The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1880-04-22
A CHASTITY GHOUL.
A chronological Freak most FrightfulIy
Punished.


yard, some eight miles from the city
where the body was buried. The fac
that only the head was taken threw sus
picions on an amateur phrenologis
named Gordon Truesdale. Truesdale oc
cupied small farm in the vicinity will
his wife and family of four girls, tn,
oldest not more than eight years old
He was a handsome, broad-shoulderet
fellow, with fair education, but laz.
and shiftless. His great hobby wa
phrenology, aud he occasionally lecturet
on that subject in country school-houses
His ambition to possess a collection o
skulls was we'll known in the neighbor
hood, and the desecration of the Plat
girls grave was laid at his door, although
he was never openly charged with it.
About three weeks ago Ttuesdale wen
to a physician and asked if a persol
could become poisoned in handling
dead body. BE received an affirmative
reply and appeared to be much troubled
He complained to his wife that his nos,
was paining him terribly aud he believed
he was taking the eresypelas. He begar
doctoring himself with bread-and-milt
poultices, but without success. His fac'
began to swell rapidly, and in less thar
three days it and his head became twice
their natural size and lost all semblance
to human shape. A physician was callec
in against the wishes of 'Truesdale.-
He found the man suffering terribly
His lids were drawn, by the tension
of the skin and writhed themselves
away from the teeth in unceasing
pain: The cuticle across the bridge Of
the nose and over the forehead was so dis.
tended with the mattery substance under
meath that itseemed as if it must burst
every moment The eyes were swollen
almost to bursting from their sockets and
were turned with pain until hardly any.
thing but the whites could be seen. It
was evident that a terrible poison was
slowly but surely permeating the mans
whole system.
The physician, after careful examiua-
ton of the unwilling patient, cut open
his skin~ffem-about the centre of'his nose
almost to the roots of his hair, and then
made another across the forehead almost
from temple to temple. From these in
cisions there.oozed a-mass of loathsome,
detestable: putrescsnce, so terrible in its
stencil that the.attendants, save one, ran
from the house. Other incisions were
made in different parts of the scalp, from
which the hair had been shaved, and
from these this terribly offensive matter
.oozed constantly, until the Swelling was
reduced and the head and face assumed
nearly their normal size. Attempts were
then made to free tie incisions of matter
by injecting water into them. It was
noticed chat when water was forced into
the cut in the forehead it poured out of
the holes in the scalp. As one of the at
tendants said, sit seemed as if all the
flesh between the skin and bone had
turned into corruption and ran out"
When Mr.. Truesdale was told that he
could not possibly recover, he called
his wife into the room and confessed to
her that he robbed the Platts girls grave,
and. referred to certain night when he
left the house and refused to tell her
where he went at the time when he COM
mitted the crime. He said that he dug
down to the head of the coffin, broke it
open and, taking his knife, cut around the
neck Of the corpse through the flesh to the
bone. Ee then placed one of his feet on
the breast of the corpse, and, taking the
head in his hands, pulled and jerked
aud twisted it until it came off by mere
force. He afterward disjointed the lower
Jaw and threw it where Fred. Auer found
it. He closed his confession by telling
her where the skull would be found,
under the straw in certain manger in
the stable. It was found there and given
up to the Platts family.
The last three days of Truesdale's exis-
tence were terrible, not only to himself
but to those who watched him. The
poison from some corpse (for it is belived
he had recently opened several graves,
which was communicated to his system
by picking raw spot on the inside of
his nose, appeared to course through
every vein in his body. Not only was
his person offensive to the eye, but the
odor and heat of his breath was so often.
sive that it was impossible for the atten-
dants to wait on him properly. The
breath was so poisonous that when one
of the attendants held his hand six in
ches from the dying mans mouth it
stung the flesh like hundreds Of nettles.
Those who waited on him were obliged
to wear gloves, as it was impossible to
wash the odor from their hands. The
day he died his flesh was so rotten that
it seemed as if it would drop from the
bones it touched, and his eyes actually
decayed until they became sightless.
For two days before his death a coffin
had been in readiness, and the orders of
the physician were to place him in it as
soon as the breath left his body and get
him under the ground Immediately. Af-
ter his death none of the attendants had
the temerity to touch the corpse, for
fear of being poisoned, so they gathered
the sheets on which the body lay at each
end, and thus lifted it into the coffin.
The lid was quickly screwed down, out
before wagon could be procured the
body swelled and burst it off, 1t was
then strapped on, but when the coffin
was taken from the wagon at the grave
yard, just at daylight, 1t again flew on,
and the body appeared to swell visibly
before the horri6ed attendants eyes. "a,
The fetid, noisome stencil from the pu-
trid mass within was such that no one
could attempt to replace the cover, and
the coffin was covered from sight as hur.
riedly as possible.
The day after the funeral-or burial,
rather-the wife of Truesdale was con-
fined at a neighbor's house, this fifth
child also being girl. The Truesdale
house will not be TT to occupy for sew
eral days, as all efforts to fumigate it
thus tar have failed. The doors and
windows have been left open day and
night, but the stencil is still as bad as
when he died. As one of the attendants
said, "It still seems as if you could cut
the air in that house with a knife. p
Cincinnati; Enquirer.
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