Murdered by a Mob

A member of the Louisiana State Senate is murdered by a mob, and Mitchell states multiple theories that have arisen around the death.

Judge Basil La Place, a prominent planter and a member of the State Senate, was found dead at his plantation, twenty miles from here, this morning. The judge was called from his house at 10 o’clock last night. While he was walking toward the road a mob of men with white masks suddenly rose around him, seized him, and pinioned his arms. He was led some distance, when the crowd halted, one man placed a pistol to La Place’s back, and sent a bullet into his body, killing him instantly.
The body was left in the road, rain fell on it during the night, and it was rescued from the mud by relatives this morning.
These relatives aver that the killing was political. Another story is that a young woman was involved. Her father was connected with the plantation, and left there yesterday, seeking to take his daughter with him. She escaped from him and remained behind. Some say friends of the father may have committed the crime.

“Murdered by a Mob,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed February 19, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/1732.