Burned as a Witch.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 232, 5 October 1904, Page 4

Burned as a Witch.

INNOCENT WOMAN SATURATED WITH BLAZING PETROLEUM. PALERMO, Aug. 24. For some time past rumours have been current in the town of Terrasini Favarotta, near here, that a woman named Antonina Frontieri, married to a certain Vinconsco Lojacono, had the power of the evil eye. Her own brother, Bartolo, was prominent in circulating these reports. He was especially bitter because one of his children died some two months ago, and ignorance and superstition attributed the death to witchcraft. On Monday night these delusions culminated in the committal of a horrible crime. Shortly before midnight Bartolo Frontieri and lvis> wife' Lucrezia, profiting by the fact that the door of the Lojaconos' house was open on account of the suffocating heat, crept inside, entered the bedroom where the couple were asleep, and stabbed the husband to death.

Afterwards they took a can of i>etroleum, whicli they poured over the supposed witch, saturating her hair and nightclothes, and applied a light. The unfortunate womian was enveloped in flames and died in fearful agony. The assassins on the completion of their barbarous crime fled the country. The population of Terrasini are celebrating the murder with ferocious joy and refuse to give any information or assistance. Police sent out in large numbers to capture the fugitives have, in spite of all efforts, been unsuccessful in their Search.