1958, July 29: (The End of the Sheriffs’ Coup: The Grenade That Blew In Pasquet’s Skull, Walker’s Genitals Pounded to Hamburger, Perpignand’s Chicken Coop, a…

1958, July 29: (The End of the Sheriffs’ Coup: The Grenade That Blew In Pasquet’s Skull, Walker’s Genitals Pounded to Hamburger, Perpignand’s Chicken Coop, and Duvalier in the Army Helmet with Two .45s): Four more hours were required to organize an attack, but finally a motley troop — Barbot, Chauvet, General Flambert, two ministers, and the president himself at the head of a mob of Duvalierists and soldiers — advanced across the parade ground with machine guns firing overhead, to the flanks, and every which way. With a shower of grenades they dashed up the barracks steps and inside. One grenade blew in Sonson Pasquet’s skull and the one-time champion center forward of the army soccer team slumped into a pool of his own brains and blood. Five others were killed in another room — mortuary photographs showed massively abraded, smashed bodies riddled with bullet holes. Payne, lying on a mattress with oozy stale dressings, was shot and pummeled to death; Walker, the Molly C’s skipper, had his legs broken and his genitals pounded into blood-soaked hamburger. Perpignand, wounded, escaped the casernes but was run down by a mob that found him hiding in a chicken coop; Kersten was also caught outside. The two shared the fate of Guillaume Sam — stabbed, shot, kicked, gouged, trampled, all but dismembered, their bodies were dragged naked through the streets, tugged into the palace, shown in triumph to the president, and then hauled about under the blazing sun until police gathered the carrion and dumped it at the morgue. Inside the palace, a cold-eyed Duvalier, still wearing an army helmet and two .45s, received the press beside the bust of Pétion, which, not unlike the late Captain Pasquet, had a bullet hole in the forehead and a large exit hole in back. Beside Duvalier stood young Captain Claude Raymond and the savage-faced soldier-boko Lieutenant Gracia Jacques — there was no pity on any of the three faces.