According to a story published in the Washington Post, on March 14, 1891, a crowd of 8,000 assembled on New Orleans' Canal Street, "almost filling up the large space from curb to curb on each side of the boulevard." The crowd, possessed by an "ungovernable" fury, had guns and arrived at the parish prison at 10:30 that night. Prison guards let the mob into the prison, where they eventually found the Italian prisoners. "The shotguns belched forth and the slayers of Hennessy fell dead in their tracks," the story says.