The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-01-13
SAvAGERY.
An Infant Colored Child Placed
on a Redhot Stove
Until It's Flesh is Horribly
Burned.
CHILD DIES TODAY.
Parents Charge That the Crime
Was Committed
Through Revenge by a Colored
Preacher.
CHILD ID

Ou0 O1 Lu6 uOSL lnuuuaQ CE1mSS 0ECA
committed in Topeka was brought to
light today in the death of fourteen
mouths old Charlie Dean, son of Charles
Dean who lives at 1921 Hancock street.
The child died this morning as the re-
suit of burns received six weeks ago
from being purposeiy placed on a red
hot stove
The parents of the child are well-to-do
colored people. The father is employed
in the Santa Fe lumber yard and is at
home only in the night. He is indus
trious and stands well among the color7d
people. Why he concealed the fact of
his child's injuries until it died is prob
ably duo to ignorance more than any
thing else.
There were two children in the family,
Ethel. years old, and the baby, II
months old. The mother did her morn
ing work on the Friday on which the
crime occurred. In the back room of
the little house there is a bed and
smallssized round coal stove that stands
about three feet and a half from the
floor.
The mother took her two children into
this room. There was a hot fire in the
stove, but she did not expect to be gone
over five minutes, and she had left the
children alone before. She took the
baby and placed him near the bed on a
common WOOO0n cQdlE. ne AlLtl0 &lrI
sat near him on the floor playing.
The mother left the house to visit Mrs.
Johnson who lives at 1913 Hancock
street. She carefully closed the door
leading from the room in which the
children were left to the porch on the
south side of the house
Mrs. Dean says she was not gone
more than five minutes and when she
returned, the door to the room stood
xxyid Tho lift1o child
the porch moaning and the little girl,
Ethel had gone to a neighbors in search
of her mother.
The woman was surprised to find the
house open, when she had left the doors
shut. for the three-y year old girl left with
the baby could not open any of the doors.
She looked into the house and noticed
that the stovepipe had been knocked
down and lay across the floor near where
the baby was left
The clothing on the child she held in
her arms was not disarranged, but when
she made an examination she found that
the hips and legs OF the little child had
been cooked to an enormous blister. 1t
was plain to be seen that some one had
taken off part of the clothing worn by
the baby and then placed the child on the
red hot stove, for there in a half circle
was the print of the round top of the
stove burned into the tender flesh.
1t was some time before a doctor was
called because the parents did not know
how seriously the baby had been burned,
but when one was summoned he said
that the flesh had been cooked to the
bone, and that it was not probable that
the boy would live.
Thsre is only one clue to the perpetra-
tor of the crime and suspicion points to
a young man named Wiley Ingrams and
a woman by the name of May Higgins,
whose homes are near the Dean house.
The Huggins girl had been courted by
young lngrams and her parents objected
and drove him away. Then they contrived
to meet at the houses of neighbors and
among the places where these clandes-
tine meetings occurred was at the home
of the Deans. Dean became tired of the
part he was playing and he notified the
young people that there could be no
more meetings there. Both the young
man and the girl were very angry and
they said they would never set foot in
thu house again.
The little year-old girl Ethel can not
talk plainly, but in her baby way says
that someone took off her little brothers.
clothing, and put the baby on the stove.
and she indicates Wiley Ingrama In
grams has disappeared and no one
knows where he is. but the Higgins girl
is at home and has frequently visited the
injured baby during its sufferings.
Iugrams is q travelling preacher, or ex-
horter, and the people living in the
neigh borhood say that he is now out Oh
one of his tours filling appointments in
colored churches somewhere in Kansas