Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1886-01-18
THE TEXAN VENDETTA.
An Amateur Detective Romance That May
Prove 20 be Founded on Fact.


ny KENwARD PHuP.
lin the following sketch the names OF per
eOns and localities have been altered for obyi.
Gus rcnsons.J Copyright 1885.
THE FACTS,
/. On Christmas day Of 1884, q little
over twelve months ago, the body OF Mol
lie Brown, colored servant in the city
Of B., In Texhs, was found hacked
TO pieces In the yard about 100 feet from
her house. Her murder, Which had been
committed on bright moonlight night,
had been accompanied by terrible out
rage.
H. On May r, 1855, Lizzie Byron,
another colored domestic, was murdered
under precisely similar circumstances.
Ill. In the following month, Jane Cres-
cent, still another colore1 seryent, was
found hacked aud mutllated and dead in
her own room.
Nv. On August 80, little Mary Cullen's
body, mutilated In the same way, was
found in stable half mile from her
mothers house, whittier she had been
dragged bleeding all the way. The child
was but twelve years of age. Her mother,
who lay in bed with her on that fatal
night, was horribly wounded in the head
with I'm ax, but recovered.
V. On September 30 came the next.
Mrs. Oracle Lee and Orange Jefferson,
colored, lived as man and wife in cabin.
Lucinda Wilson and Patsey Dobbins,
mulatto girls, boarded with them. The
man and woman slept in one apartment,
the girls In the other. On the date men
toned, at night, Jefferson was hammered
into insensibility and died the next morn
ing; Oracle Lee was taken from his side,
pulled out Of the window, drag. ed along
the road seventy-flve yards, and had her
brains beaten out with stone the two
girls were beaten presumably with a
sand bag, and when they recovered CON
seriousness could tell nothing about the
affair.
vi. In October Jennie Page, another
colored domestic, was found dead In the
usual way, and after having suffered sim
liar horrors.
VII. On Christmas eve, 1885, Just one
year from the first murder, two white
married women were assassinated and
dragged from their beds to the grounds
outside their houses. The body of one
was found with u heavy log across it
Both had been killed with an ak. The
husband OF one of them was found weller.
ing In blood from the blow of an AK over
the ear. He recovered.
More than four hundred persons have
been arrested in B. for these crimes,
but none of them has been held North
ern and Southern detectives, the local
police, bloodhounds and all the parapher-
MALTA ingenuity could devise have been
nsed in the cndeavor to discover the muir
| derers, but to no purpose,
TIE THEORY.
Sitting in my room at midnight, readinq
che details OF this mess of horrors, more
trightiul than Poe or Hugo or Dumas ever
conjured up from romantic brain--sitting
there With nothing else In my room alive
save my lamp tried to thinl; this mat
ter out. Three days after ali9htod at
the railway station of B., the scene Of
this remarkable series OF murders
|, Gerald Shanly, u New York newspaper
man, had theory concerning them. Sc
strongly had the conviction that it was the
correct one grown upon me that felt ii
to be my bounden duty to test 1t.
My steps were first bent 0 the Office OF
| the principal newspaper in the tom,
where ! asked to see the editor. found
/ him accessible and ready to grant an IN.
| terview to u Northern confrere at mo-
ment's notice. A young lady, however,
/ Nit Nv u NN7h III lttlbtlNI plTL Vi tue room,
| and, glancing at her, ! suggested that onr
interview must be private. The editor
| looked inquirlngly at me, but gracefully
got rid of the young lady, nevertheless.
~ have come, Mr.. Blank" | said ia
tie editor, "tu try and solve the mystery
of these terrible lnurders.n
1t was plain at once that he took mefol
u crank.
"Well," he answered, Everybody in
B. has been trying to do that for year
past"
81 know it, hut don't be discouraged
because they have failed.n
! "Well, have you any clcw?"
"l think | have--but let me ask you
one question. II the answer is negative
my theory falls at the very outset and ]
take the next train for New York"
"N ellpp
"no YOU have mixed jurles in you
town."
"Wen, some OF them are very much
mixed occasionally" he answered, laugh
| ing "But you mean iuries composed OF
both white and colored citizens?"
! "Yes.h
"Certalnly we do"
"For how long have you had them?"
"Why, ever since the principle of the
civil rights bill was imbedded in the con.
stitution of the state
"Eor more than hye years2n
Eyes"
''Now, Mr.. Blank.n | said, 81 am
thoroughly in earnest in belief that these
dreadful mysteries can he solved. You
eau help me, II You Will, by pretending to
employ me as an outside reporter on your
paper. SO that shalt have some apparent
reason for being here, and also can gain
access to officials, documents, etc"
The editor thought the matter over.
"Why do you not go to the chief OF
poliee2" he asked, cor to the detect
| ivcS2n
For answer asked him whether the
police had not already announced their
belief that these murders were the work
OF one man?
'Ycs, they have" he replied, "and upon
the grounds OF the similarity of facts In
all cases, and that every suspicious ~
suspected person in the town Is under
close watch. Had there been more than
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