John Buglio didn’t want his brother-in-law, dancing master Joseph Labriola, to accompany his wife, Mrs. Buglio, to a square dance in Minnesota. Buglio couldn’t go himself because he was physically handicapped, but he didn’t want his wife dancing with someone else, for fear that it might start gossip.

Buglio was too late with his objections, though, for brother in-law Joe was already having a torrid affair with Mrs. Buglio.

Rafahall Buglio wasn’t at all sympathetic to her husband’s disfiguring and debilitating disease. She had been only too ready to jump into bed with Joe Labriola.

But when her husband refused her permission to go to the dance, her brother-in-law lover flared up. He began beating the handicapped man, chased him into the garden, and finally killed him with an axe handle given to him, it was said, by Rafahall Buglio herself. Labriola next put Buglio’s body into a wheelbarrow and carted it into the woods before hurrying off to the square dance with Rafahall.

Buglio’s body was found 10 days later, frozen stiff. Labriola was given away by his love’s children. The nine-year-old whispered to police: “Mama said she would kill me if I ever told anyone about this.”

Rafahall Buglio was given a long prison sentence and Joe Labriola was hanged on Friday, September 20th, 1907, dressed in the tuxedo he usually wore when he went dancing.