A HORRIBLE STORY.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2465, 28 April 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

A HORRIBLE STORY.

A MOST horrible story comes from the west, of the niifldeeds of a family named Kelly, in nu. obscure locality on a public road in the southern part of Kansas. The family consisted of father and mother, an adult son and daughter, four in all, and they were supposed to be quiet inoffensive people. Their house was a simple affair, several miles from any other, and as it was on a thoroughfare it was often resorted to by belated travellers, who sought lodgincs for the njgbt. Several persons travelling that way mysteriously disappeared, and some of them were traced

to the Kelly's house. A traveller who had stopped there two or three times, happened to μo there oue day and found the housu deserted. It \vh 3 thought they had gone south in searu h of a hette location, and not lung w-ne thought of their absence. A week or eo later throe mon stopped thpve, nnd rittci)tjojj ni drawn to a siekeuing smell from the cellar. On descending they saw the bodies of three persons and the indications were that they had come to their death by violence. Then u larger search party went there and under the stable which was near the house they found the bodies of four other persons, one of them it women, in various stages of dep.ay. Then i\\ fclje vjpinity qf tl)e xtab.lo other bqdifia wprc foj}n.,d un(,jl t||e whole number, the throe under the house, amounted to eleven. The evidences were that the travellers were knocked on tl|ehcii4 while sitting |n convcr.satiqij iyith j;])e fuinily, or partaking of supper. Travellers who had stopped there and gqne qn without molestation then remembered that they had thought tho Kellys were rather inquisitive, their questions being designed to elicit the fact whether the wayfarers had any considerable amounts of money about them. It ia surmised that they sounded their victims to ascertain if it was worth tho trouble and risk to commit murder, and when the question had been decided in the afiirmative they evidently went at it very deliberately, the whole family taking a hand in tho affair,

It was ascertained that the Ko'lys had fled to the southward, :ind a party of citizens went cm their trail. In two or three days they came up to where the murderers had camped; the camp was surrounded, and a surrender demanded, but the demand was resisted. Iα the h'g-ht that followed the mother and daughter were killed, and the son was strung np to the nearest tree. The old man caonped in the darkness, but he wa< folluwed and caught the next day, when ho met the fate of his son.