Weird Tales/Volume 3/Issue 1/Voodoo Doctor Admits Murder

Voodoo Doctor Admits Brutal Murder

Miss ELSIE BARTHEL, 28-year-old nurse, of Pittsburgh, was killed by Alonzo Savage, Negro Voodoo doctor, when she refused to give him $295, for "curing her love ills," said a confession which city detectives declare Savage has made.

Under the glare of automobile headlights, Louis Leff, captain of detectives said Savage re-enacted in detail his movments when he met the nurse beneath the portico of a deserted East End mansion.

The Negro confessed that he struck the nurse in the face when she grabbed the money out of his hand; felled her with a brick and then dropped a seventy-pound block of marble on her head. As she fell Miss Barthel screamed, "I'll give it to you," Savage is said to have told the detectives, but the Negro, blood crazy, stepped to the outside of the portico and just as the girl was struggling to her feet, pushed the loose marble block from the wall, crushing the victim's head.