SINGULAR STORY OF CRIME AND ITS DETECTION.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 553, 27 March 1876, Page 3

SINGULAR STORY OF CRIME AND ITS DETECTION.

A singular story of crime and its detection is related in Galignani. At the Court of Assizes of the Seine on January 10th, a woman of about forty, named Laporte, was being tried on an accusation of stealing a quantity of jewellery, worth 250,000 f, from Mrs Stevens, an American lady, who had been last year temporarily residing in Loudon, and in whose service the prisoner was employed as lady’s maid. The robbery was committed in June last, but nothing was heard of the prisoner until July, when the French police arrested her in Paris, but could not find any trace of the missing valuables, and the prisoner persistently asserted her innocence. At the trial she maintained the same attitude, and, as no material proof was forthcoming, she was apparently about to be acquitted, when (tjje report says) “a sudden movement in the Court excited the attention of the audience. M. Fournier, advocate, entered, carrying a lady’s bonnet box, and followed by two young women. He addressed the judge, and recounted the following circumstance : ‘ Mdlle Cazat, who is the governess of my children, was sent this morning by my wife to Auteuil, to ask for the character of a cook about to be engaged by us. There she called on a dressmaker named Heinen, and, in the course of conversation, spoke of the present trial, and mentioned the name of the prisoner. The other exclaimed, “iLaporte! why, I know her ; she left a box with me some time ago, and 1 have not seen her since ; suppose it should contain the jewels.” After a little consultation they decided on at once taking a cab, and driving off to inform me of the circumstance. This they did, and I now introduce them to the Court.’ The judge ordered the box to be opened, and one of the ushers of the Court, having forced the lock, drew out the jewelcase with its contents complete. The prisoner was convicted of the robbery, and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment, and the reward of 5000 f, which had been offered for the discovery of the thief, was directed to be divided between the two young worn in who were the means of tracing the crime home to the prisoner.