Crime Facts That Beat Fiction.

Hokitika Guardian, 26 March 1923, Page 3

Crime Facts That Beat Fiction.

(By G. T. Crook.) Ji 1 were a writer of fiction I .should try to eclipse all other fiction writers by writing stories that nobody would believe. ] should al l.n-i have the satisfaction of knowing- that I should ho nciiivr the truth than anybody eLe. 'I lie tragedy of the Bey. in's Park niv--lery-hott-e is true. If a novelist had evolved a i-liaraci.-r like AL-.lthy he would have been ridiculed. Yet ALiltby did live alone ill ihe e-u with the eorp.se of a woman in the bath and for nearly five months be eooked and ate his meals in that bathroom. And be shot him-eil as the detectives entered. Gorge Smith murdered three wives by drowning them one after another in a bath. In all three cases a verdict ol Aceidonta I Death was returned. In a novel Grippen would have been regarded as impossible. He poe oeml Io- wife- and took every bone out of her body, lie preserved the flesh, vfiirfi lie could have easily disposed of by burying ii in the 10-ciiioiil of bis bruise, and he mysteriously and successfully got lid of the bones. Murderers would not bo allowed to do these things in fiction. A few yea's a thief .stripped a West End jewcllei’s shop window of the whole stock of valuable gems and actually roplaeoi.l them with worthless substitutes, which were art noticed un--1! I an assisiaiii tool; one of them out of the window to show a customer.