POISONER SENTENCED

Hokitika Guardian, 12 July 1923, Page 3

POISONER SENTENCED

A BELGIAN SEN.-ATION. AUSTRALIAN AM. N.Z. CAULK ASSOCIATION. BRUSSELS, July 11. Henri De Mazieivs lias heel) round guilty, and sentenced lo deaih. On June 281 h. a Rnts-el- message •duli 'i Astonishing ret el,at ions have been made in connection with a pni-mi-irg mv-ieiy in a <-:i-e in which Henri de Mazieivs. who wa- made a Chevaiior of the Legion of Honour for his line war record, is being tried at the Ghent Assizes. He is charged, with murdering his sister-in-law. Valerie.

by means of strychnine tablets, and with forging a.will purporting to be made bv her in favour of h.imseli. A idem died in .May, I! 122, after many attacks of sickness, which caused so much gossip, that the police intervened while the coffin was being taken to t he cemetery. \ |i,M mortem revealed that huge otui otitic. 111 Strychnine had been taken l,\ her ill'! beiore death. No suspicion was attached to Do Alaxieres for some time, until he dropped !,ml, Hint Alice the dead wonum’s 'istcr. was re'ponsihle lor \ alerie s death. The police than made an examination oi IV Al anion', - career and found that he ha- posed as a Yieomte. and also La- managed to marry three j women, though lie had served two, years - imprisonment for forging the, v, ill of a well-to-do Senator, who was | a relative of his mot her. When Ids j tir-1 wife. a. rich Jewess, learned of liisi ~,-j-he divorced her husband, but -he ha- been in the asylum over since. IV Mazier-" married again. His wife mas killed in I’aris by a German bomb. Eitmllv. he married Angele. the sister ,ho murdered woman, whom he met al a matrimonial agency. While ho mas arranging this alliance TV -Mazier,'- mas in amatory correspondence \\ n h it ft v ot her " omen. i T|-.e prosecution alleged that Do At -/ieres poisoned Valerie by giving her chocolates including arsenic, and substituting strychnine for harmless tablets made by the chemist.