Lytle Prays for His
Slain Wife to Return
Asheville, Aug. 6—Alternately praying and entreating his
murdered wife to return to him, Joseph Lytle, aged 32, of Black Mountain, who
stabbed his wife, Louise Lytle, to death Saturday afternoon, was brought to the
Buncombe County jail today.
Everyone who has come in contact with Lytle believes he is
demented, though the murder was one of the most brutal in the crime annals of
the county.
Evidence adduced at the coroner’s hearing, and from
neighbors indicates that the slain woman made a desperate fight for her life
against a maniac armed with a large pocket knife and determined upon her
destruction.
The body has 13 knife wounds, revealing how Lytle plunged
his weapon again and again into the body of his wife, besides there are bruises
about the body, indicating where Lytle beat the woman with his fists before the
fatal onslaught with the knife.
Lytle had loved his wife and the three little children he
made motherless by the act, neighbors attest, but his mind had been affected
for many years, they state, and for the past few weeks matters had gone from
bad to worse. He had requested relatives to put him in an insane asylum, they
say.
It was some time after the slaying Saturday that Lytle began
to realize his awful act. Then he talked of self-destruction, murmuring that he
had nothing further to live for. Once he said he could see his wife in Heaven
and she wanted him to join her. Precautions are being taken to prevent suicide
in the jail in keeping materials away from the prisoner that could be used to
end his life.
The slaying occurred about 10:30 p.m. Saturday at the Lytle
home near Black Mountain. Attacked by her husband in the home, Mrs. Lytle had
taken refuge in a woodshed in the rear of the house. Here she was caught by
Lytle and stabbed. She again got away, ran into the home and hid in a closet,
where her children found her dying.
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