The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-11-17
Sellers andBrown Hanged
at Elizabetbtown.
OUTRAGE AND MURDER
Sequel of the Horrible Crime Against
Mrs. Blanche Packer the ScaffoId
and the Black Cap. Sheet
ing Torn Up for
Souvenirs.

NSpecldl 10 News ana observer
izabethtown, n. c., Nov 16.-The
last scene in the noted Clarkton rape
and murder case was enacted at Elz-
abethtown to-day when NaiIl Sellers
and Dave Brown paid the penalty on
the gallows for this most atrocious
crime
At 11.45 the prisoners accompanies
by Sheriff G. w. Lyon and deputies
ascended the gallows. The ropes haG
been tied around their, necks befofc
they were taken from the Jail. They
were given time to talk, and both de-
MED their guilt. Sellers advised every
body to avoid bad company, saying
that he mad been brought TO this fate
by false friends. Brown said his deS-
tination was Heaven. The sheriff ana
deputies bade them goodbye, black
caps were adjusted. and at II m.
Sheriff Lyon cut the rope and the
prisoners swung into space.
DrS. l.. b. Evans and w. Fl. G. Lucas
pronounced Sellers dead in seven min
utes and Brown in eight. Sellers
neck was broken, Brown died from
Strangulation.
When the drop fell the sheeting was
torn away and cut into shreds ana
carried away as were also the ropes
|
| throng was estimated at two thousand
whites and five hundred and sixty
/ negroes.
| Although both criminals denied their
guilt no one doubts that they We're,
| the men who committed the hideous
| crime.
Story of the Crime.
The crime for which Neil Sellers and
| Dave Brown were hanged at Eliza
| BEETHOVEN to-day was the brutal muir
der of and outrage upon the person
! of Mrs. Blanche Packer, the young
| wife of George S. Packer, at Clark
ton. Bladen county. this State, on the
morning of Sept. 3rd. The young
woman lived With her husband in a
small cottage near a lumber camp
where the negroes were employed On
the morning of the Grim the husband
/ had gone to his work for the day ana
a boy engaged to stay at the house
had gone some distance away to dig
potatoes. The woman was engaged in
the preparation of the noon-day meal
/ for the household when she was APP
preached from behind, knocked into
! iinsensibiity and dragged from the
house to the woods about 200 yards
away and the fiendish deed of the
/ brutes accomplished.
! Returning to the house in
1
been sent away the boy was un-
able to find the housewife and fr@I
the condition of the kitchen in which
| he left her cooking. he knew that
something was wrong. There were un-
mistakable signs of a struggle. Pots
and dishes were overturned and some
pies she had been enga ged in cooking
were smeared over the floor. The boy
gave an alarm and Il search for the
/ body was instituted. Just outside of
| the yard in a corn field fragments of
| the Woman's clothing We're founG
where they had been torn from her
| person. Tracks of both the woman
and her assailants We're plainly in evi-
dence. leanidg to the woods some dis
| found in a terribly mutilated con lii
ton, there being further indications
| of a struggle and tracks of the wo-
man as if she had once broken away
ran for some distance and then been
reca ptured.
The Mutilated Body Found.
The body was found face
downward, the head, crushed in, lying
| in a stump hole. An iron handled
knife and piece of fence rail on the
scene plainly told how the murder haG
been accomplished. An attempt hao
been made to cut the woman's throat
but the knife was evidently too dull
to make the incision.- The body had
also been mutilated in a crude attempt
to hide the crime which had prompted
the murder The crime was SO horri-
be that the white men of BIaden were
enraged and the whole country turned
out in search of the perpetrators of
the deed.
Suspicion pointed to the ne
groes Brown and Sellers, who, quite
unusual and without excuse, had not
gone to work that morning and had
remained at the lumber camp, near
the Packer home. Bloodhounds from
Maxton, n. c., were brought on the
first train and the pack closely fol-
lowed the movements of the two me-
groes until they were captured and
hurried across country to Elizabeth
town Jail, where one of the negroes
confessed having entered into an
agreement to commit the crime but
said that the crime was actually COM
mitted by the other. Later the evil
dence disclosed that the negro who
made the confession had gone to the
house but that he left Brown there
before the horrible crime was COM
pleted in all its details.
Prisoners Sent to Raleigh.
Fearing for the safety of the
negroes in Bladen JAIL they
for safe keeping. but upon ar
riving at the Jail here the feeling
AGAINST the brutes was SO high that
the authorities deemed it wise to send
them to the penitentiary at Raleigh