QUADRUPLE MURDERS.

Waikato Times, Volume 110, Issue 18408, 15 August 1931, Page 7

QUADRUPLE MURDERS.

SLAYERS CONFESS.

WHITE MAN AND NEGRO. AN INFURIATED CROWD. United Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Copyright. NEW YORK, August 13. An enraged mob of 2000 persons stormed the City Hall in Ypsilanti, Michigan, which serves as the prison and threatened to lynch Thomas Blackstone, a giant negro, and Fred Smith, a white man, who had confessed to the murder of two boys and two girls in a motor-car on the Ann Arbor Road two nights ago. Troops were called out, and aided the police to hold the mob in check. Blackstone, Smith and Oliver Torch pleaded guilty at a special evening session of the Court, and were sentenced to Imprisonment for life, as there Is no capital punishment In Michigan. Smith is an old convict, and the finding of his revolver led to the discovery of the Identity of the murderers, who got only eight shillings from their four young victims. At Ann Arbor, 36 miles west of Detroit, where_the University of Michigan is situated, four motorists, all of whom were under 20 years of age, were murdered and their bodies placed under the rear seat of the car, which was burned. All were shot dead and the bodies tossed into the car, which was set on fire, in order to remove all traces of the outrage.