In a message dated 4/30/00 7:25:02 AM Pacific Daylight Time, VCrawf@aol.com writes: << I know that Carol Anne has transcribed some old news articles about this murder - of her very own great-grandparents! - and one time did send them out to the St. Anne group. Perhaps she would be willing to send the articles again. It is an amazing story - and the crime was never solved. I have some clippings too, but will defer to Carol Anne as the victims were in her direct line. >> Bonjour listers, I have run this story one before, but will re-run it for some of the new members. The story of the murders is also in The Saga of St. Anne and will be on the new web site shortly. I sent the same story to the publisher of the Le Bourgeois newsletter and it was published in their April edition. ****************************************************************************** ******************* The following account of the murder of my great grandparents, Emile Chiniquy and Victorine Bourgeois was copied from an article written on April 23, 1996 by Mary Ellen Smith and published in The Herald’s Country Market of Bourbonnis, Illinois. Although the murder occured on Oct, 1898, there are still articles written about this very brutal murder. It was Kankakee County’s “most brutal slaughter” It was simply meant to be an overnight visit between friends; a favor in fact. Victorine Chiniquy was trying to spare Eliza Marcotte a trip home over muddy October roads. Neither woman could have guessed the outcome. Victorine was the wife of Emile Chiniquy, a nephew of St Anne’s controversial founder, Charles Chiniquy. The couple had moved to the village from Kankakee just two months earlier and now occupied one of the most elegant houses in town. Emile owned and operated a butcher shop in St Anne’s business districk and rented out the family farm northwest of town. It was Eliza Marcotte’s husband, Rene, who worked that land for Emile. Monday, October 17, 1898, began as an ordinary day. Rene brought his wife and daughter, Alice, into town for groceries. On the way home, the family stopped by to visit the Chiniquy’s. Vistorine persuaded her friend to spend the night since Eliza was planning to attend mass early the next morning anyway. Alice stayed with her mother, while Rene took the supplies home. After dinner had been eaten and the dishes done, the Marcottes retired to a guest room on the second floor of the Chiniquy Home. The couple’s three sons, 20-year -old Dolph, 12 year-old Oscar and 9-year-old Emile Jr., also had rooms on the second floor. Victorine and Emile occupied a bedroom on the first floor, just off the kitchen. About 4 or 5 a.m., little Alice Marcotte heard a noise she later described as sounding “like a vase moving across the floor.” Otherwise, the house and everyone in it, was quiet. Eliza Marcotte rose early the following morning to prepare for mass. She wanted to thank her hosts brfore she left, so knocked softly on their bedroom door. There was no answer. She tried again. Still no luck. Eliza called up the stairs for Dolph, the eldest Chiniquy son. When Dolph opened the door to his parent’s bedroom, Eliza’s breath caught in her throat. The paper-covered walls of the room were splattered with the blood of Victorine and Emile Chiniquy. Newspaper accounts of the day called the crime the “most brutal slaughter in the history of Kankakee County.” A reporter from the Kankakee Gazette was one of the few people allowed to enter the Chiniquy home immediately following the discovery of the murder. He described what he saw for the readers: “When the door of the bedroom was opened, Mrs Chiniquy could be seen lying on the floor face downward, her feet towards the door. A great pool of blood, fully two feet square, was near her hand. On the south side of the bed with one foot resting on the bed rail, was the body of Emile Chiniquy. His head and shoulders were on the floor and his face turned upward. The body was partly wrapped in a blanket. Several great gashes caused by some sharp instrument made the bloody face look horrible. The frontal bones of the skull were crushed to a pulp. The clothing had been disarranged and the matress had been pulled up until it curled over at the head of the bed. Large splashes of blood were discovered on the wallpaper near the bed, on the ceiling and in one corner fully fifteen feet from the head of the bed. “After placing the bodies in fair shape, (authorities) went from the room and a search was made of the premises. The family ax and hatchet were found undisturbed in their usual place and in usual conditions. A bloody towel was found in the kitchen on the sink. A pane of glass was missing from the east window pf the kitchen. The glass was found broken in the grass under the window. A large wooden flower box containing a wax plant was located under this window. The top of the box was nearly level with the window sill. The imprint of a man’s knee was plainly noticed on the soft earth of the box. The party who entered the house must have worn fine diagonal-weave clothes. The absence of the cleavers mentioned by one of the (Chiniquy) children appears to indicate that one of them was probably used to commit the crime.” Bloodhounds were called in from Indiana. No suspects could be found, however. Even a motive was hard to come by. Everyone in town knew that Emile Chiniquy didn’t keep large sums of money in his home and as far as anyone could tell, nothing had been taken during the crime. Chiniquy was also not known to have had any enemies or to be involved in any shady dealings. At length, an arrest was made. The day of the murder, a stranger had been seen in the St Anne tavern of Gasper Marceau., Chiniquy’s son-in-law. The man had watched closely as Marceau pulled a large roll of bills from his pocket to pay off a debt and, later, the man asked a boy on the street where Marceau lived. The boy mistakenly told the stranger “the seventh house down”: the Chiniquy house. The man was brought to trial but was acquitted when his attorney produced evidence that he was in jail in Danville the night of the murders. The crime went unsolved. The Chiniquy boys went to live with their sister. Their parent’s possessions were auctioned off and the house where the murderes took place was closed. A year after the killings, the youngest son, Emile Jr., drowned. Hoping to escape the past, the rest of the family left St Anne and moved to California. For many years the Chiniquy house remained empty. St Anne children, afraid to even pass by, gave it a wide berth during play times and on their way to and from school. Eventually, however, newcomers employed by the town’s wheel works did make it their home. Perhaps the tragedy of the past was not as real to them as to those who had lived through it. (Editor’s note: The Chiniquy house was torn down during the early 1950’s to make room for the more modern home which now occupies its site on the southeast cornor of Station Street and Sixth Avenue.