Mrs. Minnie Walkup.

The beautiful Minnie Wallace Walkup, married at 16, widowed a month later, may have gotten away with murder...three times.

Read her story here: Vamp of New Orleans.

Picture from National Police Gazette, November 14, 1885.

Killed in a Saloon.

(From Augusta Chronical, January 2, 1888)

Killed in a Saloon.
 Political Factions Meet in New Orleans and a Fatal Fight Results.

New Orleans, LA, Jan. 1 – Soon after one o’clock this morning a shooting affray took place in Johnson’s saloon, 21 Charles street, in which city administrators, Patrice Mealey, was mortally wounded, Mike Walsh dangerously, and Daniel Markey painfully. The last named received a shot in the mouth. All were taken to Charity Hospital, where Commissioner Mealey died at 2:10 o’clock this afternoon. Walsh remains in a comatose condition. It appears that Commissioner Mealey and a party of political friends, supporters of Nicholl’s, went late to the saloon for the purpose of getting drinks. While they were there half a dozen McEnery men, including Special Officers Louis Clare and John Gibson, came in. As to the origin of the trouble statements conflict materially, there being so many persons present. Each aide, however, charges the other with being the aggressors. Be that as it may, there was shouting for Nicholls and for McEnery. Mealy and Clare met together, and then the shooting began.

Twelve or fifteen shots were fired, showing that several weapons must have been used. All accounts agree in one particular, that Louis Clare and John Gibson began the shooting. Mealy declared that he had been shot by Clare. Both Clare and Gibson have been locked up and charges of murder will be made against them.

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"Killed in a Saloon." Augusta Chronical January 2, 1888.

Queen of the Demimonde.



Kate Townsend

In the years following the Civil War, Basin Street in New Orleans was the center of the most notorious red-light district in America, and the house at No. 40 Basin Street, run by Miss Kate Townsend, was the most elegant brothel in the country. When she was fatally stabbed in her bedroom in 1883, Kate Townsend’s death was mourned by sporting men from coast to coast, but, in accordance with Miss Kate’s wishes, no man was allowed to attend her funeral.

Guest Blogger: ExecutedToday

ExecutedToday.com  has been posting an execution story every day since Halloween 2007 so it’s not surprising when they come up with a murder not covered by Murder by Gaslight. Here is the story of the Blanc brothers, driven to murder by reading sensational books.

1897: Ernest and Alexis Blanc, brothers in blood

Originally posted April 2nd, 2013  by Headsman

         

On this date in 1897, some 4,000 residents of Lafayette turned up to watch the hanging of two Parisian-born young men.

It had been nearly a full year since Martin Begnaud was discovered bound, gagged, and stabbed over 50 times in his general store at Scott, Louisiana, just outside Lafayette. That was on April 22, 1896. The motive was self-evident: the prosperous late burgher had been plundered of several thousand dollars. But who did it?

The matter remained a mystery for many months, although two men were indicted for the deed — and blessedly never brought to trial.

But a few days after the murders, brothers Ernest and Alexis Blanc, teenage French orphans who were sharecropping on a plantation in April 1896 also abruptly disappeared without even bothering to sell their crop shares. This naturally raised suspicion as well, but their whereabouts were totally unknown and as months passed any hope of finding them had practically vanished.