Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1883-04-25
ANOTHER UDOEKZOoK CASE.
A Negro Gets His Life Insured 70 Cheat {
COmnRnv

a negro Gets hiS Life Insured 20 Cheat the
Company.
Near Danville, Va. a case has been
exposed very like the udderzook tragedy,
made famous in Chester county some
years ago and the negro arrested for mur-
derlng a man and trying to pass off the
dead body for his own, confessed that he
had recently insured his life for $500.
which he desired his wife and children to
get. To that end he conceived the scheme
of putting dead mans body into his
dwelling house. which he was occupying
alone, having sent his wife and children
to her fathers house, then setting fire to
the house and vanishing himself to Texas.
By thus leaving the dead body to be mis-
taken for his remains, as if burned in the
house, he thought he could secure the pay.
ment OF the insurance money to his wife
and children.
In furtherance of his scheme he employ
ed Two burly negro men, whom he picked
up on the street on Sunday, but whose
names he did not know, though he would
recognize one of them were he to see him
againg, to assist him. He bargainetl with
them to pay each $50 if they would on
Sunday night bring dead body to his
house at a late hour telling them he
wanted the body for dissection. He gave
the key of the house to these negro men,
and said he would come in later and join
them there. It happened that the weather
on Sunday night was the most tempestu-
GUS known in that latitude for years. aud
just suited for such an atrocious deed of
diabolism as that here related. At one
o'clock that night he went home and
found the two men there, and with
them third negro man whom he did not
know. All three were setting in his Sleep
ing room. When he came in the two
negroes he had employed knocked the
third whom they had brought with them,
in the head, and he fell and died between
the table and the dressing stand, where a
pool of blood was found. By his direction
his two negro assistants took tho body
| upstairs to the half-story room above and
laid it on tho floor. After they came
down he paid them $50 each and dismissed
them, and they left him alone in the
| house.
HIS Method of Setting the House on fire.
He then, amid the howlings of the still
raging tempest, proceeded to complete hiss
diabolical work. Taking some of the
covering from his bed he went upstairs,
with dim lantern in his hand, and GOV
cred the body up in it. Upon it he poured
gallon of kerosene. He then drew up
the legs and SO arranged them as to hold
lighted candle between them. He
placed half a candle, six inches long, in po-
sitiOn and lighted it, then went back down
stairs to his sleeping room. Here he sat
urated his bed with kerosene and placed
the other half of the candle in position, so
that when it burned down it would set
the bed on fire. At this point ho re-
marked that that was where he made a
mistake, for he should have used a
shorter piece of candle, which would have
burned sooner and then the house would
have burned down before daybrcak.
Near his bed, he said, he placed his
watch and a bunch of keys to confirm the
belief that the body, when found in the
burned house, was his. Having COM
pleted these arrangements he left the
house. the hour being 2 O'Clock a. m.
| His Wandering4Aftert the Crimo.
He wandered about town an hour or Sc,
and then set out On foot upon the line of
the Virginia Midland railroad. On Mon
day he walked to Chatham and spent the
night there next morning he tried to get
newspaper to ascertain the effect of his
work in setting his house afire, but he was
unable to obtain 4 paper. He walked
further on along the line of tho railroad,
and at Galveston got aboard the train for
the purpose only of procuring newspaper
intending to get off at the next station
He said he intended, if he found from the
newspaper that his scheme of burning had
succeeded, to jump the country, 20 to
| Texas and start life anew under new
name but if it failed he thought he might
rs we'll give himself up. On his person
was found in currency $3.50.
The prisoners story as to his two al
legged negro accomplices excites intense
interest. but is not believed by some. His
declaration that he does not know their
names and is entirely unacquainted with
them seems to preclude all clew to their
discovery, but every effort will be made
| by the authorities to discover the bottom
| facts in this terrible story.