Daily Gazette & Comet [Baton Rouge, LA], October 6, 1860
It was a fit night, was that of Tuesday last, for a merciless deed. It was black and dark enough for any action—it rained and the wind howled pitiously, without a single flash from heaven, to give a ray of hope to the traveler. The earth seemed given to the furies, and terror filled the weak house of man; his frail tenements were blown down and his trees torn up. A fit time this, for that terrible offence, against the laws of God, and man, which some human being with the heart of a foul fiend, perpetrated on the road. In the vicinity of the plantation of J. A. and W. D. Stokes, about nine miles east of this, was found, on the morning after that terrible night a new born babe, as God in his mercy had spoken it into existence. It had been stifled by the monster’s hand that took it there, to prevent its cries (a needless cruelty, since the storm fiend howled above its feeble voice) and there in its innocence and purity, was it murdered—apparently by being dashed against a tree—and thrown in the underbrush. A jury of inquest was held, but no clue had to the author of this—the most hellish crime in the calendar. The people came from far and near and raised their hands in horror; still the mystery is veiled by the darkness of that night. The impression is, that the child was taken to the place where the murder was perpetrated, from a distance. It may be, yet we care not how far it came, or how long, or how far on the road of life, the parties concerned may travel; they will hear the cries of the innocent and be haunted by the terrors of that night to the end. It is just and proper that they should be. Do they suppose that murder will conceal the truth? If so, it will be the first time, in the history of the depraved and guilty human heart. The shame of the action may be borne; because merely a violation of the ordinances of society, but the crime which has followed it, bears the blood stains of a most heartless and cruel murder—there is no water in the ocean to wash it out.