The Sun

CRAZY KONG LUNG ESCAPES.

A Witness Against Chu Chung Chu in the
Chyo Chyok Murder Case.

James C. Baptiste, the city's Chinese interpreter, asked the police yesterday to look for a crazy countryman named Kong Lung, who escaped from his custodian while taking a walk for the sake of fresh air and exercise on Saturday night and is still missing.

According to Baptiste, Kong Lung is one of three or four Chinamen who helped Chyo Chyok murder Louis Johns, a countryman, in St. Louis about two years ago. They hacked Johns to death with knives, and when he was dead Chyo Chyok cut off his head with a cleaver and hid it in a pail of rice. They were all arrested, with the exception of Chu Chung Chu, who escaped to this city. He, apparently, was suspected of complicity in the crime only, because he had assaulted Johns a few days before the murder, and not much effort seems to have been made to find him.

When the assassins were tried Kong Lung and the two others turned State's evidence against Chyo Chyok. The result was that the latter was condemned to death, while Kong Lung got off with two years' imprisonment, and the others with ten years each. Chyo Chyok on an appeal, however, got a new trial on the ground that his counsel's demand for a special jury had been overruled, and he is now awaiting that trial. Kong Lung became crazy soon after being imprisoned, and was released. He was confided to the custody of Baptiste, who had acted as interpreter at the trial. Baptiste brought him to this city about a month ago and put him in charge of four Chinamen at 18 Mott street, from one of whom he escaped on Saturday.

The St. Louis murder has a local interest, for the reason that the murdered man was a cousin of Tom Lee, who is the head of one faction among the Chinamen here, while the murderer was a follower of Chu Ching Chu, who is the head of the other. The latter, to avenge himself for the prosecution of his friends in St. Louis, gave the evidence against "the Mott street merchants," i. e., gamblers, which enabled young Capt. McCullagh to make his recent raids on them. When, however, the "merchants" made up a purse of $450 as an inducement for him to keep silence and not appear against them he took the money and departed. As Thoms, the Chinese Sunday school teacher of Brooklyn, remained behind to give evidence against them, the gamblers concluded that they were not being treated fairly, and, it is alleged, that Thoms's recent arrest on a charge of swindling was put up by them.

Baptiste had hoped to get hold of Chu Ching Chu to take him back to St. Louis to be tried for Johns's murder, but there won't be much use of his doing so, unless Kong Lung is found, and found in his right mind, too, for his testimony is necessary to convict Chu Ching Chu. as well as Chyo Chyok.

A general alarm, describing the missing man and calling for his detention, was sent out. He is a pock-marked Chinaman.