Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 June 1876 — A Priest Buried Alive—A Horrible Story. [ARTICLE]

A Priest Buried Alive—A Horrible Story.

One Segondo, a gardener, has confessed to having murdered M. Blanque, the provost of a religious college at Prandes, France, his object in perpetrating this crime being to obtain from the successor of the murdered man the sum of fifty francs, which he says he had intrusted to M. Blanque. He relates that he committed the crime in the following manner: On April 6, about seven o’clock in the morning, he led M. Blanque into the garden under the pretext of pointing out some repairs, and on reaching the door of a cellar seized a gun which he had concealed three days before and fired at tlie old man. As M. Blanque fell his head struck against the corner of the wall, and he cried out, looking intently at hiamurderer, “Ah, Seeondo! poor Segondo!” The victim was not dead, but the Spaniard took out his pocket handkerchief, wound it round the neck of M. Blanque, and drew it so tight that the unfortunate man was unable to cry out for assistance. He then dragged him down the steps of the cellar, and left him there while he went to fetch a spade and pickax wherewith to dig the grave. The provost, wounded and gagged, could neither defend himself nor call for help, and was obliged to look on in silence while the hole was being made. Tears ran down the poor man’s eyes, he. crossed his hands over his chest, and muttered a hoarse prayer. When a sufficient depth had been reached, Segondo seized the body of the priest in his arms and cast him into the sandy hollow. M. Blanque fell into the pit head-foremost, and still living. He struggled hard to rise, and this gave the murderer considerable trouble, so that, in order to effect his purpose, he was obliged to hit his victim on the head with the spade. The blow was so violent that the iron made a wound cutting through tlie eye and opening the skull. Segondo then threw a quantity of earth over the feet and chest of the provost, whose arm made one last desperate attempt to clear away the soil and raise the body; but the gardener kicked it down and shoveled about two feet of sand into the grave. He then stamped upon it, and, after watching the spot for about a quarter of an hour, went back into J the college kitchen, where he breakfasted heartily. The ruffian was taken into the college on account of his being a Carlist refugee, destitute of all means of earning his livelihood.— N. Y. Mercury.