The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-10-23
NEGRO GIRL MURDERED
A FOUL CRIME COMMITTED
 NEAR SELMA.
Will Harris in Jail Charged With Killing Mattie Bell-Assault the Object of the
 Crime.
Advertiser Bureau,

Advertiser Bureau,
 Selma, Oct. 22. A horrible murder and attempted out rage occurred within one hundred yards of the corporate limits of the city at about 8 o'clock this morning and the western part of the city and the neigh borhood of the Estelle Cotton Mills was thrown into a fever of excitement.
 Matte Bell, 14-year-old negro girl. is the victim.
 Will Harris, a negro, was arrested to- night and safely lodged in jail. charged with the crime. If the sheriff had not reached him when he did, the infuriated negroes that gathered about him would have lynched him. He was arrested by three colored men.
 The child's father is Charlie Bell, who runs a small farm just above the railroad bridge on Valley Creek. He lives few hundred yards beyond Valley Creek, and being an industrious man, he gets up and goes to his work early. He has been in the habit of having one of his little girls carry his breakfast to him.
 The girl left the cottage of her father about 6:30 this morning and took his breakfast to him as usual. He ate his breakfast and his daughter took the bucket and started home. She crossed the bridge and was within a few hundred yards of her home when she met man. What passed between the two is not known. An old colored man coming to the city about 8 o'clock gays that he saw a man and a woman in a struggle on the railroad track about a couple of hundred yards beyond him, and that he saw the | man pick the girl up and go down the embankment with her, but that when he reached the place he could not hear any thing and he dismissed the occurrence | from his mind until he heard of the mur- | der.
 | MT. Kent West was coming to the cit, and he heard the screams, but did moi know that a crime was being committed He reported what he had heard after tho news of the murder had gotten out.
 The girls body was found in the bushe: about one hundred and fifty yards dowr the creek from where the old man saw her and her burly assailant struggling oI the railroad track. He could not tel from the distance whether 1t was whit man or a negro who committed the deed
 Near the embankment of the railroad the girls hat and one of her slipper were found. Her body was discovered b. a couple of negroes. The body was stil warm when it was found. Her clothe had been torn off and an attempt at out rage had been committed.
 The girl had not been dead over a hal hour or an hour at most when she wa | found. A piece or her clothing wa spread over her face. and the cedar sticl with which her brains had been beate out was thrown across the cloth. Tn brute who had assaulted the girl. unabl to accomplish his object, picked up ce dar saplng that had been cut down an literally beat her brains out with it.
 A coroner's jury was empanneled b Justice Lloyd and consisted of the fol lowing: J. C. Adler. Louis Bamberger R. A. Whitman, J. l.. Hooks. J. A. Whit man and Ed Nelson. After viewing tn corpse and taking what testimony the could get. they came to a verdict that tn little girl had come to her death at tn hands of parties unknown.
 About a thousand people. mostly ne groes, were soon on the scene. but Sherii Blackwell and Chief Walters kept then back, as they did not wish to destroy tn trail of the man who had committed tn crime. Sheriff Blackwell sent to the jail not over a half mile away, for the blood hounds, in the hope that they would b able to track the scoundred.
 A great many murders have been com mitted in Dallas among the negro popu latiOn in the past eight or ten years but this Is the first case of attempte rape and murder that this writer re members to have taken place within tn confines of the county. Most of the crime are the result ot Whiskey and quarrel over crap shooting, but 1t is the rares thing in the world that a crime of thi sort is committed.