Louisiana capitolian. (Baton Rouge, La.) 1879-1881, 1881-02-26
CURIOUS GRIMES.
Remarkable Crimes that have been
PERFORATED in South Indiana.
New Albany Ledger.Standard.


local historian comes to write up the
curiosities of crime in Southern lndi-
ana, he will be able, by following the
simple records of the courts, to pro-
duce work that will be full of thrill
ing plots and narrowing details. Co
ing back no farther than the days OF
the Reno family, whose exploits filled
the entire country with wonder and
alarm, and whose tragic and terrible
deaths in the New Albany Jail, at the
hands of pitiless masked mob OF
one hundred men sent thrill of nor
ror through every heart, and ending
with the year 1880, the historian will
find material enough to fill a large and
closely condensed volume. No one
who saw the Reno brothers and
Charles Anderson dangling from the
upper tier of cells in the New Albany
iail on that cold winter morning will
ever forget that horrid spectacle Of
the swaying bodies as they dangled
from the ropes, nor the CHASTITY look
of despair that married the faces OF
the strangled victims. Nor can the
shrieks and sobs of the sisters and
wives of these victims as they knelt
over their dead after they had been
cut down and laid out in the jail hall,
ever be obliterated from the memory
of those that heard and witnessed
their awful agony of soul.
When Sanders entered the cabin of
Woodward, in Orange county, on one
of the darkest and most stormy nights
of the winter of 1866, and with an Ak
deliberately and speedily Drained
Woodward, his wife, child, sister and
mother, as they lay in bed, and then
escaped on 500, 900 straw bail, anoth-
er chapter was added to the criminal
history of southern Indiana, and ii
was made all the redder in blood be-
cause the whereabouts of the murder.
er was long known and no effort was
made for his arrest.
Following these great crimes il
rapid succession. murders and mot
violence multiplied alarmingly. II
Jackson, Washington and Orange
counties the mob ruled supreme fol
several years, and many villain wa
sent to his long home, through thu
agency of these vigilance committees
In those days the law was silent
for the reason that the officers OF tin
law stood in with scoundrels, and, il
the present day, and even in this cit,
ofNew Albany, refused to enforce tn
laws. This made the mobs.
Coming down later, the crime G
Mauck. in Harrison county, last win
ter, was much like that of the San
ders- Woodward massacre, thong
strange enough Mauck's wife and Sa
rah Waugh, the victims of Mauck's a
and club, survived the twenty od
wounds they received on the hea
and body from the murderOus implt
ments used by the tiendish HUSBAND
A saturnala followed the crime, an
only ended with the Long Henrio
killings and mob in Blue River tow
ship, Harrison county.
The chapters may be further e,
tended down to a period only tN
months ago, and embrace the exploi
of DR., Thomas Aust, of Winslo,
Pike county. A few weeks ago, Il
Ledger-Standard briefly referred
the career of this desperate. A r
snme thereofis now proper. DR.. Au
and his brother, now dead, We're ski
full physicians, and therefore had
large practice. But both were b;
men, particularly Thomas. His G
reer had been that of a -defyi
desperate, Tin which regard it h
some parallels, even in this godly ci
Of New Albany. On an afternoon Ia
in November last he engaged in
game of cards with his brothers,
law, James Humphrey. Towarddu
they quarreled over the game a
separated. DR.. Aust went to his 81
ole and bridled and saddled a Il,
horse, leaving him thus equipp'