Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 March 1878 — A Murderer’s Confession. [ARTICLE]

A Murderer’s Confession.

A man in the northern part of the province of Rio Janeiro has confessed upon his deathbed that he was the real author of the murder of a family of eight persons in 1852, for which a wealthy planter, by name Motta Coqueiro, and three of his slaves were executed in 1856. The house in which the victims lived was set on fire after the crime had been committed. Suspicion having fixed itself on Metta Coqueiro, he and three of his slaves were brought to trial. The evidence was weak, but so strong was the feeling against the planter that the jury found him guilty, and the Court c f Relation at Rio confirmed the sentence of death. He and his friends strenuously asserted his innocence, and, when it was found hopeless to obtain bis acquittal, every possible effort was made to induce the femperor to grant him a pardon. It is even said that sums amounting to $250,000 were promised to persons around the Empress to induce them to t nlist her sympathies on behalf of the condemned man, and thus, by means of her intercession with the Emperor, to attain the object in view. All, however, was in vain. The Emperor was firm; the Empress declined to interfere; the Government sent a vessel of war to Macahe to prevent any attempt at rescue, and Motta Coqueiro and his three slaves were executed for a crime which it now turns out they never committed. The man who lately died acknowledged that he, assisted by some of his dependents, deliberately murdered all the .inmates of the house, which they afterward burned. The doubts which arose as to the justice of Motta Coqueiro’s fate and of those who suffered with him, alteir their execution, are supposed to have raised an uneasy feeling in the Emperor’s mind, and he has since, it is stated, shown a great disinclination to allow sentences of death to be carried into effect.