serial killer.