Marie Delphine Macarty was born in New Orleans on March 19, 1787 to a prominent family. She was married three times, both of her first husbands died leaving her as a widow with five children. In 1825, Delphine married Leonard Louis Nicolas LaLaurie took his last name, becoming Delphine LaLaurie. Six years later, in 1831, Delphine bought property at 1140 Royal St in New Orleans and had a two story mansion built there, complete with a living quarter for slaves.
Delphine bought several slaves to manage and work at the large mansion, and accounts of her mistreatment soon made their way around high society in New Orleans. By 1834, a dozen slaves had died at the Royal Street mansion, one as young as 2 years old. From the records kept at the time it's unclear exactly what the cause of death was in these cases.
Though it's hard to tell legend from reality, the legends surrounding the house are filled with cruelty by Delphine towards her slaves. One of LaLaurie's neighbors claimed to see a young slave girl fall to her death from the roof of the mansion while trying to escape from being whipped by Delphine, who was attacking the girl after she hit a snag while brushing Delphine's hair. Another legend tells of Madame LaLaurie chaining her cook to the stove, never letting the slave more than a few feet from where they worked.
Some of the legends are even darker, although these have been refuted and there doesn't seem to be any reputable sources to back them up. It has been claimed that Delphine LaLaurie was curious about anatomy, and attempted to transplant arms and legs between her different slaves. Some slaves were found with their bellies slashed open, intestines tied around their own ankles. One slave had her limbs broken and re-set in such a way to make her look like a crab.
If you believe the legends or not, it is undisputed that the LaLauries did not treat their slaves well. In 1834, the slave that the LaLauries kept chained to the stove started a fire as a suicide attempt. When firefighters came to the home, they found several slaves tied and mutilated in the slaves quarters, who claimed they had been kept there for several months. In 1836, word got out about the condition of the slaves at the LaLaurie Mansion and an angry mob of New Orleans citizens stormed the home, destroying much of the house and stealing whatever they could. Delphine and her family fled to Paris after the mob, where they lived out the rest of their lives.
After the mob violence destroyed much of the home, it was rebuilt in 1938 and appeared much as it does today. The home was bought in 2007 by the actor Nicholas Cage but was foreclosed on in 2009 and is now owned by a private financing company.