Good evening everybody, I hope you enjoyed your Christmas and new year :) sorry it's taken me a bit longer to get back to my blog than intended but I'm back with the truly horrific tale of Delphine LaLaurie!
Delphine LaLaurie
So as always I will start at the beginning.
Delphine was born in New Orleans, in Spanish Louisiana on March 19th 1787, she was 1 of 5 children and her mother and father were prominent in the towns European creole community. Her mother was known as the widow Le Conte as her marriage to Delphine's father was not her first, they were a well off family and her uncle by marriage Esteban Rodriguez Miro was governor of the Spanish American provinces of Louisiana, she also had a cousin who was mayor of New Orleans so Delphine always had friends in high places growing up. When Delphine was 4 the Haitian revolution of slaves erupted which made slave holders in the southern united states very afraid of rebellion among their own slaves, this came to a head when one of Delphine's uncles was killed by his slaves seeking freedom. Sadly this revolution led slave holders to discipline their own slaves even harsher than before.
In 1800 Delphine married Don Ramon De Lopez a high ranking royal Spanish officer at St Louis cathedral, they lived happily for 4 years until Don was appointed to the position of consul general for Spain in the territory of New Orleans. At this time Delphine was pregnant with her first child but travelled with her husband Don as he fulfilled his job obligations unfortunately Don died suddenly in Havana a few weeks later and just a few days after Dons death Delphine gave birth to their daughter Marie Borja Delphine Lopez Y Angulo de la Candelaria (wow they had some long names back then!) her daughter was nicknamed Borquita and Delphine now widowed travelled back to New Orleans.
In 1808 Delphine married again, Jean Blanque was a prominent banker, lawyer merchant and legislator, he promptly purchased a house for his new family which was named Ville Blanque, they had 4 children together and were by all accounts very happy but Blanque died in 1825 leaving Delphine a widower yet again. Delphines last marriage was to a physician called Leonard louis Nicolas, Delphine was much older than Leonard and brought them an estate on Royal Street which she managed in her own name, her husband had very little involvement in this, she had a 2 storey mansion built to her specifications which included ample slave quarters out back.
Delphine's mansion on Royal street
Delphine lived at her newly built mansion with her husband and 2 of her daughters, her marriage to the much younger Leonard became strained and Delphine petitioned the judicial district court for a separation from bed and board of her husband, LaLaurie claimed he had treated her in such a manor as to render their living together unsupportable, this order was granted and what had happened between them is unknown but the order did not last long, Leonard was back at the mansion by 1834
Meanwhile accounts had started to surface from the mansion about Delphines treatment of her slaves, and in 1838 Harriet Martineau a British social theorist and whig writer, recounted tales she had been told by residents of New Orleans claiming Delphine's slaves were observed to be haggard and wretched looking, however in public Delphine was always seen to be polite and fair to the black community and very solicitous of her own slaves health.
Some images taken inside LaLaurie's mansion
Delphine had always had slaves since childhood and over the years little was said about her treatment of them but between 1830 and 1834 12 deaths were registered at the royal street mansion, the causes of death had not been recorded though, they included Bonne, a cook and laundress and her 4 children who's ages were not known, they had been purchased from a refugee from ST Dominique and were described as chronic runaways. court records also showed that Delphine had freed 2 of her slaves, was this a front? was she trying to show how kind she was and that she cared for her slaves? (I have no doubt that it was). After the rumours had begun to surface a lawyer was sent to Delphine's home to remind her of the laws on the upkeep of slaves and the lawyer claimed he saw no evidence of mistreatment by Mrs LaLaurie towards her slaves but shortly after this visit one of Delphine's neighbours claimed to have seen one of Delphine's slaves fall to her death from the very top of the house, she recounted that the girl had been around 8 years old and was trying to escape punishment from a whip yielding Delphine LaLaurie, the neighbour claimed the girls body was buried in the garden, and years later it was confirmed that the girls real age was 12 and she was called either Leah or Lia, Leah had been brushing Delphine's hair and had caught a snag this enraged Delphine and she grabbed her whip and chased the girl to her death. Delphine was again investigated and found guilty of illegal cruelty, she was forced to forfeit 9 of her slaves who were all bought back for her by her cousin, so no real punishment was given. as I said Delphine had friends in high places. After this more rumours began to emerge claiming Delphine had chained her cook to the stove and if her daughters were caught trying to feed any of the slaves they too were beaten. Delphine's true nature was revealed in 1834 when a fire broke out at the Royal Street mansion and the extent of her cruelty would be known to all. Firefighters and police attended the fire and found the cook as the rumours claimed chained to the stove, she was 70 years old and had no chair to sit on, nowhere to sleep or eat just the chain around her ankle locking her to the stove, the old and dishevelled woman said she had wanted to end her own life and that is why she had started the fire, but there was much worse to come she told police that slaves who were taken to the top room never came back, the slave quarters were situated quiet close to the house and bystanders tried to gain entry into them to check everybody was out of harms way but Delphine and her family refused to give up the keys and let them gain entry so they broke down the doors and were horrified to find 7 slaves strung up by their necks with limbs stretched and torn away from their bodies, they had been imprisoned for some months by this time and they were all severely malnourished and dehydrated. One of the bystanders who had entered the rooms was judge Jean Francois Canonge who deposed to having found "a negress woman with a very deep gash on her head who was too weak to walk"
Some of the tortures claimed to have been endured by Delphine's slaves included skin flayed off their bodies, eyes gouged out, limbs ripped from the body, fingers and toes sawn off, tongues ripped from the mouth and excrement put into their mouths which were then sewn shut! and it was also claimed that Mrs LaLaurie enjoyed bathing in fresh blood from her slaves and also drinking it but none of these have ever been confirmed.
A depiction of what happened in Delphine's torture room at the top of the house
one of Delphine's slaves allowed pictures to be taken of what he endured
When questioned about the slaves Delphine's husband replied "some people had better stay at home rather than come round to other peoples houses to dictate laws and meddle in other peoples business".
Martineau who had written about Delphine LaLaurie's treatment of her slaves after the true extent of the horrors had been uncovered wrote how the slaves were emaciated and showed signs of being repeatedly flayed with a whip, how they were bound in restrictive postures to stop normal movement and wore collars with spikes facing upwards stopping them from moving their head, looking down and sleeping. After the news first broke a mob of local angry citizens descended on the mansion destroying everything but the walls, but LaLaurie and her family were long gone when the mob arrived as somehow no arrest had been made!
The slaves were moved to the local jail for public viewing! (I can't quiet believe this bit)
4000 people came to see the slaves on display, they had come to see how they had suffered at the hands of Delphine LaLaurie, thankfully after this the slaves were given food and their wounds tended but 2 of the 7 found died shortly after their rescue. The garden of the Royal street mansion was dug up the day after the fire and an undisclosed amount of human remains were found including the skeletal remains of 12 year old Leah, the body of a small infant was also found in a well within the grounds.
Meanwhile Delphine and her family had fled the country to France, although Delphine never understood why she had to flee her home, it was written by her son Paulin many years later that his mother desperately wanted to return to her home in New Orleans and still could not understand what all the fuss was about, she claimed she had done nothing wrong.
it is unclear how or when Delphine LaLaurie died but it is believed she was around 62 and is buried in a cemetary in France somewhere (after much searching I still haven't found her grave stone)
Delphine LaLaurie was never tried for her crimes, she was never punished and never admitted to doing anything wrong but if it is to be believed 90 of Delphine's slaves died in her torture room at the top of the house, murdered by a woman with a sadistic appetite who's only pleasure in life was torturing her slaves.
The mansion in which Delphine's atrocities took place still stands, it has been used as many things over the years and was even owned by actor Nicholas Cage for a short while. many claim it to be the most haunted place in New Orleans, I don't know if this is true but I do know that Delphine LaLaurie was truly one of histories most terrible serial killers and like Jack the Ripper amongst many others they never faced punishment for their truly horrific crimes.
I hope you enjoyed this weeks instalment of Forgotten Killers please like and follow my page if you did and you can find me on Instagram Forgottenkillersonig for interesting, strange and down right crazy serial killer facts. See you next week and Keep safe.
