The Ouachita Telegraph - Anderson Bates Murdered

Date: Oct. 2000 
Submitted by: Lora Peppers <lpeppers@ouachita.lib.la.us>



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The Ouachita Telegraph
Friday, August 19, 1881
Page 3, Column 1

 Anderson Bates, a colored man, was murdered at the Kansas place, on bayou
DeSiard, last Wednesday night by some unknown party while returning home,
accompanied by his wife, from a visit to some colored people across the
bayou.  It seems that the murderer first went to Bates house and pulled the
heads off of four chickens, which were roosting near the door, as a means to
bring him to his door, but finding that he was not at home he took his stand
inside a fence near a path which his victim would pass along, placing one
end of a bridge puncheon on the second plank of the fence to stand on.  When
Bates was opposite the place the murderer rose up and struck him on the back
of the neck with a oak wagon standard about three feet long, which broke his
neck.  His wife says she did not recognize the murderer.  Suspicion rests
upon Perry Munson and Aaron Anderson but the evidence does not centre
sufficiently to place guilt on either one of the accused.  They are both
held in custody until further developments.

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