Barnabet was born in 1894 in Saint Martinville, Louisiana to Nina Porter and Raymond Barnabet. Her father was reportedly a petty thief and sharecropper with a violent temper who was unfaithful to his wife and abusive to his entire family, which also included a son, Zepherin. They moved to Lafayette, Louisiana in 1909.

The four of them inhabited a rundown part of town, struck by devastating poverty. But the family found solace in what was called The Church of Sacrifice. This was a cult which provided opportunity for male and female members alike. In fact, at the age of 17, Clementine was one of the leaders of the organization.

In January of 1911, authorities in West Crowley, Louisiana uncovered what the local press referred to as “the most brutal murder in the history of this section.” Walter Byers, his wife, and their small son were found dead in their beds, their skulls split open by the swing of an axe. Blood drenched the beds, and bloody footprints trailed across the floor. The locked door indicated the killer came in through the window. And while an eerie bucket of blood sat in the corner, the still-bloody murder weapon lay at the head of the bed.

The first family identified as possibly connected to the January case was that of a woman named Edna Opelousas and her three children, who were murdered in Rayne, Louisiana in 1909. It was determined that someone had also come in through a window and killed the family as they slept, but no other clues were available.

Three weeks later and 30 miles away in Lafayette, a killer took the lives of Alexander, Mimi, Joachim, and Agnes Andrus. Once again the family was murdered in their sleep, but this time the murder weapon, an ax, was discovered on the floor. The Lafayette Advertiser ran a front page story about the murders, noting its similarity to the murders of the Opelousas and Byers families and wondering if the crimes were “the work of the same terrible monster.” According to McLaughlin, Raymond Barnabet was arrested for the Andrus murders but released two days later due to lack of evidence.

A month later, Alfred and Elizabeth Casaway were murdered along with their three children in a similar manner to the previous slain families. Authorities began once again suspecting and investigating Raymond Barnabet.

Barnabet was arrested again, this time based on evidence from a woman with whom he was having an affair named Diana. Diana reportedly told a friend “some frightening things about the ax murders” that led her friend to believe Barnabet was the murderer. The friend passed this information on to the police, which led to Barnabet’s arrest.

Both Raymond Barnabet and Diana denied the friend’s story, frustrating the officers and leading them to question Raymond’s by then estranged wife, Nina, and children, Clementine and Zepherin.

All three “had no anxiety about implicating Raymond as the Ax-Man.” During Raymond’s trial in October of 1911, he didn’t take the stand. He “sat dejectedly behind the defense table, muttering ‘Goodbye’ and ‘Mo foutu’ (I am gone) loud enough for the jury to hear.”

When Clementine Barnabet took the stand to testify against her father, she swore “that he arrived home, the night of the Andrus murders, with his blue shirt covered in blood and brains. She said her father bragged that he killed a whole family that night and told Clementine to wash the blood out of his clothes, which she did.” Zepherin backed up his sister’s story. The siblings asserted that their own lives were in danger if Raymond remained free. Nina denied seeing any bloody clothes but testified that Raymond had threatened to kill her a month before. Raymond was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging.

As Raymond Barnabet sat in jail, however, another horrific murder took place in Lafayette, Louisiana on November 26, 1911. Norbert Randall was shot in the head and killed while his wife and three children were attacked and killed with an ax. Lafayette Parish Sheriff Louis LaCoste had become suspicious of Clementine and Zepherin Barnabet due to their bad reputations and their neighbors describing them as “filthy, shifty, degenerates”; he arrested them both.

Authorities searched the Barnabet home and found “a complete suit of woman’s clothes in [Clementine’s] room, saturated with blood and covered with human brains” as well as blood on the door latch. Zepherin had an alibi for the night of the Randall murders, however, Clementine did not and she was taken to jail. As both Raymond and Clementine Barnabet sat behind bars, the ax murders continued.

In January of 1912, three more families were murdered. In the instance of Felix Broussard, his wife, and their three children, the killers left messages on the wall of the Broussard home, including one signed by “Human Five.” This led to the media nickname “The Human Five Gang” as well as the ongoing story that the murders were connected to the practice of Voodoo.

The ongoing emphasis on Voodoo as well as the fact that “rumors were swirling that Clementine was the leader of some kind of cult called the ‘Church of Sacrifice'” kept the already terrifying ax murders at the forefront of the news cycle as well as the general public’s psyche.

The press suggested that the violence wrought against the deceased families was done as a human sacrifice which utilized the importance of the number five. This further fueled rumors that Clementine was part of a cult called the Church of Sacrifice, which was said to believe one could obtain riches and other wealth through human sacrifice. This cult was reportedly led by a Pentecostal revival preacher named Reverend King Harris. However, when asked about his involvement with the murders and the cult, Harris was appalled to hear people thought his sermons could have inspired such horrific crimes.

On April 5, 1912, Clementine Barnabet made a “full confession, admitting to 17 murders.” She also claimed “she had bought a Voodoo charm meant to protect her while committing her crimes” and that she and her accomplices “drew lots to see who would commit the murders.” Her story was inconsistent and all over the place. Not only had she already implicated her father in the crimes, but when she named her accomplices, they were “nowhere to be found.” Despite suspicions as to the verity of her story, authorities filed charges against Clementine on April 14, 1912. She went on to admit to a total of 35 murders. She also said that she disguised herself as a man to better lurk unnoticed at night. While she said she went so far as to kill the children of the family to save them the pain of being orphans, her full motivations for the murders were never really established.

“She scandalized the press, stirring up a gumbo of moral panic in a state where Civil War and slavery remained a living memory. Everything about Clementine Barnabet represented a collision—even a perversion—of cultures in the eyes of white Louisiana, from her mangled Creole French … to her mangled beliefs, a tabloid-baiting blend of Voodoo—itself a blend of Catholicism and West African tribal rites—and evangelical Christianity.”

Still, once Voodoo had been confessed to, there was no stopping that train of thought—an easy belief to embrace given a heavily racist context, certainly. The residents of Lafayette were all too prepared to label the murders as Voodoo sacrifices—a belief Clementine cemented by naming Voodoo priest Joseph Thibodeaux as the one who provided her with her invisibility charm. She further insisted that Thibodeaux planted the ideas for the crimes in her head, but he denied involvement.

Despite Clementine Barnabet “re-telling her story with differing details that make it hard to know the truth”, and the unsubstantiated rumors about the probably non-existent Church of Sacrifice and Voodoo sacrifices, she stood trial. Her attorneys attempted to defend her by reason of insanity, but she was declared guilty and sentenced to life at the Louisiana Penitentiary. She was just 19 years old. 

Clementine unsuccessfully attempted to escape on July 31, 1913, but was otherwise considered a “model prisoner.” According to a report from the prison, Barnabet “received a “procedure” that was said to have “restored” her to her “normal condition”” and she was released after serving 10 years. Little is known of her later life.