The Murderer of the Kinck Family.

Cromwell Argus, Volume I, Issue 18, 16 March 1870, Page 3

The Murderer of the Kinck Family.

For tho following concise account of the apprehension and subsequent trial of the , perpetrator of the Pantin massacre, we aro indebted to the Southland Timw } Paris correspondent: " Traupmann's trial has at last taken place, and not a moment too soon: his presence was a moral pestilence. Briefly, his crime consisted in murdering a father, mother, and their six children, to possess their money and title-deeds. In September last, Paris was' struck with horror by the discovery of a woman and her five children, brutally murdered, and buried in a field. The bodies were still Wiirin. In process of time, tho remains of the eldest son, and lantly the father, were found. High and low, rich and poor, flocked to view the scene of the crime. The journals published the details, and to them is the credit due for the arrest of the assassin. The police were on the wrong scent, and rather slow. If you cry murder, fire, or robbery, the police, as elsewhere, are difficult to be found ; but cry ' Vive la repubIvjue, ct bas VEmperear, they seem to spring up from the earth, and pounce upon you like an army of locusts. Traupmann sailed to Havre, with the view of escaping to America. Having no passport, a local police Officer made him go to a magistrate and explain. On the way, the policeman casually asked, ' Since you have come from Paris, possibly you have visited the scene of the dreadful murder V At these words. Traupmann made a bound, and jumped into the harbour. A boatman plunged in, and after a fearful struggle, rescued Traupmann, who made every effort to drown himself. He was taken up senseless, conveyed to tho hospital, and on his clothes being removed, all the papers of the family (Kinck) that he had murdered, were found upon him. His explanations were but a series of lies, one contradicting the other. He soon became a ' fashionable' criminal. His slightest action and word were eagerly seized, and the whole of the Parisian press was compelled to chronicle all the ' small beer.' On Tuesday the trial commenced. The applications for admission had been made weeks beforehand, but only a few were granted. As early as eight o'clock the court-house was crowded, though the trial did not begin till 11. Three rows of seats were occupied by ladies, many of distinction, who enjoyed themselves by breakfasting upon their knees. The middle of the court was covered with the clothes of the victims, the instruments of the crime—■ the knives, pick-axes, and spades that killed them, and scooped their shallow grave. The internal organs of the father were exposed in large glass vases, after being chemically examined' to discover the prussic acid administered to the deceased. The jury having been chosen by ballot, and the judge' having taken his place, the prisoner was directed t« be introduced. He enters, surrounded by a triple guard. All eyes and opera-glasses are at once fixed upon him. A eold shudder, a sensation of horror, pervades the audience. Traupmann is but 20, has all the appearance of youth, a downy moustache and beard. But regarded sideways—from his profile—his jaws, head, and mouth display the evidence of strong passions and brutality. His hands are enormously large, and, as a mechanic, his feeble-looking frame has in his trade acquired akilfulness. As the judge examined him, and as the witnesses laid bare the hideous tragedy, he betrayed a cynical indifference—the only spectator who was unmoved as the doctors described the result of -..heir mortem examination, and the nature of the terrible wounds inflicted. He sometimes answered angrily, frequently impertinently, and often ruffianly. His defence was, that he never struck down one of the deceased, but that his accomplices did all. Unfortunately he declined to name these, and he was evei seen alone with his victims. Lachaud, the famous criminal lawyer, who won his spurs in defending the celebrated Madame Lafarge, was the counsel retained for the defence. Ho had no case. At nine o'clock on Thursday evening the jury retired to consider their verdict. The prisoner was remanded to his cell, and invited his guards to play cards to kill time. An hour afterwards, he was brought into the court and informed that the jury had found him guilty on all the issues. He bowed and smiled. The court retired for five minutes to consider the sentence—that of death. Traupmann smiled at the passing of it, and on returning to his cell, bounded along the corridor, calling upon the gaolers to give him something to eat. Up to that moment he had been treated with some consideration, in the hope that he would make a clean breast of his crime. He was at once placed in a strait-jacket, which he will wear till he ascends the scaffold. If he appeals he can delay his execution—•which may take place within ten days or forty, according to the law's delays. Of course there is no second opinion about his sentence. Some people are occupied suggesting how he ought to be tortured, not guillotined."