Extracted from The News-Star (Monroe, LA)
Saturday, July 17, 1926

ERNEST DUNN IS DEAD; STABBED DURING FIGHT

Quarrel at Olla on Fourth of July, Ends Fatally.

Stabbed in the abdomen, a knife being used as weapon, as the climax to a July Fourth quarrel, Ernest Dunn, aged 37 years, died at Riverside sanitarium, late yesterday, after a hard battle for life.

Dunn was employed as a rig builder by Leon Brazil and operations were in progress several weeks ago near the parish line of Caldwell and LaSalle where a wildcat test was to be started.

On the afternoon of July Fourth the men working at this test took time off to go to a little circus that was showing at Olla. Dunn and a brother and several other men were in the party.

Something came up while the show was in progress and the men left the tent and went out into the road for a fist fight, the quarrel then being between Dunn and one of the men, but not his brother.

In the melee, a knife was drawn and Dunn was badly slashed in [the] abdomen. He was given attention by a local physician and later removed to Riverside sanitarium, this city.

From the outset, it was known that his injuries were extremely serious but not necessarily fatal. He gained steadily for several days, but then a relapse came and death ensued late yesterday.

Just who did the stabbing has not been decided. It was stated that a brother of Dunn was to blame but this was denied later and the injured man, himself, said that he was positive that his brother did not do the stabbing.

So far as can be learned, no one has to this time been apprehended at Olla in connection with the case but it is stated that efforts to probe the affair will now be prosecuted by the sheriff of La Salle parish.

The victim was married and had one small child. He was a native of Olla and the body will be buried this afternoon following services held at the grave in a cemetery near that place.