Horrible Affair in Boone County

Night before last, at about 10 o’clock, while Miss Georgie Billiter, a young lady of nearly fifteen years of age, was sweetly sleeping in her home at Mr. Fielding Dickey’s, near Union, Boone county, a negro named Theodore Daniels, aged about twenty-five years, entered her room, and in removing the bed clothes which covered her person, awoke her. She screamed and fled down stairs, when the black villain jumped through the window. Mr. Dickey and several of his neighbors immediately started in pursuit of the flying would-be ravisher, who kept hid in the woods until yesterday noon, when Mr. Fernando Carpenter captured him near the edge of Kenton county. He confessed to Mr. Carpenter that his intention had been those of rape, and his captor conveyed him immediately to the town of Union. There he was tried before Squires H. Bannister and M. C. Norman, found guilty of attempted rape, and in default of $400 bail, delivered to the officers to guard in the Town Hall until he could be sent to jail, there to await the next term of the Criminal Court. We are further informed that during the night the guard was overpowered, the prisoner taken in charge by a body of unknown men, and at a point about half a mile north of Union, used as a target for a number of guns, and his body literally perforated with shot and bullets. Daniels was a coarse featured mulatto, of about twenty-five years of age, and had been working as farm hand for Mr. Dickey for about three months. Miss Billiter, who so fortunately escaped injury at the hands of the midnight prowler, is a highly respected young lady, who for several years has lived in the family of one of the most perfect gentlemen in Boone county – that of Mr. Fielding Dickey, the treasurer of the North Kentucky Agricultural Society, and was by him considered almost a daughter, and nearly as dearly loved. The justice meted out to the wretch, although unlawful, was doubtless deserved.

From the Covington newspaper, The Daily Commonwealth, September 5, 1879