MURDER SUSPECT

Hokitika Guardian, 22 October 1929, Page 6

MURDER SUSPECT

,v l, FRENCH SENSATION. (United Press Association—By Electric, Telegraph—Copyright). PARIS, October 20. A so-called “Wicker Trunk Mystery,” which has excited Paris for seveial weeks, has reached a crisis in a fortyeight hours, relentless, third degree examination of an Armenian tailor named Almazian. The dead man was Frederic Rigaudin, an accountant, whose body was found in a wicker trunk at tlie World Railway Station at Lille on September 13th. It. was known that Rigaudin was the lover of Madame Almazian, a pretty young Pansienne. The police slowly became convinced that the love affair was the real explanation of the murder, which was complicated by the farct that Rigaudin’s mother was ‘ strangled mysteriously in her rooms last April. The Armenian, Almazian, who has been . without sleep for two days, is slowly breaking down under the relentless inquisiton. He cries continually: “I am innocent,” hut the police hope l for a confession from him at any moment. The police are taking turns in questioning the suspect. They are utilising hits of evidence that they found in the tailor’s shop, such as recent human blood stains discovered on the floor and the walls; & piece of wire, the same size as that used for tying up the trunk, and fragments of cotton wool similar to that wrapped round the dead man’s, head.

~ The police also read aloud his wife’s love letters to the dead man, proving her misconduct. Rigaudin had as an accountant, been engaged upon tax collection frauds for some time. The police first believed that he had tried to blackmail some of his clients, and that consequently he was murdered. This false clue had prevented suspicion from falling on Almazian any earlier.