The Dark History of New Orleans....

New Orleans has always had many ties to myths, Voodoo and other unexplainable phenomenon, but what is accurate and what is made up to interest tourists? New Orleans has had a few proven events that have occurred and added to New Orleans' Dark History. There is very little evidence of myths such as, werewolves and vampires in New Orleans, but there are tales of mass murders as well as twisted experiments gone wrongs and encounters with bad Voodoo. One unexplained event was the "Murder at the Sultan's Palace". In the late 1800's a mysterious Sultan moved to New Orleans looking for a place to reside that was fit to house his activities, so he moved into a house on Dauphine Street previously owned by Jean Baptiste Le Prete. Many of the city people knew that the Sultan was running a harem out of his residence and often kidnapped women and children to add to his numbers. But, on one early morning one of the Sultan's neighbors who was accustomed to hearing the loud music coming from the residence heard only silence and saw a trail of blood coming from under the door. The police soon came to investigate and found body parts strewn everywhere making all of the people murdered unidentifiable. They also found the Sultan buried alive in the back of his house. The theory surround this mass murder was that the Sultan actually lied and was running from his brother who was the actual sultan and his brother found his whereabouts and murdered him and everyone who resided with him to get rid of any possible heirs to his throne.

There was also the story of Madame Delphine LaLaurie who was a very prominent woman in the city of New Orleans. She was known for throwing extravagant parties and treating her slaves relatively nicely. One night while her friends were gathering downstairs for a party that was supposed to occur that night, she was making a late entrance as usual one of her slaves jumped off the balcony after an altercation between her and Madame LaLaurie. That incident alone was cause for suspicion, but she was nonchalantly given a fine and they moved one. Though soon after a fire broke out in the beautiful Royal Street home which caused the authorities to show up at once, but what they found was not pleasant. They rushed into the kitchen where the fire was started and saw a slave chained to the stove, the slave directed them to the basement in which they found hundreds of mutilated slaves chained up and experimented on. The putrid smell overwhelmed the authorities as they went on a search the the LaLaurie couple, but they had fled without being noticed.

Many of the stories add to the richness of New Orleans' culture and gives a more interesting aspects to the relatively more pleasant side of the city. To this day both residences can be seen in what was closest to their original condition. The LaLaurie house has had many owners, but weird occurrences continue to chase away prospective buyers.