An excerpt from the New Jersey Mirror on the murder of Matilda Russo by Louis Lively:
"The Mystery of the disappearance of the little Matilda Russo, the seven-year-old daughter of Mike Russo, a tailor, living at 113 East
Second street, Moorestown, was cleared up on Friday when officers
searching for the body of the child in the cellar of Lewis Lively, a
colored man living next door, found the horribly mutilated remains of the
child, buried three feet under the earth floor. All the clothes had
been roughly torn from the body.
Almost simultaneously with the finding of the murdered child Lively
disappeared as completely as though swallowed up by the ground and he
has succeeded in eluding the authorities thus far, although a
countrywide search is being made for the arch fiend.
The Little Italian girl was reported missing on Saturday night, June
4. The last seen of the child was between 7 and 8 o'clock that evening.
It was supposed at first that she might have run away because she had
been reprimanded by her mother for some trivial offense. When she did
not return next day and no trace of her could be found, it was feared
that she might have been kidnapped or met with some tragic fate and the
police of Moorestown and county detective Parker redoubled their efforts
to locate the child or find her body.To this end every possible clue
was followed out."
A transcription of the article is available through the New Jersey Mirror archive,
made available by the Burlington County Library System. A search for
"Matilda Russo" finds a reference to her obituary, as well as the article above.