KU KLUX KLAN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18759, 12 January 1923, Page 5

KU KLUX KLAN

THE BASTROP TRIALS. GIRL”S EVIDENCE OF DEPORTATION. Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright NEW YORK, January 10. (Received Jan. 11, at 7.20 p.m.) According to a telegram from Bastrop (Louisiana) a girl aged 17 who was a witness in the investigation of the Ku Klux Klan murders testified that a band of masked men a year ago abducted her from her home in the night, despite her kneeling mother’s entreaties, and deported her from the community, alleging that she was leading an immoral life. The girl positively identified Dr M'Kain as a member of the abducting party, which threatened to tar and feather her and her mother if she returned. Since her secret return recently, the girl said, sha had lived in hiding, in abject terror of discovery by the Klan. —A. and N.Z. Cable. [At Merrouge (Louisiana) the bodies of Watt Daniels and Thomas Richards, two men who were believed to have been kidnapped, were found at the bottom of a lake. Pieces were fastened to their feet, indicating that the bodies were weighted. The discovery of the bodies was made under amazingly sensational circumstances. Convinced that tho .bodies lay at the bottom of Lake Lafourche, detachments of troops and divers oncomped at night preparatory to dragging tho lake. During tho night they were startled by a terrific explosion. Simultaneously other troops 20 miles .way at the other end of the lake saw mysterious flares on the water, revealing a number of hooded men wading in a swamp. The troops opened fire, whereon tho men vanished. The next morning tho two decomposed bodies were found floating. The theory is that the mur-

derers, fearful of the discovery of their victims, shot tho flares in order to attract the soldiers’ attention, and then exploded dynamite in the hope of buryin.- the bodies in tlio mud. With troops pouring into the neighbourhood the inhabitants became paniostneken by their fear of the Ku Klux Klan. Mr J. L. Daniels, father of one of (he dead men, was so terrified that he refused to identify his son’s body. While the residents were inflamed against the Ku Klux Klan, they wore afraid to aid tho troops on account of the throats that their closest friends might be Klansmen. Dr B. M'Kain, a former Mayor of Merrouge, was arrested on a murder charge upon the order? of Governor Parker, of Louisiana. Dr M Kain declined to answer questions in regard to Ins membership of the Ku Klux Klan, out related decoy calls mads by tho Ku Klux rvian on benalt of negro patients on mo outskirts of a town. He protested his entire ignorance in connection with tho murders.]