The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-12-24
A BAD DAY FOR MURDERERS
Five of Them Hanged Yesterday, Two
Upon One Gallows-A Youth Hanged for
Criminal Assault

Kansas City, No., December I.-W1-
liam Carr, the child murderer, was
hanged at the Clay county courthouse
at Liberty, Mo-, this morning. Carr
was an ignorant backwoodsman who
sought to please his second wife by
drowning his 3 a old daughter by
his first wife.
Carr presented a pitable sight on
the galIows, showing remarkable Tack
of nerve. After the drop had fallen
the mass of 600 spectators, as if NOV
ed by a single impulse, rushed forward,
cry shrieking and laughing as they
surged under the gallows and packed
close around the dangling corpse, for
a close view. The sheriff and deputies
had great difficulty in clearing out the
hysterical mob.
After the execution it became known
that a thrifty photographer had been
admitted to the enclosure with a chem
autograph machine and that he had been
permitted to photograph the closing in
cidents of this revolving tragedy. The
machine was in operation from the mo-
ment Carr appeared in the enclosure
until the body was cut down, and it is
claimed that in a film LOGO feet long,
5000 pictures were taken. An attempt
will be made to exhibit these pic
lures. When Carr was a prison
er in the county Jail at Kansas City the
same parties persuaded him to recite
his story of the crime into a phOnO-
graph.
C~ovington, Tenn, December 17.-Wil-
liam johnson died on the scaffOld this
afternoon. The condemned man walk
ed quietly from his cell to the gaIlows,
made a ful1 confession and died with
a smile ON his Fipe. Company r."
Tennessee National Guard, was present
to protect the prisoner, had there been
signs of lynching, but the soldier boys
were not needed. The crime for which
Johnson surrendered his life was the
murder of Farmer Walter Boyd, of
Idaville, Upton county, on August 9Th
last. The only justification the negro
offered was that he heard Boyd had
threatened him.
Birmingham, Ala, December 17.-Bud
Beard, colored, aged IA years, was
hanged at C%arrollton, Pickens county,
today. Beard outraged the 8 year old
daughter of Ben Croker, an Alabama
farmer, in December.
Atlanta, Ga, December 17.-Bud
Brooks and Grady Reynolds, who, to-
gether murdered the merchant, M. G.
Hunt, of Bolton, Ca, were taken from
the county Jail at Jefferson today and
privately hanged on a hill a few yards
distant. Both made statements from
the gallows. The drop fell at 1917
o'clock. Both men died on the same
gallOws. The execution was remark
able in many respects. After the rid
to the gallows, a distance of half a
mile, the murderers were robed in
white and permitted to speak to a
throng of 1000 people, who packed
around the gallows enclosure. On the
scaffOld the two men held a brief con-
v%ersation, each inquiring after the 9TH
er's spiritual condition. Among the
tw'enty men who saw the execution
were three brothers of the murdered
man.
Richmond, Va, December ia
special to The Despatch from Welsh,
w. Va, says that John Hardin was
hanged a. Grundy, the county seat of
Buchanan county, today for the murder
of George Mounts. The men had a
difficulty about Hardin's wife and Har-
din shot Mounts in a lonely place with
out warning.