Norfolk Virginian, March 12, 1889

AN ATROCIOUS CRIME.

African-Americans -- Racial violence

A White Woman near Tasley, Va., Outraged by a Negro.

[Special to The Virginian.]

ONANCOCK, Va., (via Tasley, Va.), March 11. -- Magruder Fletcher, a negro, committed an outrage upon the person of Mrs. Obediah McCready, a respectable white woman residing in Messongo Neck, this county, on the night of March 10th.

Fletcher has been arrested and is now in the county jail. Mrs. McCready was awakened Sunday night at midnight by a noise in her room. She found Fletcher standing before her with a pistol in his hand. He told her if she made any outcry he would kill her.

He outraged her four times, after which he left. Mrs. McCready, immediately upon his departure, notified her neighbors, and a posse started in pursuit of him with the purpose of lynching him; in the meantime the authorities were informed of the affair, and a bench warrant was issued for the negro's arrest.

The officer who went in pursuit arrested him at his residence. They were then met by the lynching party who demanded he release the prisoner. The officers refused and made a dash for the woods, carrying the prisoner with them, and thus eluded the lynchers.

He was carried before a magistrate and send to jail under a strong guard, where he now is. It is probable that he will be lynched tonight. The community is greatly excited over the dastardly crime. Mrs. McCready's husband was away at the time, being on the Western Shore engaged in the oyster business.

PARKE.