DUSKY DAMSELS BOOSTED BRANCH-WARD.
- Title
- DUSKY DAMSELS BOOSTED BRANCH-WARD.
- Source Type
- Newspapers
- Publisher
- The Fulton Democrat
- Publication Place
- McConnellsburg, Pennsylvania
- Publication Date
- 5/21/1897
- Transcript
- DUSKY DAMSELS BOOSTED BRANCH-WARD. Birmingham, Ala., May 12. A farmer passing along the road leading from Jeff, Alabama, to Huntsville at daybreak to day, discovered the lifeless forms of two negro girls swinging from the same limb of an oak tree. The bodies, which were not yet cold, were those of Mollie Smith, 18 years old, and Amanda Franks, I9 years old, both of whom had been servants in the employ of the late Joshua O. Kelly, of Jeff. Three times within eight weeks the Kelly family have been poisoned. Not uutil the last poisoning, on Friday of last week, did suspicion point to one of the girls. The capture aud confession last night of Amanda Frauks was followed by the speedy lynching of the pair. The elder Kelly died in great agony, the others reoovered after a loug and difficult siege. When taken into custody the Franks girl said that she and Mollie Smith had placed arsenic in the food of the Kellys. Mollie had poisoned the coffee two months ago for the purpose of killing the entire family. As only one death resulted she determined to repeat her effort the night afterward, when she placed poison in some sausage which the watchers over Kelly's corpse ute. Amanda said she herself poisoned the flour from which biscuits were made last week, and that it was done under the direction of Mollie.