Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 April 1892 — LYNCH LAW IN OHIO. [ARTICLE]

LYNCH LAW IN OHIO.

Joseph Lyttle Taken from the JhU at Flmllay and Executed hy a Mob.

Joseph Lyttle was taken from the jail at Findlay, Ohio, by an angry mob and lynched. Lyttle evidently anticipated death, for Ir> loft a note asking that his body bo turned over to his brother, with tho request that he be buried beside his mother. As the mob entered the jail Lyttle called their attention to the cell he was occupying as tho one they were looking for. It took thirty minutes to batter down the cell door, when the doomed man was dragged out and thence to the Mu in street bridge. After the first attempt was made to hang Lyttle he was dragged by the. neck through tho street to the fatal telegraph pole, and shots from two score revolvers were fired into the lifeless body. The mob is said to have been composed of the best citizens, but was poorly organized and lacking a leader. The crime for which Lyttle was lynched was a most brutal one. Lyttle was an old soldier whose wife obtained a divorce, from him some time ago on the ground of cruel'y. He went to the Soldiers’ Home at Layton, but returned Sunday night and tri d to get his wdfe to live with him again, and she permitted him to stay at the house a few dayß. His grown daughters were bitterly opposed to this move, and this Lyttle resented and threatened to kill the girls if his plans were interfered with. Tuesday night, after a wrangle of this character, the old man went upstairs to b ‘d, but got up about 6 o’clock the following morning and, go ng to the kitchen, got a hatchet and attacked his daughter Dellia as she came into the room, splitting her skull and mutilating her head horribly. Tlhe eldest daughter, Emma, came to her ai6ter’s rescue and met the same fate, baing frightfully injured, but is yet alive. The mother, hearing the affray, came into the room. Lyttle began cutting hep he£d with h s hatchet, inflicting six ghastly wounds, which will prove fatal, although the woman j$ yet alive. Lyttle has served one term to the penitentiary for inhumanly treating a oh.i'd. Hia whole life

has been one long story of cruelty te his family and all with whom he came in contact. Mrs. Eyttle and her youngest daughter cannot possibly live until morning, but Emma, the eldest daughter, will possibly survive her fearful injuries. Lyttle confessed that he came home from the Soldiers’ Home on purpose to kill his daughters.