The Ouachita Telegraph - Mrs. Kidd Murdered by Henry Moore Date: May 2000 Submitted by: Lora Peppers ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** The Ouachita Telegraph Saturday, January 25, 1873 Page 2, Column 2 MURDER AND VIOLENCE. A Respectable Lady Dragged from Her Horse on the Highway and Murdered. On Tuesday evening the startling intelligence was brought to Sheriff Aycock at Homer that Mrs. Kidd, living near Athens, had been missing from her friends for many hours; and that a suspicion of her death by violence was entertained. When last seen she had mounted on horseback at the house of Mr. Allman, a neighbor whom she had been visiting, and had started home, about dusk. Shortly afterwards the horse she rode was found in a field, a distance of not more than a half a mile from where she had started, riderless. Suspicion having been aroused, it was found upon inquiry that a negro, named Henry Moore, living near Alec Ragland's place, had a quarrel with his wife that day and whipped her, and had afterwards started towards Mr. Allman's house. Upon examination of the roadmarks of a violent struggle were found. The neighborhood thereupon turned out in mass and it was learned on inquiry that this negro had been seen by black children near Mr. Moreland's walking by the side of Mrs. Kidd. It appeared to them as if she wanted to speak; but a threatening motion he made at her with his arm prevented her. The woods and every portion of the country was scoured, though no further information was obtained until dusk, when a party rode up to Calhoun's Mills. At that point, happening to mention that Henry Moore was the negro suspected, this negro proved at the moment to be present, and immediately upon hearing the remark broke and run. He was hotly chased as far as R.B. Evens' plantation, and had not, at last accounts, been taken. The place where the unfortunate lady was last seen by the children was only a short distance from Calhoun's Mill, and search was immediately directed thither. After an examination of ever thicket and clump of trees, the body was finally found by Mr. S.Y. Gladney of the Homer Drug Store and others, from whom we gather these facts. The finding was about a half an our by sun, and the victim had evidently been compelled to walk to the spot where she had met her death. In the opinion of those who had first seen the corpse the life had not quitted the body later than at sundown. The death wounds had evidently been made with some knot of wood that came conveniently to the hand of the assassin, and with which he had fractured her skull. The body was taken from the thick jungle of woods in which it was found, and transported to the house of her grief stricken family in a wagon. It is needless to state that the dreadful tragedy has been the only subject of conversation since it became known and has awakened a deep feeling of horror and sympathy which will not be readily forgotten. — Claiborne Advocate. Capture of the Murderer of Mrs. Kidd — Prompt Punishment for his Crime. From Mr. Peter Demetz, who was present at the time of the capture, we gather the following facts additional to those already related. The news of the outrage on Mrs. Kidd, had after the discovery of her body, been circulated through the whole country and everybody still kept on the look out. At 2 o'clock on Wednesday afternoon, the negro, Henry Moore, went to the house of Richard Green, colored, and having been informed by a negro girl that no inquiry had been made for him, he then went in. As soon as he entered, Green and his son-in-law immediately captured him, and sent word of the fact to John Coleman. Coleman thereupon coming to the scene, bound his prisoner securely to his horse's tail, and carried him off. He was accompanied by Demetz. When near the residence of the deceased lady, near Tulip, he made several statements implicating some other colored man, but finally admitted that he was alone when he first met Mrs. Kidd. He confessed to stopping her on the road and taking her off the horse and to having then outraged her. He kept her with him from Monday evening until 3 o'clock Tuesday, compelling her to walk many miles through the woods. The unhappy lady meanwhile begging for her life and which he promised to spare. Once in passing some children he made her stoop down to keep from being seen. He finally murdered her by striking his victim back of the neck while she walking in front, close to Mr. Langston's place with a pine knot. While Messrs. Coleman and Demetz were thus taking him to deliver to the authorities, which was sometime after midnight, the prisoner was forcibly taken away from them by a very large crowd of black and white. We have no further positive knowledge of what transpired, but a bright flame which shortly broke out left but little doubt that he was burned to the first pine tree that his captors encountered. — Claiborne Advocate. # # #