The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1912-02-21
LIKE THE JUNGLEs OF AFRICA

negro, therefore, it is most natural
to attribute the long chain of hide
Gus tragedies which during the past
year have Mortified the whole of
southwestern Louisiana and shocked
such of the people of the entire coun-
try as have read of them. And it
is mainly along this line that the
authorities of the several counties
in this belt are directing thei" inves-
LEGATIONS.
The Sanctif1ed Sect.
In the county jails are locked sew
eral so-called preachers and several
known members, mostly women, Of
a mysterious religious cult called by
its leaders the Sanctified Sect, but,
especially since the butchery of sew
eral families, spoken of by most o.
the negroes as the Sacrifice Sect. I"
What the preachers of this Sancti-
fed Sect really teach no white man
knows. Even the majority of the
blacks who make up the congrega-
tons are in ignorance of what the
holy" men advocate when only the
select are present. These preachers
are allied with no regular church.
Mostly they come from other sections
of the country, and in the main they
live on the donations of their dis
ciples. One of them helps out his
pOcketbook by working as a chore-
man or gardener. The immediate
membership is small, if one is to
Judge from the statements of those
under arrest, there being only four
members in Lafayette and only sew
en- or eight in Jennings, Arcadia
parish, which is recognized as head
quarters of the sect Jennings is
the home of King Harrison, one of
the preachers under arrest in La
Fayette. Like the others he main
tains complete silence as to his
teachings and practices, but the BIZ
BILE which he carries is suggestively
marked, the word blood" being I'M
derscored in red wherever it appears.
The number five also seems to have
a mystic significance, as does the
word sacrifice" Whether or not
this Sanctifed or Sacrifice" Sect
has any connection with the chain
of wholesale sacrifices has not been
demonstrated, but that there is a |
is generally believed.
Wholesale Murder.
On Nov. IL, 1909, Gotteau Ope-
lousas, an unmarried Creole or
French speaking negress, and her
three children were found murdered
in their cabin at Rayne. No one was
ever convicted for the crime and it
remains a mystery.
On Jan. IA, 1911, Walter Byers
and his wife and child were found
murdered in their beds in Crowley
A bloody axe told the story.
In neither of these cases was
there evidence of brawl or struggle.
There was no disturbance of the
contents of either cabin, no evidence
of robbery, no known reason for the
crime. Each created a local sensa-
ton for time. 1t is only their SIM
ilarity to the awful affairs which fol-
lowed that makes them # any mo-
ment at this time.
Little more than a month after
the Byets N .rd"r r&rV the slaughte,
of the Andrus family at Lafayette
Andrus lived in the east end Of The
city and bore & pad reputation in
fact, he had been driven out of Ca
rencro as mean niger" On the
morning Of Feb. "a, 1911, the bodies
of Andrus, his wife and two children
were found butchered in one bed,
while a third child, an infant, lay
dead in it's crib. The head of each
of the five victims had been crushed
with an axe
There was absolutely no clew to
the perpetrator of the crime, unless
the finding in an clubhouse of
bloody shirtwaist belonging to a ne
gro girl named Clementaine Barne-
bet might be reckoned as a clew.
Clementaine has since figured large
ly in the tragic story.
Seven months afterwards the po-