CURIOUS MURDER.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 215, 11 April 1873, Page 6

CURIOUS MURDER.

A singular murder is reported to have been committed at. Dover (Delaware), in the Uniied States. Profes • sor West, of that to\vh, has 1 been some time experimenting with a new and peculiar kind of gas, which he be- i lieved would cure consuiiiption. Oji I the sth November a dreadful explosion i occurred in-.his laboratory, and when i the smoke, clearedsoff, the remains of i Professor West, as, it' was supposed.] were found on the floor, the head, fe"t. ] ■ud .hands--being missing; and the skin I entirely gone from the body. -Shreds ■>f clothing were also found on the disdgured. trunk,, which the "professor's vife identified- as.belonging to her unfortunate husband. .-An examination )f the remains indicated, ho vever, : that ; the head, feet, and hands had been cut .off from the body by a sharp instrument, and that the skin had been peeled from every portion of it; This excited suspicion,,\yhich was increased Iby the fact coming to light (hat the !.professor's life had recently been --'in-, i sured for 25,000 dollars, and lhat a colored man whom he <had hired a few days before.the explosion was also missing. The citizens at once jumped lo tlie conclusion that the colored man had killed the professor, and resolutely determined to catch him. Instead, however, of catching the colored man, they caught thq professor, who, it seems had himself killed, the colored man, cut him to bits, skinned him, dressed .him in his own clothes,< and then blown him up. -His explanation of the affair is that the colored man attempted to rob him, and that he (the. professbr)' merely acted in. self-defence.* Oil being askexl why he thought it necessary to mutilate and blow up the body of of the deceased, and then abscond, the professor 'relied" You never had a dead nigger on your hands, and do not know what you would-have done under the circumstances.'' This argument certainly appears unanswerable, aiid one theory in circulation is that the professor was simply testing his gas on his servant, and lost his nerve ! when, ho witnessed the unfavorable re- 1 suit oi* his experiment. • I