The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-01-02
KIPNAPE WITNESS
 THOUGHT ID HAVE FLED FROM PARISH.
Mer Rouge Spends Quiet New Years Awaiting New Chap ter in Sensational
 Mob Case
By Associated Press


 BAsTRoP, La, Jan. I.-After
 day df exhaustive investigation, sher-
 if Carpenter of Morehouse tonight
 announced that he believed that liar
 old Teegestrom, ls-year-old time Keeper at carbon plant at spyker, La. wno was Kidnapped Friday night,
 was alive and had fled from this sec tion through fear.
 From reports of the incident pieeed
 E te gethcr it seemed Is unidentified
 men appeared at the plants bunk
 house. called the youth to the door, seized and placed him in one of the automobiles waiting outside. and
 drove off into the woods. Whether the men were masked has not been learned.
 What occurred in the woods has not been disclosed by Teegestrom, who managed to escape from his cap tors and yesterday reached the home of Henry James, sawmill man, and excitedly asked him for $40 with which to depart for an unannounced destination.
 Jones said he let him have the
 sum and Teegestrom departed. Occurrence Reported He told Jones he had been taken to the WOOuS put OiQ npl sdS v ldt had happened.
 Jones reached Bastrop today and
 reported the occurrence to the
 sheriff.
 Teegestrom was to have testified Tn the open hearing and trials in con nection with the Warehouse kidnap- CTS and murders. While considered an important state witness, T. J. Bur nett, former deputy sheriff in jail here or q murder charge. declared he could prove an alibi for August 24 the night of the outrage. by the young timekeeper of the Southern 1 carbon plant, where Burnett was a 1 foreman.
 The sheriff today recalled that
 Teegestrom had publicly declared l Burnett was at the carbon plant on August c4.
 Claims AIibi
 Burnett told newspspermen at the l jail Friday he could prove an al1pi
 by the rlant's records. Although there had been reports, the records were destroyed by the mysterious party, officials of the plant announced today that the rec ords were intact.
 Victor Taegestrom, prominent cit izen of Monroe, Is assisting the civil autnoT1t1eS anu leueFdi agents Tn lo- ating his son. The sheriff said he did not know whether the youth was handled by friends or enemies of
 Burnett.
 The incident added another chap ter to the book of startling events being written here which already in- cludes masked and robed mob ! stealing five men from a public high i way; of punishment grounds where two were unmercifully flogged and two beaten to death and horribly mu- tilated; of bodies being decapitated, wire bound, weighted with iron and thrown into a lake; of the governor of the state personally entering into the Investigations; Of troops, divers und volunteers dragging lakes and swamps searching fer the bodies: of mysterious dynamiters blowing them to the surface: of arrests of prominent men and the promised ar rests of others; of confessions in- volving 45 men; of charges that the
 Ku Klux klan was responsible for the deed, and of counter charges; and of open hearings and trials to commence.
 New Years day was celebrated quietly here and at Mer Rouge. All business was suspended and but for the presence of three companies of state troops and federal agents. there were no signs the communities were
 passing out of a year of tragedy into 1 period that was shrouded in mys- tery.
 Preparations were being completed for the open hearing to begin Fri day.