TRUE CRIME FRIDAY: Madame Delphine LaLaurie

Ninetoes takes a trip to New Orleans for True Crime Friday to talk about one of America’s first serial killers, Madame Delphine LaLaurie.

Hey there, true crime lovers! It is your favorite investigator, Ninetoes, and I am on the beat with The Case of Delphine LaLaurie. I have my notebook in hand and coffee in my system, so let’s get to it!

We are going back in time for this one. Back to the late 1700s to early 1800s. This one takes place in New Orleans, Louisiana, and it deals with Madame Delphine LaLaurie.

Marie Delphine McCarty was born during the Spanish Colonial era of New Orleans, on March 19, 1787. Her father was Louis Barthelemy de McCarty, whose father, Barthelemy de MacCarty, moved his family from Ireland to New Orleans during the French Colonial period. Her mother was Marie Jeanne L’Erable, and this was her second marriage. Both parents were prominent in the European Creole community.

When Delphine was thirteen-years-old, she married Don Ramón de Lopez y Angulo, who was a high-ranking Spanish royal officer. This was on June 11, 1800. In 1804, Don Ramon was appointed as consul general for Spain in the Orleans Territory. He was called to Madrid and took Delphine along with him. She was pregnant at the time. Don Ramon died during a stop in Havana. A short time after he died, Delphine gave birth to a daughter and named her Marie-Borja/Borgia Delphine Lopez y Angulo de la Candelaria; her mother nicknamed her “Bourquita”. They moved back to New Orleans.

In June of 1808, she married Jean Blanque, a prominent banker. She was 21 years old. She had four children by Jean Blanque. They were: Marie Louise Pauline, Louise Marie Laure, Marie Louise Jeanne, and Jean Pierre Paulin Blanque. Her husband, Jean, died in 1816.

The final time Delphine married, it was to a man fifteen years younger than her. His name was Leonard Louis Nicolas LaLaurie. This was on June 25, 1825. In 1831, Delphine purchased property at 1140 Royal Street. She had a two-story mansion (complete with slave quarters) built there a year later. She lived there with her husband and two of her daughters. The marriage would not last much longer. By November 1832, she petitioned the court for separation of bed and board from her husband. Delphine claimed that her husband “treated her in such a manner as to render their living together unsupportable”. Three of her children supported her claims.

The separation lasted at the longest, two years, as her husband was present when her mansion caught fire, and it is here that the story gains some traction as a true crime story.

The whole time Delphine LaLaurie lived at 1104 Royal Street, she maintained her position in New Orleans society. That is, until April 10, 1834, the day her mansion caught fire, and the bound bodies of her slaves were found in the attic. The bodies showed evidence of torture. Public rumors before this event detailed the LaLaurie’s mistreatment of their slaves, which went against the local laws for the upkeep of enslaved people.

This was not the only time the LaLaurie family was investigated for the poor treatment of their slaves.  In an earlier event, a neighbor saw an enslaved girl of around eight years of age, out on Delphine’s roof. The girl was trying to get away from Delphine and her whip. The girl slipped and fell to her death. All of this was because the girl hit a snag in Delphine’s hair one too many times, and Delphine got mad and chased her around the house with a whip. An investigation ensued, and as a result, the LaLauries had to forfeit nine slaves (which were captured and brought back to them).

The LaLauries kept their cook chained to the stove. She was starved, and her daughters beaten whenever they tried to escape. The cook could not take this treatment anymore, and on the morning of April 10, 1834, the cook tried to kill herself by setting the kitchen on fire. The fire brigade came and put the fire out. When the cook was asked why she set the kitchen on fire, she told officials that she was afraid of being brought up to the further upper room where slaves never came back from. When the attic was searched, the bodies were found. There were a dozen bodies for which the coroner filled out death certificates.

The crowd was so angered that they razed the building to the ground, but not before Delphine and her family could run away. They escaped the mob violence and took a schooner to Mobile, Alabama, and from there they crossed the sea and finally ended up in Paris, France. It was here that she would remain until she died. Some say she died during a boar hunting accident. However, her death is unclear, as is the date. Some say it was on December 7, 1842. The Paris archives list the day she died as December 7, 1849.

LaLaurie’s abuse and murder of her slaves have become the stuff of folklore. The tales that circulated in Louisiana during the 19th century were reprinted in a collection by Henry Castellanos and George Washington Cable. A lot of Cable’s accounts came from newspapers in the area.

Surviving slaves had their own tales to tell, and in 1945, Jeanne deLavigne wrote Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans. This book spoke of Delphine’s ravenous appetite for sadism towards her slaves. Her appetite was not abated until she had inflicted some form of hideous torture to one of her slaves. In 1834, as deLavigne tells it, there were bodies of male slaves found chained to the walls, stark naked, with their eyes gouged out, ears cut off, intestines knotted around their waist, the lips sewn together, and holes in their heads in which a stick would be inserted to stir the brains. The problem is that Delavigne did not cite any sources for these tales.

Even though the LaLaurie mansion was destroyed in 1834, it was rebuilt by Pierre Trastour in 1838. It is the building that still stands on the property to this date. It had been used as a public high school, a conservatory of music, an apartment building, a refuge for young delinquents, a bar, a furniture store, and a luxury apartment building.

A highly fictionalized account of Delphine LaLaurie was the subject of the third season of AMERICAN HORROR STORY, with Kathy Bates portraying Delphine.

Until the next time, I bid you successful investigations.

Darren “Ninetoes” Perdue is a book and media reviewer. When he is not reading, he is watching true crime shows, cooking for his family, or working on a plan for universal domination. If you see him on his porch, say hi. He does not bite…much.

PLEASE NOTE: The views and opinions of the staff of Memento Mori Ink do not necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or Crystal Lake Publishing. Thank you for understanding.