The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, 1907-06-28
BOY IS KILLED
BY KIDNAPERS
Failing to Get Ransom, Stolen Youth
Was Strangled to Death.
FIVEDAGORS ARE JAILED
Excitement Similar to Malta Affair Som
Years Ago Now Prevails in New Or
leans-Lynching Feared.

A New Orleans special says: Two
miles in the interior of big swamp
near the city the headless body OF
Walter Lamana, an Italian child be-
tween seven and eight years old, who
was kidnapped and neld for $1,000 ran
som two weeks ago, was found by
police and vigilants just before day
break Sunday. He had been strangled
to death, according to the confession
of one of several Italians held by the
police.
The boys neck is supposed to have
been broken when he was strangled,
causing the head to become separated
from the body when decomposition set
in. The head was found short dis
tance from, the body.
Five Italians, two of them women,
are under arrest, charged as accom-
plices to the murder, and extra details
of police and deputies are mGntaining
order in the excited Italian quarter Of
the city. All day long small crowds
were dispersed promptly by the police,
despite whose precautions a report
has gotten out summoning mass
meeting al Elk place Seventy armed
deputies have been placed on guard
at the Orleans parish prison, the
strongest in the state, where three
of the prisoners are held, and some
apprehension has been felt over the
safety Of two other prisoners who
have been taken to an adjoining par
ish.
Seldom since the malta lynchings,
sixteen years ago, has New Orleans
been so stirred with threats of vio-
lence as now, and some of these
threats are made by those who partic-
ipated in disorders at that time. The
law and order element is much strong
4er than it has been heretofore.
The murdered boy was found near
st. Rose, about twenty miles from
New Orleans, in territory which
has been well search&l with blood
hounds in the past few days. When
the dogs failed to locate the boy a
third degree sweating process wrung
a confession from one of the suspects,
who was taken from his home in st.
Rose about midnight Saturday night,
and carried into the woods by com
bined force of the officials and vigi-
lants. who have had the search in
charge. This man, Ignazio Campigci-
ano. was kept in the woods an hour,
when he confessed, charging four
Italians with the murder. He said
that about the time of a mass meet
ing in New Orleans more than a week
ago held for the purpose of prosecut-
ing a search for the boy, these men,
who were in a vacant house in st.
Rose. became frightened and consulted
about what to do with the child The
boy was crying, begging to be taken
home to his parents, said Campigcia-
no. and one of the quartet of kidnap-
ers grabbed the child and strangled
him to death to stop his noise. Later,
two OF the kidnapers came to him car
rying the boy in a blanket, and after
threatening him with death, if he told,
took the body into the swamp.
Campigciano, after relating this
story, led the police by moonlight
through two miles Of swamp, where
the searchers sometimes waded in
water nearly waist deep, and at 9TH
ers crawled under tangles of briars.
IN a shallow pool at the end of this
search. the body was found in a blan.
ket in a clump of wild cane.