Atrocious Murder in lllinois.

Cromwell Argus, Volume II, Issue 97, 19 September 1871, Page 6

Atrocious Murder in lllinois.

A correspondent of an American paper, writing from Springfield, Illinois, on the sth July, furnishes the following particulars of an occurrence which he truly describes as “ the most horrible murder of the age.” The tragedy occurred at Gilman, in the same State :

A man of the name of Martin Mera, about three w r oeks ago beat his son, aged ten years, in a terrible manner, so much so that it was impossible for the little fellow to get out of bed when called by his father the next morning. This seemed to exasperate the brutal fellow, and taking a red-hot poker, lie thrust j it into the hoy’s side, and, not satisfied with this, took the boy up from bed, and putting him on the red-hot stove, hold him there until the little fellow was burnt horribly. He then took him into a room where the mother lay, having just been confined, and beat him over the head with the butt-end of a whip until death came to the relief of the sufferer. The brutal wretch threw the lifeless body under the bed on which his wife was lying, and told her if she breathed a word of the affair he would kill her. That night he wrapped the body of the boy in a sheet and buried it near a hedge in his garden. The i next morning he went to Gilman and advori tised the boy as a runaway, offering a reward for information of Ms whereabouts. On

Saturday last, suspicion having been aroused by some words let fail by the hoy’s sister, the mother and. two daughters were taken in charge, and the man arrested. After the mother found her brute of a husband was under arrest, she told the whole dreadful story of the murder. The body of the boy was found, and the terrible reality and atrocity of the murder fully demonstrated. Of course tire excitement was intense, and it required all the nerve and skill of the officers in charge of the prisoner to prevent him being lynched. The man lives on a small farm between Gilman and Onarga, and has always had the reputation of being a brutal fellow. TUE LYNCHING. Watseka, Ills., July sth. —Martin Mcra, aged 44 years, a resident of Douglas Township, Iroquois county, was taken from the ! jail at Watseka, to-night, and hung on a | iiuekbcrry tree, just west of Sugar Creek, a - mile and a half north-west of Watseka, by a mob of 250 men, with men, women, and children following—amounting in the aggregate to 1000 persons. Mcra was charged with burning his son, a lad of 11 years, on the stove, till the skin came off his feet and body, and then whipping him to death and burying him in bis garden. The foreman of the mob was a fellow called Doctor Daniels —it is believed of Gilman. They gave him twenty minutes to say bis prayers in, and then this doctor put a rope on his neck, had men to pull it through the crotch of a leaning tree, and he held fast to the end, drove the waggon lie was in out from under him, and choked him to death. The doctor said they would hang him because he was only guilty of manslaughter and could not be hung by the law, but deserved it, .and they would give it to him. Mora renounced Freemasonry and re-adopted Catholicism. The doctor shot two halls through him after ho was dead.