MISTRESS OF DEATH: THE HAUNTED HISTORY OF
MADAME LALAURIE With
Von Callaghan
Marie Delphine McCarthy, more commonly known as Madame LaLaurie, was a Louisiana- born socialite, known for her involvement in the torture of African slaves. Delphine was born in 1775 in New Orleans to Barthelmy Louis McCarthy and Marie Jeanne Lovable. Both of who were prominent members of the New Orleans white CrÊole community. Delphine was one of five children and known for her exceptional beauty from an early age. Delphine was married three times and bore five children, one from her first marriage and four more during her second. In 1825 Delphine married her third husband, a physician named Leonard Louis Nicolas LaLaurie who had travelled over from France to set up practice in New Orleans. In 1831 they purchased 1140 Royal Street. It was a three-story mansion with attached servants’ quarters, a home of which Delphine managed without little interference from her husband. It looked very ordinary from the outside; the interior was however lavishly decorated to a very high standard and was obviously presented for the many cocktail parties and grand events that they held. Delphine was very well respected and known as a 18
friendly, wonderful hostess who pampered to her guests every whim. But there was a totally different side to her, a side that was very cruel and sadistic and would be remembered for long after her death. The LaLauries had many African American slaves as befit their social class at that time, although at social functions she appeared to be polite to the slaves, it would seem that public rumours about mistreatment of them led her to appear in court several times. On one occasion it was with regard to the murder of a young girl who had fallen to her death from the roof while trying to avoid being whipped by Madam LaLaurie and was subsequently buried in
Haunted Magazine Issue 12