The Holbrook news., 1910-08-26
MYSTERY IN CRIMES
Strange VandaI Commits Daring Depredations in Missouri.
Hatred of Mankind Is Shown by Many Shocking Offenses-CrininaI Dis plays an Uncanny Hatred of
 Animals.

Versailles. Mo.-Four unkempt dogs
 from a farmhouse scurried down the
 roadside enc day and yelped viciously
 at a passing buggy. For an eighth of
 a mile, perhaps, they kept up their
 clamor as they followed along beside
 the rails.
 Like to go into that yard at night ?'
 Frank Brown, constable of Flaw Creek
 township, who was driving, asked his
 companion. "No? Well, tonight, may.
 be, some one will drive in there, load
 his wagon with plunder-set the barn
 on fire if he likes-and those dogs won't even growl. For 20 years we have been robbed and our stock tor tured and killed. It always is done at night. Is 1t any wonder that the whole neighborhood lives in terror when even the dogs are afraid?"
 Such Is the feeling in the western part of Morgan county. Within an area of six square miles mysterious criminal has operated a score of years. Houses and barns have been burned down when the owners had no known enemies. Stock has been maimed. Granaries have been robbed of wagon loads of grain. Telephone and fence wires have been cut and spools of missing wire were found hidden in hollow logs. Recently graphophone was found in a tree top far in the wooded hills.
 The crimes are confined to a cer- tain district that Is peopled by sixty or seventy prosperous families of Ger man descent. There Is no petty neighborhood strife to account for the crimes. The people are of the burgher type, hearty, good-natured and honest As the custom is among foreigners, they are clannIsh. Nearly every family Is related to some other family, because they have lived in a small district in their adopted coun- try for more than forty years.
 Yet these people are afraid. They turn out their lamps at night, not knowing what blight they may suffer by morning. They speak of their fear in subdued voices. Their blue eyes express superstitious fear when they are deep in conversation on the sub ject- They have no protection. The grand jury has called in witnesses many times to testify about depreda- tons, but no definite evidence has been collected. A year ago farmers barn was robbed four nights in sue cession. He asked three of his neigh 1 bors to help him watch. The party hid in the barn for two nights and nothing happened. The next night they did not watch. When morning came daylight showed that the visitor had been there again.
 Another time 80 chickens were stolen and no noise was made. The dogs-every farmer has a ferocious pack-were silent. No one knows why, no more than they can explain why the fowls kept still. No one at tempts explanations.
 So strong is the fear in Flaw Creek township that victim will not tell his most intimate friend until several days after he has been visited. They do not suspect each other, they say. At any rate. a stranger can get little information from them regarding their suspicious Many of them are ready to sell their farms and leave.
 The time has passed when the crimes were surprises. Three hundred times, it is said, the curse has fallen. The thick woods are suggestive of mystery, on a fence board in one place is painted the inscription:
 Prepare to Meet Thy God"
 No one knows who wrote it. It is not questioned-''he" put it there.
 Often when the men of the neigh borhood are hunting coons at night a shot is heard and a bullet whizzes over their heads. They drop to the ground and creep toward home through the bushes. So far no per son has been harmed, but there Is the ever-present fear that the mysterious criminal will turn his spite toward human beings
 Occasionally several weeks pass without events. Then series comes rapidly. Last week a barn and seV- eral hay stacks were burned. Two farmers lost chickens. A man who had quantity of potatoes. apples and turnips buried within thirty feet of his house awoke and found the earth freshly turned. His produce was gone. There were no tracks. That morning his dogs sulked and trembled.
 'E all of us were to report these things as soon as they happen we might be able to catch him." said one man, who made a reporter promise not to use his name, "but we never hear a thing until several days later. Every man is afraid to arouse the am ger of him They are afraid the little red rooster will run over their 
 By the little red rooster" be meant that the farmers feared that their houses would be burned.
 The criminal has an uncanny hatred of animals. apparently. Thirteen years ago a minister wno since has 1 left the community went to his barn f one morning and found his only horse s dead. The animal had been hacked T with a keen knife Another man found t one of his mules in a ravine. three t miles from home. It had been struck c