Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1892-05-21
SWIFT PUNISHMENT.
A Woman Assaulted at Midnight and Beat
Into Insensibility- Her AssaiIant Cap
tured and Lynched,

L
Into Inscnsibility- Her Assailant Cap
tured and Lynched.
| ANNIsToN, Ala, May 17.-Three col.
ored men were lynched at Childersburg,
thirty-fve miles south of here, Monday
morning, for a fiendish crime, more
than ordinarily brutal and dcvilsh.
Saturday night d. c. Bryant, a prosper.
Gus farmer, who lives five miles from
Childersburg, left home to go to the vii.
lage to attend meeting.
He had left home frequently to at
tend these meetings and felt no uneasi-
ness for the safety Of his family, which
consisted Of his wife and two little chill.
dren, particularly as the cook slept in
a small house near the residence. Mrs.
Bryant asked the cook to sleep in the
house that night but she gave some rea.
son and refused, and about o o'clock
Mrs. Bryant and the children retired,
she sleeping in a bed on one side of the
room and the children on another bed
in an opposite corner.
Mrs. Bryant was awakened by some
ore coming in through the window, and
by the dim light which she eft burning
she could see a burly colored
man coming toward her bed, followed
by two others.
The frightened woman screamed, but
hardly had the sound been uttered be-
fore the foremost man struck
her on the head with pine knot
which he had, knocking her into
insensibility. The sleeping chill.
dren were awakened by the noise, but
they were terrified into silence by the
horrible brutes, who in turn committed
the hellish decd for which they came
After the men had gone the children
| tried in vain to arouse their mother and
then went to neighbors house about
800 yards distant, and told them what
had occurred. Mr. Bryant came home
about this time and posse was at once
organized and went to look for the
rapists.
A physician was summoned for Mrs.
| Bryant, but it seemed that all efforts
were useless. She was in very deli
cate condition, having for several weeks
this spring been a patient at female
infirmary at Rome, Ca, and was deliri.
GUS from her inhuman treatment and
the excitement until late Sunday night,
when she regained consciousness.
The search for her assailants was
without success until Sunday afternoon,
when the cook got intoxicated and ex-
planned the whole affair and who Mrs.
Bryants assailants were. She told how
her brothers, jim and Berry Roden, had
made her leave Mrs. Bryant's window
unfastened, and that, though they
didn't tell her what they wanted it
opened for, she formed her own conclu-
sions.
I A party of the infuriated citizens
went Immediately to the home of the
Rodcns about two miles distant. The
brothers, seeing the posse coming, tried
to escape, but were captured, together
with a colored man named VIII Carter,
who was with them. Mrs. Bryant was
still unconscious, and they were put
in Childersburg Jail with a guard of
about one hundred men over them until
Monday morning, when they were
taken before Mrs. Bryant, who in the
mean time had slightly recoverod sho
Immediately identified Carter as the
one who came in first, and thought the
other two We're his companions Ropes
were Immediately provided and the
three men hurried off to the Louisville
and Nashville railroad bridge across
the Coosa river a few hundred yards
away.
Carter protested his innocence and
said the Roden boys were the real cul-
prits. This availed nothing, however,
as in few minutes three dead bodies
were swinging from the bridge. The
mob fred several volleys into the life
less forms, and then dispersed. The
coroner held an inquest Monday after
noon, and his jury decided that the men
came to their death by hanging. execu-
tioners unknown. Mrs Bryant is still
in critical condition, and her recovery
is extremely doubtful