EIGHT CHILDREN MURDERED.

Evening Post, Volume XVI, Issue 296, 14 December 1878, Page 1 (Supplement)

EIGHT CHILDREN MURDERED.

A despatch received at Cincinnati, from Texas, states that the eight children of George Lynch — the eldest 17 years of age —living at Hockley, Texas, were murdered by an unknown person. Lynch, the father, was awakened by a pistol-shot, the ball striking him in the breast. He sprang up and saw a masked man standing in the middle of the room, pointing a pistol at him ; another shot was fired, and Lynch fell unconscious. When he recovered he found himself in the lane outside of the premises. The assassin, thinking Lynch was dead, seized a hatchet and proceeded to put the wituesses of his horrible crime out of the way, after which he set fire to the house. " The distracted father regained consciousness only to see his house burn and fall in on the bodies of his murdered children. The bodies were afterwards exhumed, and an inquest held. Several of the skulls showed hatchetmarks. Lynch, it is thought, will recover. Suspicion rests on a young man named Boatware, with whom Lynch had had a quarrel.