Blackest Crime-1870

THOMAS, ROCKWELL, RAYMOND

Posted By: cheryl Locher moonen (email)
Date: 12/2/2021 at 18:49:08

Dubuque Daily Times Tuesday, Jan 04, 1870, Dubuque, Iowa, Page 1

Mr. Daniel Thomas is a respectable, enterprising farmer who resides in Hazelton Township, about ten miles north of Independence. For some time past he has had in his employ a young man, Emerson Raymond, by name, twenty years of age, who lived with Mr. Thomas, and was looked upon as one of the members of the family. A beautiful young girl, named Rockwell, about the same age, modest and intelligent, but deal and dumb from birth, is a member of the same family, in the capacity of help.

On Wednesday of last week Mr. Thomas and wife went out to a wedding in the neighborhood, leaving Raymond and the dumb and deaf girl alone in the house. What followed was related, by the latter some days after the occurrence, and with evident resistance induced the fear of the consequence with which Raymond had threatened her if she disclosed his crime.

Shortly after Mr. and Mrs. Thomas left, Miss Rockwell went upstairs to get a pan of flour, and was followed by Raymond. When there he seized her, threw her down upon the floor, exposed her person, and upon being stoutly resisted, in the frenzy of his brutal lust, jumped upon her with, his knees, bruising her limbs and body in a shocking manner. Being a poor weal girl, unable to scream, by reason of her infirmity she made all the resistance in her power, but was soon compelled by sheer physical exhaustion to succumb to his unholy desires, and the crowning act of human depravity was consummated.

Upon her return Mrs. Thomas discovered that something was wrong, but was unable to get from the girl any satisfactory explanation. The next day Miss Rockwell went to the residence of her brother-in-law (also a deaf mute) not far away and there to her sister related the tale of her cruel and outrageous wrong. The brother-in-law immediately wrote a letter to Mr. Thomas with the facts above stated. Raymond who in the meantime had remained in the neighborhood, but not at Mr. Thomas’s, discovering some indications that the secret was out, decamped. By means of an intercepted letter the officers ascertained that he was at the house of an acquaintance on Crane Creek, in Blackhawk County, about ten miles west of Fairbank, where he was arrested, brought to Independence and lodged in jail. It is to be fervently hoped that the wretch may be visited with the most stringent penalties of the law.