New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-05-04

| tlncaCe OF cOrOners, II; on cerflncate OF
nidwives, j. In addition to the above 6
stubborn children were reported in the city.
HORRIBLE CRIME IN ST. LANDRY.
A Woman Ravished and Murdered-The
Murderer Lynched.
From the Opelousas journal of the
thirtieth ultimo, we obtain the particulars
of a most horrible crime and how it was
speedily avenged:
1t is with slckening feeling that we
chronicle one of the most fendish and
dastardly murders ever committed in this
| parish or any other portion of the civilized
globe. The victim was Mrs. Marie Lsntier,
wife of George Lantier. aged nineteen or
twenty years. The scene of the murder
| was about twenty miles west of OpelOusas,
on the plantation of Hypolite Miller or
! Mallet The murder was committed in
broad open daylight, in thicklv settled
neighborhood. The circumstances, so far as
| we can learn them are these: On last
Saturday morning Mr.. George Lantier,
the husband of the murdered woman,
| left home to assist at the "dobbing" 1.-THE
building of mud wallis of neighbours
house, leaving his wife and little baby,
| aged sixteen months, alone. He remained
| absent until five or six o'clock in the eve
| z,
| which met his eyes was sufficient to drive
all reason from its throne and blanch his
face with terror and grief On one side of
the gallery of his house lay headless
| body of his wife, and on that body, with it's
| little arms encircling it and its little hands
| clutching the dress, trying to get to the
breast to suckle lay his little baby. sobbing
| and crying for its mother; and about five
| feet from it lay its severed head, with the
| face disfgured with scratches and bruises.
The little baby was just learning to talk,
and the first words it greeted its father
with were, I'm hungry, papa"
Immediately the nelghbors were reused
up, and over one hundred men went in
search Of the assassin. 1t appeared from
been scalded: the hands also bore marks
similar to that made by boiling water poured
| on. Everything about the house showed
signs of terrible struggle; and the theory
advanced by some of the searchers was,
that the lady had defended herself with
boiling water dipped from pot on the
fire. Suspicion Immediately rested upon
a young mulattO man named Tayo or Tao,
living very near, who was the only man in
the neignborhood not at the "dobbing' that
day. They surrounded his house at once,
and arrested him. On his face were the
marks of severe scalding just received,
and under an adjoining building
were found his clothes. saturated with
blood, which he had just taken off, for
stripped, and upon his person there still
remained stains of blood which he had
neglected to wash Off He was taken before
Justice Elkins, by the crowd: and the
evidence was so strong and conclusive that
the justice ordered him to be conveyed to
Jail IN Opelousas. But he never reached
there: the populace were too much incensed
10 <ho %or W.T.
which Justice is meted out to criminals in
the present age by legal process. They
appealed to Judge Lynch on the spot.
A hundred hands were ready to do
the hangman's work, and as many voices
yelled, chang him." 1t was but few
moments work to tie rope around his
neck and convey him to the nearest tree.
But before the moose was frightened around
his neck, and the murderer and ravisher
launched into eternity, he confessed how in
his attempt to outrage the woman, he was
met with resistance, she using boiling
water-her onl Y weapon at hand-to defend
herself with: how, in his rage at such re-
sistance, he struck her with small ak
upon the head, telling her senseless to the
ground, and after satisfying his lust he fin.
ished his bloody work by severing the
head from the body. We can not tell upon
paper all the little details that were mar
rated by the fiend. They are too horrible
to be spoken aloud. The most vivid imagi
nation can not picture the scene which must
have occurred-the woman fighting bravely
tor her honor, her child in terror clinging
to her skirts, and the fend, with murder in
his eyes, striking savagely with his ak she
was struck in several parts of the body),
in order to fell her to the ground that he
might accomplish the rape on which he was
bent.
Hands. both white and black, grasped the |
rope, as the murderer ended his narrative:
and slowly but surely the rope frightened |
around his neck, as he was drawn from the |
ground-his body quivering in every muscle |
and his blackened tongue protruding from |
the mouth. His struggles, it is said. were |
fearful to behold, ere death released him |
from his suffering. His body Is still dang
ling on the tree on which he was hung, no
one caring to cut it down.
Since writing the above we have been |
told that the head was not quite severed,
but was held to the body by a piece of skin
broad. Tho neck had received three blows
from the edge of the ax-one in front, one
on the side, and one on the back-which left
only the little strip of skin already men
toned to hold the head to the body. The
face also had been struck with the ak, on
one side of the nose, and that side of the
face was almost cut off Both arms had
OCoAA |
the ak.
This monster seems to have been az def.
Gent in mental acumen as he was in moral
sense. After the preparation of such
horrible dual crime which ordinary common
sense should have told him would bring
swift destruction on the perpetrator if dis
covered, he did not only make no effort to
escape, but failed to destroy or remove from
his person the marks of the crime. The
,cald on his face he could not remove;
out he could have made the attempt to
'emove his person from danger before
he crime was known to anyone else.
And his bloody clothing could have
,een easily destroyed, instead of being
deposited on his own premises as a witness
gainst him; while little water would
ave washed the blood from his skin. But
he mind, the human reason that would
AVE restrained the indulgence of criminal
esires that rise up in the absence of moral
ense, was also wanting; and the miserable
uman brute was as helpless to take care
f himself as was the poor woman he so
hockingly and foully destroyed.
The Tax COIlectOrship Of st. James.
AS we go to press, the news comes to US {