The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-07-13
NEGROES DESPERATE CRIME
KILLS CREW AND PASSENGERS
 or Il TRADING SCHOONER.

Takes Twelve Lives to Secure s1, ,4OO--
 Only One on Board f1scapes--she q
 Young Woman swims Ashore After Terrible Experience Criminal Now in Custody and VIII Probably be Tor
 tured to Death.
 i New Orleans, July 12.-A shocking story of murder with robbery as the motive was brought to this city to-
 day by Captain Hans Holm of the Nor-. I wegian fruiter Bratten, which plies
 between New Orleans and Honduras points It was subsequently confirmed by the officers Of the fruit steamer Ro- sina. which came in tonight with ad- ditional details.
 The island of Utilla, lying off the Ionduran coast, whose population is an indiscriminate mixture of whites, lCaymanites and Caribs, was the scene I of the tragedy in which twelve lives were sacrificed. The captain of the.
 trading schooner Olympia was about to
 make trip to Ruatan. TruxilIo and Be- lise. He had about $1,4OO and was to. buy cattle at Truxillo to sell at Belise.
 The Olympia carried a crew of four. and nine passengers Among these | were two women and two children. The 1 vessel left the harbor Of Utilla at Ii o'clock Friday night June 3O and af- l ter she had been under way less than an hour everybody was aroused by d shot and, rushing on deck, found a le-
 gro armed with a rifle shooting down the men one after another. The negro was Robert McGilI and as 1t afterwards developed he had slowed himself away with the intention of robbery and
 all but one of the men lie ordered the last survivor to go below and scuttle 1 the ship.
 When the unfortunate reappeared on deck and reported, the negro shot him
 dead. He then put the two women, Miss Elsie Morgan and her sister, Mrs.
 Walter Rouse, in the door with Mrs.
 Rause's six weeks old infant, and left l the boat steering for the main land. l On the way he changed his mind about 1 allowing the women to live and killed
 Mrs. Rouse and her infant. He then
 began shooting at Miss Morgan and
 wounded her in the arm. She jumped I overheard and started to swim back. I to the island. He fired at her ineffect- ually, but his ammunition evidently gave out, for he promised her immu- | nifty from harm if she would come back
 to the dory. She started back and | when within oar's length he struck her
 on the head with an oar stunning her.
 Believing she was dead he rowed away | towards the mainland. Miss Morgan
 recovered her senses and swam back to 1 the island, where she was thrown on
 the beach by, the waves in an ,ex- 1 hausted condition. Fearing that the
 negro would follow her. she hid in the
 bushes and for two days suffered from
 heat and exposure until found by a
 woman from the neighborhoOd. Miss
 Morgan's story was told to the author ! tiles, who arrested McGill at Fl Protey-
 ener and returned him to the island. Up to last Sunday he was still alive, l though it is firmly believed that he will
 be tortured to death. The laws of Hon duras prohibit capital punishment, but l the people will take the case into their 1 own hands. 1H
 ] Miss Elsie Morgan, the only survivor
 of the terrible experience visited New Orleans three years ago and Is d we'll
 educated, refined young woman of 25
 years.