This week (April 6-12) in crime history – Sam Sheppard
died (April 6, 1970); Oscar Wilde was arrested (April 6, 1895); Rwandan
genocide began (April 7, 1994); Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph pleaded guilty
(April 8, 2005); Billy the Kid was convicted of murder (April 9, 1881); Chicago
8 pleaded not guilty (April 9, 1969); Delphine LaLaurie’s torture chamber
discovered (April 10, 1834); Emiliano Zapata was assassinated (April 10, 1919);
Galileo was convicted of heresy (April 12, 1633).
Highlighted Crime
Story of the Week -
On April 10, 1834, a fire at the LaLaurie mansion in New
Orleans, Louisiana, led to the discovery of a torture chamber where slaves are
routinely brutalized by Delphine LaLaurie. Rescuers found a 70-year-old black
woman trapped in the kitchen during the fire because she was chained up while Madame
LaLaurie was busy saving her furniture. The woman later revealed that she had
set the fire in an attempt to escape LaLaurie’s torture. She led authorities up
to the attic, where seven slaves were tied with spiked iron collars.
After Delphine LaLaurie married her third husband, Louis
LaLaurie, and moved into his estate on Royal Street, she immediately took
control of the large number of slaves used as servants. LaLaurie was a
well-known sadist, but the mistreatment of slaves by the wealthy and socially
connected was not a matter for the police at the time. However, in 1833,
Delphine chased a small slave girl with a whip until the girl fell off the roof
of the house and died. LaLaurie tried to cover up the incident, but police found
the body hidden in a well. Authorities decided to fine LaLaurie and force the
sale of the other slaves on the estate. LaLaurie foiled this plan by secretly
arranging for her relatives and friends to buy the slaves. She then snuck them
back into the mansion, where she continued to torture them until the night of
the fire in April 1834.
Apparently her Southern neighbors had some standards when
it came to the treatment of slaves, because a mob gathered in protest after
learning about LaLaurie’s torture chamber. She and her husband fled by boat,
leaving the butler (who had also participated in the torture) to face the wrath
of the crowd. Although charges were never filed against LaLaurie, her
reputation in upper-class society was destroyed. It is believed that she died
in Paris in December 1842. Recently, actress Kathy Bates appeared as Madame
LaLaurie in FX’s American Horror Story:
Coven.
Check back every
Monday for a new installment of “This Week in Crime History.”
Michael Thomas Barry is the author of six nonfiction
books that includes Murder and Mayhem 52 Crimes that Shocked Early California,
1849-1949. Visit Michael’s website www.michaelthomasbarry.com
for more information. His book can be purchased from Amazon through the
following link:
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