The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1870-09-13
execution Of a t,ena,sh Murderer.

On Friday was hung at West Union,
| Iowa, Andrew Thompson tor the MURDER
| of Mrs. Haggerty and her three children;
| The story Is John Haggerty, who lived
| near McGregor, Iowa, went to the war, ano
| Thompson seduced his young wife: Ihls
| became known in the vicinity, and when
Haggerty came home, finding 1t OUT, De
left the country not to return. thompson,
| who had q wife and eight children, TOOK
Mrs. Haggerty to his farm, where she re-
sided in a cottage. In the fall of '6S, she be-
| coming pregnant, and he growing tired OF
her. he first removed her to the neighbor-
ing town, and thence one day in midwinter
he took her and her children under the pre-
tence of moving then, to a comfortable
home. Meeting persons, he said he was
moving o family to Illinois. He crossed the
river, and for days and nights drove the
Door woman and her little ones about, evf
IDENTIFY for the purpose of freezing them to
death.
A few nights after he commenced this
terrible journey people near the Mississippi
beheld a bright light on its shore, and pitlef
the Door family whose house they supposed
to be ON fire that pitilcssly cold night. As
that fire burned, Andrew Thompson was
driving his horses rapidly away towards
home, under the secret of q dark winters
night. He was all alone, and the cover
inos, straw, furniture, and trunks, which
had been in the sleigh before, were miss
inc-they had made the fire on the bank Of
the river. Mrs. Haggerty, with her infant,
her daughter, aged fourteen years, one son
aged eleven years and another aged eight,
were under the ice. Either they had been
turned upon by the tiend and stabbed or
beaten to death one by one, orthey had been
taken, numbed and helpless, owing to the
cold. and forced through q hole in the ice to
he drowned. The theory that they were first
murdered or partially Killed in the sleigh is
the more plausible, rs in the other case
there would have been no blood-stained
robes and furniture to be destroyed by fire.
All of Thompson's acquaintance supposed
that he had been to Illinois, and left the un-
fortunate family in o comfortable home,
and he was not suspected Of any crime. In
the spring Of 1869 the frozen waters of the
Mississippi began breaking up, and the
boatmen went to work caulking and re-
painting their boats. Some OF them were
working at the shore of the river near Fra,
rie du Chen when they discovered several
trunks half rotted by the water. they
were pulled out, and on being opened they
were found to contain two likenesses ana
sundrv articles of woman's apparel.
The likenesses proved to be those OF An
drew Thompson, father and mother, and
the other articles were the former property
of Mrs. Hageerty. Only a few days after
the body of Mrs. Haggerty and the bodies
of her children were found in a slough near
the rivers bank at Cassville. The remnants
of a fire was discovered on the shore near
Ivy, and in the ashes were particles OF the
clothing which formerly belonged to the
murdered woman. Every scrap Of circum-
stantial evidence was collected, and a per-
feet chain was made, link after link, pro-
wing the murder of the whole family 70
was tried, convicted, and was hung on Fri
day. He stands in the criminal calendar as
u of the most brutal Of murderers.