Servant Girl Annihilator and had a club foot which was similar to a footprint believed to have been left by the killer. In February 1886, shortly after the last murder, Elgin was shot and killed by police while he was attempting to assault a girl with a knife. William Sydney Porter, better known as the short story writer O. Henry, was living in Austin at the time of the murders. Porter coined the term "Servant Girl Annihilators" in a May 10, 1885, letter addressed to his friend Dave Hall and later included in his anthology "Rolling Stones": "Town is fearfully dull," wrote Porter,
William J. Porter He died of cancer at the Rose Hawthorne Lathrop Home in Fall River, Massachusetts on March 15, 1988. William J. Porter William James Porter (September 1, 1914 – March 15, 1988) was an American diplomat who from 1971 to 1973 headed the U.S. delegation to the Paris Peace Talks to end the Vietnam War. Porter was the first-ever United States Ambassador to Algeria, and also served as Ambassador to South Korea, Canada, and Saudi Arabia. William J. Porter was born in Stalybridge, England on September 1, 1914, the son of a Royal Navy officer who died during World War I.