A Remarkable Lynching Scene in West Virginia

Charley Muling, as his neighbors used to call him, was an inoffensive, honest farmer of Barboursville, about 30 years of age, married to a rather attractive woman of about the same age, the father of three children, the oldest a boy of seven. Edmund Williams, a young man of 24, had been working for him and living in the family for some time. On Thursday of last week Muling was first missed by his father, who lived near by, and, after a thorough search, his body was discovered buried in a stable, under the manure, the head crushed in with three blows of an axe, and the throat cut. His wife and hired man, when brought before the corpse, showed little emotion, declared their innocence of the crime, and said they had been told by Muling that he was going to make a trip down the river, and so had not wondered at his absence. There was no evidence to positively connect them with the murder, and the children at first protested that they knew nothing about it. The oldest boy, however, after being taken to a neighbor's and petted till his confidence had been gained, finally admitted that his first statement was not true, and that he had seen Williams knock his father down with an axe, and then his mother helped to carry the body out and bury it. The man and woman were at once arrested, but hardly had they been lodged in jail before there was talk of administering summary punishment.

By night-fall, Saturday, the threats of lynching had grown so bold that a Methodist minister by the name of Young went to the jail, told the murderers he feared they would be hung by the mob before morning, begged that they would allow him to pray for them, and implored them to confess and repent. But it was of no avail; the woman simply protested her innocence, while the man ridiculed him.

Meanwhile there had been ominous sounds of the gathering of men outside, and the minister had hardly given over his hopeless mission before a voice cried out from the darkness, "Shall Edmund Williams die in thirty minutes?" followed by a thundering "aye," while only a faint "no" followed the inquiry, "Does any one object?" Again the voice cried out, "Shall Mrs. Muling die in thirty minutes?" and again came the loud "aye" from a hundred voices, mingled this time with a few "noes," though only enough to show their weakness.

Thoroughly terrified at last, the guilty pair now shrieked for Mr. Young, and, upon his returning to Williams's cell, the latter said that, if he were taken into Mrs. Muling's cell, he would confess all — it was done, and he kept his promise. Then the minister and the murderers knelt, while he tried to pray for the wretches. But his voice was drowned by the mob outside, whose fury had grown so terrible that their leader, appalled at the storm he had aroused, resigned his post and insisted that another man should be made captain. The minister, leaving the prisoners, made one last desperate attempt to save them, and for a full hour held the mob at bay while he alternately reasoned, pleaded and prayed that they would allow the law to take its course.

But he might as well have reasoned with a hurricane, and at last the lynchers refused to hear him longer, pushed him aside and dragged Williams from his cell, around in front of the court house, where stand two small locust trees. He was placed upon a barrel beneath one of them, a rope put about his neck and the end thrown over a limb, and then he was asked if he had anything to say. He repeated at more length the story he had already told the minister, how there had been criminal relations between him and Mrs. Muling for three years, how for several months they had been trying to kill her husband, how she had three times administered poison, but without effect, how, at last, despairing of success in any other way, he had on the previous Sunday night struck Muling with an axe as he lay asleep, and twice repeated the blow, after which he had cut his throat, how Mrs. Muling then helped him carry the body out and bury it, and how the little children had been witnesses to the whole tragedy, all told with a horrible minuteness of detail that showed how he clung to life when he could only prolong it by reciting the awful story.

At last his confession was over, and the mob cried again for his blood. But once more the indomitable minister appeared and insisted that he should be allowed to offer another prayer for the wretched man, which he did at great length. Then Williams sought a few minutes more of life by begging for further opportunity to confess, which being granted, he went over the horrible story again. Even then the minister demanded still another opportunity to pray, and so held the mob at bay a while longer, during which time two of Williams's brothers had organized an opposition party, which cried for the cutting of the rope, and threatened to rescue the murderer. The leaders became desperate, cried, "Out with the lamps!" (a few scattered lanterns), the rope was drawn, and the barrel knocked from under the wretched man. But the end was not yet. The limb bent, and Williams stood upon the ground. He was seized, lifted back, and the rope drawn again. While it was being adjusted the second time, he cried out that he had been converted and should die happy, and his last words were, "Meet me in Heaven." His neck was not broken by the fall, and the mob waited in the dark night and pitiless rain for the last of his long-continued and desperate struggles.

Then they went back to the jail, and prepared to deal out the same punishment to Mrs. Muling, no opposition being manifested. She was brought out, the lanterns again lighted, and she was placed before the corpse of her paramour and told that she had but twenty minutes to live. She showed great emotion, turned slowly to the crowd, made her confession, said she was ready to die, and, kneeling, began to pray. It was a weird spectacle, this woman, guilty of her husband's murder, kneeling there at midnight before the dead body of her accomplice in that murder, and praying, not for her life, but for her soul. And an impressive spectacle, too, for, before she was through, one-half the mob were on their knees, and when she arose an almost unanimous "no" greeted the leader's question, "Shall she die?" She was taken back to the jail, and the crowd, who had made no attempt at concealment through the whole performance, dispersed to their homes.

These horribly-fascinating details are drawn from the letter of a special local correspondent of the Springfield Republican, who was an eye witness of the remarkable scene. There is no evidence that the courts would not have dealt faithfully with the prisoners. The motives of the populace seemed rather impatience of the slow order of law, and a hungry, human thirst for vengeance.