BURIED ALIVE

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 134, 3 December 1929, Page 15

BURIED ALIVE

UNPARALLELED MURDER

AIR PIPE IN COFFIN

VICTIM LEFT TO STAKVE

Reported in the cable pages of the "Evening Post" on 7th October last, a crime so gruesome as to read like a story by Edgar Allan Poe, but nevertheless true, was revealed by the discovery in a wood near the main motor road from Paris to Deauville of the body, in a coffin and clad only in a shirt, of the so-called "Marquis de Champaubert," an ex-convict recently released after serving five years' imprisonment for an amazing scries of swindles.

The "marquis," whose real name was Pascal Clement, had died of starvation after having been buried -alive, it is believed, as an act of vengeance, in Verneuil Wood, near Eequevilly, a few miles from St. Germain.

The discovery, says the "Daily' Mail," was made in such extraordinary circumstances that the police were at first sceptical. STARTLING LETTER. A former friend of the "marquis," a M. Gryvallet, living at MaisonsAlfort, near Paris, was astounded to receive by post an anonymous letter, saying: | 'You will find your friend the Marquia de Champaubert buried alive in the woods of Verneuil-sur-Seine. At the present moment ho has probably died of hunger." A rough pencil sketch indicated a point in the wood from which emerged what looked like a pottery drain-pipe, and a note scribbled on the plan read: "Look out for freshly dug-up earth." M. Gryvallet telephoned to the police. By means of the plan sent to Gryvallet they had soon discovered a spot where the soil had recently been dug up. Sticking out of the ground was a piece of pottery drain-pipe. Spades were fetched, and the gendarmes began to dig. They dug to a depth of four feet, and found that the drain-pipe communicated with the lid of a rough coffin through which, a hole had been bored. . - -..--'

The lid was forced off, and inside was seen the body of a man. His face bore sighs of the most atrocious agony. Apparently he had died not by violence or suffocation, but from inanition. The mystery is deepened by an amazing series of letters received by other friends of the supposed "Marquis" and by the "Matin" newspaper. The writer of these letters signed them "For the Knights of Themis, Their Leader."

"SECRET SOCIETY." Some extracts are as follow:— "We have the honour to inform the public that an extremely powerful secret society, composed of members of the high French aristocracy, was formed a few months ago with the entirely new object of punishing the noted crooks' whose audacity for a few years past has known no bounds. "French justice, which nowadays is only an empty word, is made to look ridiculous. In view of this state of affairs, our society, which styles itself the Knights of Themis, has decided to start a holy crusade to punish, even by death, and make these swindlers expiate their crimes after they have served their derisively light terms of imprisonment.

"Wo have all taken an oath, under penalty of death for traitors, never to break our pledge." • - Another letter contains the following gruesome details" of the manner in which the "Knights of Themis" buried alive the "Marquis de Champaubert": "About 6 o'clock on Saturday night we took advantage of the fact that the marquis' was cool and collected to inform him of the fate which awaited him. ■• ■ ' •.-.■. "We explained to him how we were going to bury him alive, and make him suffer .atrociously the pangs of hunger and thirst for days oil end, because wo were going to allow him to breathe. He did not show.the slightest emotion. "At a quarter past eight wo placed him in one of our motor-cars, and five delegates appointed for the task took him to the place of burial. "Half an hour after midnight we dug his grave, a -very shallow one. j when the grave .was dug wo offered \ him his life, and later on his liberty, |if he ceased his dissimulation. But with no result. He continued to laugh ■in the sinister darkness.

"Then we undressed him and left , him only in his shirt, and laid him in the rough wooden coffin which we had brought with us. He did not resist, but continued to bablo incoherently. LOWERED INTO GRAVE. "We closed the lid of the coffin flnd lowered it into the grave. He continued to babble through the large pipe through which we had allowed him to obtain, air. "We covered the coffin with soil and remained on watch until 4 in the morning. Before we filled in the soil we told him through the air-pipe that if he shouted wo would stop up the pipe and suffocate him. This was only, to make him think we were continually keeping watch.' "In reality we simply left him to his fate, knowing full well that he could not escape, ana was bound to die m due course. "We consider our action towards the 'marquis' is a splendid wind-up to our holiday. "We have sworn to carry on our mission, and we have not failed in our task. We -are now going to study the case of other notorious swindlers who, Jike the "marquis," have not yet paid tor their crimes. And wo will make them suffer the same fate, or such other end as we may plan. "When the 'marquis's' torture and rate become known to the public (and this is bound to happen some day) we are sure, it will make people of his type more careful. "We will resume our communiques when the next victim falls into our lands. As at the outset, our device is Inns Coronat Opus' (The ,End Crowns the Work)."

The 'Marquis de Champaubert" was sentenced in 1924 for having arranged an ambush in a villa near Dinard, by which ho and his mistress hoped to obtain possession of a valuable collection of jewellery.