Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 January 1885 — The RoseLawn Homieide. [ARTICLE]

The RoseLawn Homieide.

This paper, a few weeks since, mentioned the fact that Dr. Wash-1 burn had been called to Rose! Lawn to attend the case of the Negrobarber, who had been knock-' ed down and very badly injured.! with a club in the hands 6f one j Leroy Bates. The following from j the Kentland Gazette, of the last j issue, gives the sequel of the! knock-down: Some two or three weeks ago the Gazette reierred to a scrimmage between a white man and a negro at Rose Lawn. We were then without full facts. Now we learn that one Leroy Bates, of Rose Lawn, got into a fight with a negro barber at that place on December 11th. In the melee, it is alleged that Bates struck the negro on the head with a club dropping him like a beef. Bates was arrested, taken before Esquire Smith and plead guilty to assault and was fined therefor. The negro seems to have so far improved as to be shipped to his home at Thorntown, Boone county, shortly after the occurrence, where he died from his injuries inside of twenty-four hours after arriving at Thorntown. The papers there published the death and on hearing of the death of his victim, Bates skipped' for other parts. An effort is being made now to rearrest Bates, which will probably follow as soon as the necessary legal minutia can be gone through with, as his whereabouts is known.

We may add to and qualify the above account by stating that we have the authority of a well known and responsible man,- living near Rose Laivn, and well acquainted with Bates, for saying that he did not .leave the country to avoid trial, but rather, as he is dependent upon his daily labor for the support of his family, to avoid the necessity of laying in jail at Kentland until the next term of the Newton Circuit Court, It is positively assented that he will be on hand, if wanted, when court meets. We may aISB add that the general feeling of those most conversant with the facts oj the fight, which has had such a serious' ending, is that Bates had no intention of inflicting more than a deserved and unavoidable punishment, upon a quarrelsome and dangerous man; and that he most bitterly regrets the fatal results of his rash act.