A WHOLESALE MURDERER.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXII, Issue 2808, 26 July 1866, Page 5

A WHOLESALE MURDERER.

A series oi murders rivalling any chronicled in English criminal annals has been perpetrated in the »üburbs of Philadelphia. On a small farm, scarcely a mile from the densely populated portions of Philadelphia lived a gr»2ier named Christopher Deering, who raised cattle and sold them to the city butchers. Deering had a wife and five small children, the 'eldest 10 years of age, the youngest a babe at the mother's breast. A niece about 35 years of age also lived with him ; and the cattle and two or three horses owned by the head of the family were taken care of by an apprentice boy aged 17, and a German farm labourer who was a discharged soldier and had been employed on the farm for about two months. Being a dealer in cattle, Mr. Deering occasionally had large sums of money in his possession, and this is believed to have prompted the terrible crime. On Saturday, the 7th April, Mr. Deering was in the city with his niece and drove home in a onehoise wagon. His eldest boy at the same time went on a visit to a relative iv the city ; a visit which saved his life. After Saturday Mr. Deering was not seen alive. As he lived in a somewhat isolated section he was not visited very frequently, and it was not until late on the afternoon of the following Wednesday, the llth April, that any one had occasion to go to his house. This casual visitor found all the doors locked and could not effect an entrance, but hearing the horses and cattle making a great noise in a stable and barn near by, he went to see what was the matterthere. The poor animals, having had nothing to eat for five days, were famished, and in moving about the barn to procure them food and water the visitor saw a sight that thrilled him with horror. On the barn floor, partly covered with hay, were seven dead bodies. Almost paralysed with fright, he "managed to summon people from the neighbouring farms, and the terrible tragedy was disclosed. Deering's body was drawn out, the skull smashed by a heavy blow, and the throat cut from ear to ear ; his wife's was also drawn out, her skull smashed, and her throat cut. Then came the corpse of the niece, her skull also smashed and her throat cut. Then, in quick succession, the four little children were found, all with skulls broken and throats cut^ even the poor little babe, scarcely a year old, helpless and incapable of resistance, having suffered the fate that overwhelmed the others. The deed had been complete, and the family thus heaped together had apparently died together. The house had been ransacked from garret to cellar. The beds were ripped open, chests of drawers store in, and furniture broken. But who did this terrible deed? Suspicion naturally rested upon the apprentice boy and the German labourer. A-further search, however, disclosed the dead body of the boy, concealed under a haystack, about 100 yards from the house. His skull had been broken "by a hammer, which lay beside th« body, and his throat had also been cut. TBe unexampled atrocity of a man committing eight murders in cold blood, one after the other — killing four little, inoffensive children, smashing their heads and cutting their throats— was enough to make all who heard of it anxious to ferret out the murderer. The popular solution of his mode of operation was that, taking advantage of the absence of Mr: Deering and his niece, the German first killed the apprentice boy to get him out of the way. This was done outside the house, as all the murders were, for there was no blood in the house. He then decoyed the mother to the barn, and she naturally carried the babe with her, and he made away with both of them. To decoy the three other children to the barn and kill them was an easy task. This was done during the absence of Deering and his niece in the city. For a desperate man to make away with the drover when he reached home and went to put his horse in the stable was also easy. Deering's horse, when the murder was discovered, was tied to the manger; and the niece, missing all the others, naturally went to the barn where her uncle had last gone, and she was killed too. The murderer then went to the house, ransacked it, changed his clothes (for his bloody garments were found in an upper chamber), and escaped. This unparalleled atrocity having appalled everyone in' that section of the country, people answering to the description of the German were narrowly scanned. Search was made all over the city, and many persons were arrested, and among them the veritable German himself. He had never left town. He had walked about in open daylight for three days after the murder was discovered. His arrest was hailed with delight, add great masses of people clustered around the policestation, demanding that he be given them to hang. He was with difficulty taken before the mayor, and squads of armed police were required to guard the carriage in which he was conveyed from the assaults of the infuriated mob. The German told his story, and said the family were murdered as described above, but laid the chief part of the crime on an accomplice: The accomplice, he said, killed the family ; he, the apprentice boy ; and it had all been done with axes and a hammer. They plundered the house and got a few trinkets, some clothei, and several dollars in money. The German says he never saw his accomplice before the. murder.— Later intelligence states that the German, whose name was Anthony Probst, was tried, found guilty, and liad been executed. After his conviction he confessed that he was the sole perpetrator of the series of murders. He said that at the time he went to live with Mr. Deering, he contemplated robbing him, and found that he could not do so without killing him. securing 17 dollars and some articles, he put on the murdered man's clothing, washed, ate ■ome bread and butter, and went off, but not out of the neighbourhood, Probst went to America from Bremen in 1863. He was 24 years old. He twice enlisted in the Federal army and twice deserted.