The Mysterious Harem Massacre on Bourbon Street, New Orleans

A few mornings later he was found lying unconscious on Bourbon Street not far from the Le Pretre mansion.  Recovering he, said that he had climbed one of the iron lacework columns supporting a balcony, opened an unfastened shutter and entered a room where he encountered one of the harem girls seated cross-legged upon a carpet and playing a zither-like musical instrument.  She was not only unveiled but almost nude, scantily attired in gauzy pantaloons of some transparent material.

She was young.  Malverne, added a girl of exotic and breathtaking beauty.  She looked up at him and a startled cry escaped from her lips.  This was all her remembered for it was then he was struck heavily from behind.

After that, no other gallant of the French Quarter tried to enter the house by stealth.  The experience of Malverne proved that a day and night vigil was maintained within.  He was considered fortunate to have been ejected alive.

Thus four months went by.  One morning the waterfront discovered that the Turkish ship was gone.  Cloaked by the starless darkness of the night; she weighed anchor and had then been silently towed from the harbor by her crew in small boats, straining at their oars.

On the following afternoon a middle-aged resident of the French Quarter, Mrs. Olivia Clairborne, who lived in a house diagonally across the street from the LePretre mansion, went out on the second story balcony prepared to enjoy her usual nap.

She glanced down upon the serenity of Bourbon Street and suddenly stared hard.  In the bright sunlight she observed a thick red line that had coursed into the street from under the front door of the Le Pretre residence.

Mrs. Claiborne called her husband and he, too, stared.  “Blood!” he said.

The police were summoned.  They knocked at the front door, received no answer and knocked at the back with the same result.  They decided to break the door open when they discovered that its massive lock had been forced and it yielded readily to a push.

Entering the servants’ quarters in the rear, they found no sign of disturbance.  The great hallway and dining salon beyond likewise were dark and deserted.

When they approached the front door they came upon the first body, that of the huge Negro.  He had been slain on the spot where he had stood on guard.  His head and his scimitar are missing. 

The police ascended to the second story.  There they found the bodies of the other occupants sprawled in ghastly profusion on divans, on pillows, on carpets.  From the front to the back of the house the floor was slippery with the blood of corpses.

There were eleven headless bodies; those of the master, Mejid ul-Aziz, of the seven girls of the harem, and of the three female servants.

No outcries or screams of alarm or terror had been heard on Bourbon Street during the night before. 

The murders unquestionably had taken place prior to the departure of the Turkish ship.  They had been carried out quickly and expertly by several slayers.  In addition, every trunk and chest in the house had been pried open and thoroughly rifled of the contents.  Only a few jewels, having fallen behind one of the divans, had been overlooked.

New Orleans authorities reasoned quite logically that the departure of the Turkish ship and the grisly massacre in the Le Pretre mansion were more than coincidence.  They further reasoned that Captain Bahan and his crew, perhaps in league with the envoy, Hamid Pasha, had been the perpetrators.

But had their motive been robbery?  If so, why had all the victims been decapitated and their heads taken from the house together with the treasures?

Had it been because Mejid ul-Aziz stole the most beautiful women and the most priceless jewels of his elder brother and fled from Turkey to America, hoping to find safe refuge in New Orleans?

Had the Sultan wrathfully ordered the execution of Mejid ul-Aziz and his entire entourage—and commanded that their heads be delivered to him in proof that the deeds had been carried out?

The residents of the French Quarter still believe so.