AN AMERICAN GIRL HANGS HER LOVER.

Evening Post, Volume L, Issue 114, 9 November 1895, Page 1 (Supplement)

AN AMERICAN GIRL HANGS HER LOVER.

An extraordinary story is told in the latest Canadian papers to hand. it Ramirona, Texas, after a most rigid examination by the coroner, Miss Bessie Harris, the pretty daughter of a wealthy farmer, broke down, and confessed that she hanged Albert Blackman, a suitor of whom she was insanely jealous. Blackman's body was found hanging to a tree in a lonely spot a short distance from the town, and the general impressiou was that ho had committed suicide, but there wore several who did not accept this theory, and they suggested to the coroner that he should subject Miss Harris to a severe examination, as it was known that the dead man was last seen in her company. « She was put upon the stand, and requested to tell all she knew about the case. She said Blackman, who was a well-to-do young farmer, had been courting her for some time,. in opposition to the wishes of her parents. Her father and mother did not object to the young man on account of any of his habits, as he was industrious, sober, and abundantly able to provide a comfortable home for their daughter. They maintained that she was tooyoung, beingscarcely 18 years old, and they had hoped she would take a fancy to a relative living in another State, whose name she steadily refused to divulge. Finding that they could not change her affection for Blackman by threats, they adopted a more certain method, and began a systematic attack upon her jealous nature. They told her that Blackman was simply making her ridiculous, and that he was engaged to another girl. She gave him no chance to explain away the reports her parents had furnished of him, and did not even mention that she suspected him of infidelity. At her father's suggestion she requested Blackman to give her a test of his love by letting her hang him, promising to let him down in time to J save his life. Blackman was desperately in love with the girl, aud he readily submitted to the test. On the night of the murder she took a long walk with him, and lured him to a lonely spot, where her father was in hiding with a rope. Excusing herself for a moment, she procured the rope, and, returning, placed it about Blackman's neck. She says he had little fear of the result, as he felt she had not strength enough to pull him from the ground. After the rope had been placed over the limb and drawn together, the father appeared, and he and the girl pulled Blackman from the ground and tied the rope. The poor fellow struggled terribly, and she would haye cut him down, but her father men Honed the mythical other young woman, and her heart hardened towards her lover, who was slowly strangling to death. After the body became rigid she untied the rope and lowered the form to the ground. Even then she felt no pangs [oi remorse, but with the assistance of her father arranged the body and rope so that it would appear to have been a case of suicide. Her confession caused a pronounced sensation, and there was talk of lynching the parents. This was averted by the promptness of the officials, who immediately after her confession placed them under arrest and spirited them away. The girl haa also been arrested on a charge of murder.