Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 October 1882 — A WILD WOMAN. [ARTICLE]

A WILD WOMAN.

A North Carolina Cannibal That Feeds on Babies. A Tale Like the Stories Told in the Great Forests of the Old Country. [Charlotte (N. C.) Telegram to Chicago Tribune.] For months past there have teen rumors of a terrible apparition, which has terrorized all the women and children in Clear Creek township. The women say that for two weeks they have been subjeet to terrifying visits in the absence of their husbands from a creature like a shiny, black negress, witli long hair and gleaming eyes. She asks in hardly distinguishable gibberish for a baby* to eat, and makes efforts to get hold of the children. The men, getting tired of the fears of their wives, determined to try and cat- li the ireature, and for the last week crowds of farmers have been daily and nigh .ly chasing her without success. The first effort to catch her was made a week ago by Jo.hn Roberts, a blacksmith. The wild creature had appeared several times at a fire which it was the habit of Carey Moore (colored) of the neighborhood to light after dark in the yard of his house for the preparation of his meals. Roberts w. s put to watch her, and she appeared even before the flames were well kindled. She presented such a wild look in the halflight. and asked for food in such wild fashion, that Roberts was demoralized. He recovered, however, made an outcry, and attempted to seize the woman, but she slipped through his hands, and disappeared in the dark shadows of the woods. Tuesday morning Maj. Stephen Cowell caught sight of the creature, and chased her across an open field. He was badly hurt in his efforts to keep up with her, and reported that she outran a buck, and cleared four corn-rows at a leap. That same night she was again enticed from the woods by the kndling of a fire, and was chased by thirty men without succesa Capt. • Marsh Allen, later in the day, met her in the neighborhood with her face tom and bleeding, and a long bloody knife in her hand The creature was naked and so unearthly and terrible-looking to him that he says he is not sure it is a human being. Her hair reached almost to her feet, and was kinky like that of the African. It is not mere fright which has caused the country- people to organize in their attempts to catch the creature, which has been living in the forest and swamp fastnesses for a y6ar or more. Some months aim it is reported an infant was spiritwl away from its parents’ yard while they were in the corn-field, and was never heard from, and the disappearance was from that section of the country in which the wild woman has been seen, and mothers, white and black, are in terror for fear their little ones may also become food for the cannibal negress. Yesterday the farmers, some mounted and others on foot, assembled for the purpose of -surrounding a swamp in which the creature is known to be hid There are 400 men ready for the chase. At first it was attempted to run her down with bloodhounds, hut they refused to chase her, which deepened the superstitious feeling with which the men as well as the women of the community began to regard her. The men made the attempt to catch her, but without success. The excitement among the negroes and simple county folk is intense.