n.t.

Case(s)
Source Type: Newspaper
Publisher: The Landmark
Place of publication: White River Junction, Vermont
Date of publication: Aug 16, 1884 12:00 am
Source URL: View Source
Transcript:

Tuesday morning Andy Burke, a negro, assaulted the thirteen-years- old daughter of a well known citizen of Tuscaloosa, Ala. She was returning home from taking her music lesson, when the negro seized her and ran with her into some woods near by. A gentleman passing by heard her scream and rescued her. The negro was caught Wednesday. They took him before the girl who identified him fully, when he confessed his crime. He was put in a guard house, from which he was subsequently taken by a mob, shot and hung near the Presbyterian church, where his body lay until morning, when it was carted off and buried. It is charged that when the negro was taken out he was first mutilated, and after letting him suffer for awhile the suggestion was made to scalp him, which was accordingly done. By this time the crowd became fully committed to the policy of torturing him, when he was partially disemboweled. At the time, it is said, the wretch begged piteously for the final act which would put him out of pain. When the party had satiated itself with the criminal’s suffering, he was strung up to a tree, all of the party who had revolvers firing bullets into the swinging body, after which it was cut down and left to be discovered by daylight. The details which rumor gives of the night’s work are most horrible. It is said that the matter will be thoroughly investigated by order of the governor to find out the truth of the rumors and if possible to reach the guilty parties and visit upon them the punishment due their crime.