The Ouachita Telegraph - Deputy Sheriff T. W. Evans Shoots Capt. J. G. Hays
Submitted by: Lora Peppers <lpeppers@ouachita.lib.la.us>
Date: Apr. 2000
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The Ouachita Telegraph
Saturday, September 17, 1870
Page 2, Column 5

The Opelousas Tragedy.
        In Thursday morning's Picayune we gave an account of the killing of Capt.
J.G. Hays, in the jail of Opelousas, by T.W. Evans, the jailor and deputy
sheriff, with brief mention of the events which led to Hays' incarceration.
The murder was one of the most brutal and deliberate on record, and proved
the assassin to have been of a singularly callous nature. — He had shown
such apparently kindly consideration for his victim, as we have subsequently
learned, as to have completely lulled the latter's previous distrust, though
Hays' friends continued to warn him against Evans, knowing Evans'desperate
character.  But to all warnings Hays would reply that he was in no danger;
that no harm could come to him there, and that Evans had proven himself most
kind and indulgent.
        They not only sat and chatted together, but frequently dined at the same
table.  Even on Friday evening Hays shared his repast with the man who was
within a few hours to be his murderer, the latter so completely masking his
bloody intent as to propose sending for a bottle of wine. [This was declined
by Hays, as he never drank.] We must turn to the pages of the house of
Borgia for a murder parallel to this in cold-blooded deliberateness.  We now
learn that Evans was at first arrested on suspicion, or circumstantial
evidences; though he had hardly been seized when the cumulative evidence of
his guilt became overwhelming, and immediately upon the opening of the
preliminary examination he confessed himself Hays' murderer.
        The desperate character of the man — already found guilty of murder in
Calcasieu parish — the atrocious nature of the assassination, the general
esteem in which the victim was held, the law's delay and uncertainty,
quickly sealed Evan's fate.  Without a murmur of dissent, or any semblance
of tumult, he was taken in broad daylight to the public square and hung by
an outraged community. — Picayune, 11th inst.

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