WEIGHTED BODY

Evening Star, Issue 19664, 17 September 1927, Page 1

WEIGHTED BODY

C HIM I«LO<JJ) SI'X'I!KT. IMurtler will mil, despite il 10 besf-lahl plans of faithless wives android-blooded lovers. Tito waters of Urn Mississippi River tune receded. giving up ilieir dead, and a wife and lover liavc confessed Ilieir pari in a tragedy. Down in i'j'anklin, Louisiana, near Baton Kongo. neighbors all knew 'hat handsome and prosperous Dr Thomas Droller loved the wife of dames Lebocuf, general manager of the Kleciric Light Power Company. They also knew that dim suspected it. 'When Jim disappeared the neighbors grew suspicious, but his wife went oil' in a fit of bad temper and would return. Italcr, two men, frog hunting, with flash lamps on the ground, from which the flood waters wore receding, found Lcboucf’s body. It was shot, slashed with a knife, and weighted with irons to prevent it rising. Mrs Lebonef broke down, and confessed her share of the. crime. "One evening f induced dim to lake a boat ride, and then notified the doctor by telephone,” she said. “Jim hail Hie, boat, and T went in a skiff, unwilling lo bo in Ibo boat when my husband was killed. “My skiff was oOft behind on the river'ncar the negro schoolhonsc when Droller and a trapper appeared in another boat. The flapper fired twice at. a distance of Gft. Then f went home.” Droller, arrested and .confronted with the wife’s confession, admitted that the trapper killed Lebonef at his instigation and then slushed the body. “Then wo tied him securely with weights,” he added, "look him in his own boat to Lake Poniard, and threw liim overboard.” Dreber said Lebonef bad threatened to kill, him because of his relations with his wife. When Drehcr was confronted with the trapper, who was also arrested, ho said; “Jig is up. We’ve told everything. Come clean.” The trapper sneered at his employer and refused to make a. statement.