A Negro Rapist Goes Rope Route

Title

Source Type

Newspapers

Publisher

Age Herald

Publication Place

Birmingham, AL

Publication Date

01/14/1898

Transcript

GOES ROPE ROUTE Black Brute Horribly Assaulted Mrs. Hodges Near Coaling. THEN ATTEMPTS MISS COBB Infuriated Citizens. Overtake Him and His Fiendish Career is Ended Forever --Was Unknown at Coaling News reached this city yesterday after- noon of a horrible crime that was committed near Coaling, forty miles south of Birmingham, on the Alabama Great Southern railroad, in Tuscaloosa county. About 4 o'clock in unknown negro brute appeared at the home of Mrs. Hodges, a widow, about 30 years of age, who lives five miles from Coaling, and assaulted her, accomplishing his hellish purpose after a fierce struggle. About two and a mall miles from the scene of the first crime, he attempted an assault on a Miss Cobb at an early hour this morning. The news of the crime spread rapidly yesterday afternoon, and soon a posse of infuriated citizens was formed and the woods were scoured for the black brute. Nothing further was heard of him until this morning about 8 o'clock, when he appeared at the house of Farmer Cobb, about two and a half miles from Coaling and there attempted to repeat his dastardly crime. Taking hold of one of Mr. Cobb's daughters, he warned her that if she gave the alarm, he would kill her. She screamed for life, however, and her two sisters were soon at her assistance, and by a hard fight beat off the fiend. When the news of this second attempt reached the posse they were more desperate than ever, and it was not many hours before the rapist was overtaken. The remainder of the story is short. He was properly identified, and the infuriated posse sent him into eternity by the rope route, loaded with bullets, as the story goes.

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