Treasure Tales and Treasure Stories About Virginia from the Archives of Lost Treasure Magazine

The Case of the Bludgeoned Bandit

All of my best finds have come after the point where I wanted to give up for the day.

In Norfolk in the spring of 1821, a young girl on her way to school heard the sounds of a terrible struggle accompanied by shrieks of pain coming from Peter LaGaudette's home on Fox Lane between Cumberland and Church. Peering through the back window, she witnessed Emanuel Garcia and Santiago Castilano bludgeoning LaGaudette. Although the young heroine quickly summoned help, LaGaudette was already dead by the time Mayor Holt and the rescue party stormed the premises. LaGaudette's headless corpse was found in a trunk in the back room.

Garcia and Castilano were tracked to Lambert's Point and captured. At the trial, it came out that all three principals were members of a gang of highwaymen who "infested the roads" around Norfolk. Apparently LaGaudette had been holding out on his comrades when it came to the disposition of the loot. Garcia and Castilano were hanged at the gallows on Pudding Creek in June. The missing plunder that was the source of the lethal dispute was not, to my knowledge, accounted for. Therefore, it would seem that this long-forgotten incident might be fertile ground for local researchers who very often uncover details not available to the general researcher.