News Articles, Pike County, MO ...Genealogy Trails

Crime News

WITH GUN AND AXE
Louisiana, Mo., February 1. - In the village of Eola, in this (Pike) county, Joseph Bacon, a negro boy 12 years of age, while alone with his little sister
and brother, aged 8 and 5 years respectively, deliberately killed both. The former he shot with a gun and the latter he dispatched with an axe, severing the head from the body. He then walked to this place, a distance of fifteen miles, and to his grandmother he retold how he accidentally killed his brother and sister with a gun, which went off before he knew it.
FEB. 2, 1890, THE QUINCY DAILY HERALD [contributed by: Debra Gibson - 2008]

A YOUTHFUL BUTCHER.
A Colored Boy of Twelve Murders His Little Sister and Brother.
LOUISIANA, Mo., Feb 2. - The most horrible butchery ever chronicled in Eastern Missouri occurred yesterday morning in the village of Eola, seven miles west of here. A colored family named Bacon, consisting of the father, mother and three children, live in Eola. Early yesterday morning the parents left home to be absent all day. The oldest boy, Joseph, aged twelve, was instructed to take good care of his brother and sister and not allow them to wander from the premises. About noon Joseph and his sister, aged eight years, quarreled, and the boy instantly took down his father's gun and shot his sister to death. The murderer then secured an axe, and returning to the house where his four-year-old brother was shrieking with fright, he deliberately cut off the little fellow's head. The boy dragged the bodies to the door and then walked in this city and told his story. He said they wouldn't behave and he tried to make them obey. The bodies were discovered by neighbors several hours after the tragedy. The boy is under arrest. [FEB. 4, 1890, THE QUINCY DAILY HERALD [contributed by: Debra Gibson - 2008]