A Hellish Crime

Case(s)
Source Type: Newspaper
Publisher: The Selma Times
Place of publication: Selma, AL
Date of publication: 2/17/1894
Transcript:

Four month ago Jesse Rucker, a prosperous young farmer who lived within two miles of Stanton, led to the alter a rosy-cheeked, black eyed girl and swore before God and man to love cherish and protect her. His home was a humble one it is true and no fine furniture adorned it or velvet carpets covered the floor but It was his home and through the threshold he carried the fair young creature and installed her as queen. To them all the world was rosey. He chopped the wood and drew the water, while his wife ever joyous and happy, kept the house tidy and prepared the meals, and the young couple who had begun life under such auspicious but humble circumstances, were as happy as the Lord in his palace. Near the cottage of Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Rucker a neighbor lived, a footpath through the woods being a favorite way the two families had of visiting one another. On Thursday morning Mrs. Rucker went Over to see her neighbor but never came back alive. Crouching in the underbrush on the side of the path a couple of burly black brutes lay in wait, and when she came tripping along with a heart as light and happy as the sunshine, out they pounced, like a couple of cruel tigers and dragged her away from the bypath into a swampy, dismal place a few yards distant. The ground over which they dragged the poor young woman showed that she made terrible resistance. Every bush was clutched at and the loose soil was plowed up where her heels made impressions therein, vainly striving to keep I from going to a place that was to be her doom. Once in the dismal swamp her cries were stifled, their hellish deed, one at which the very imps of perdition shuddered was accomplished. This done to cover their crime she was choked to death and left lying there in the hope that her body would not be found. No sooner did the young husband find that his wife did not return, when he started out to investigate and the terrible deed that has just been described met his gaze. A posse of citizens was organized, a clue was found, and in a short win e the two negro ruffians were unclir arrest, the torn condition of their clothing and the blood on their persons told the tale, silently, it is true, but as forcibly as if the poor girl were in person to tell with her own lips the tale of murder and outrage. A rope was secured and put around the necks of the scoundrels and in a few minutes their souls if they had any were sent to dwell with all such miserable creatures in a hell which all right thinking men will hope old satan had made a hundred times hotter than his lowest pit was ever made, and there incarcerated them forever with echo of the cries of their poor innocent victim ringing their ears to add if possible to the terrible punishment that they undergo. Yesterday morning when the sun peered over the hills of Chilton Co., two forms were hanging from a tree. The little stream nearby that coursed through the mossy banks, making a curve here and a little waterfall there, flowed on as if nothing had happened to disturb its serenity. The leaves of the bay trees that lined its banks, gently rustled in the crisp frosty air, while the forms of the two brutes swayed gently back and forth, a grim reminder to others to beware of such terrible crimes. In a little cottage not over a quarter of a mile away a young man, who only a few hours before was joyous and contented, was bending low over the form of a young creature that he called wife. A little cortege of mourners silently wended their way toward the country church yard and there her form was lowered into the ground where it will be transformed to the dust from whence it came.

Citation:

“A Hellish Crime.” The Selma Times (Selma, AL), February 17, 1894.