A TERRIBLE CRIME.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 403, 27 June 1908, Page 4

A TERRIBLE CRIME.

A terrible crime was committed near Meaux, an old woman named Verite being assassinated, it is believed, by her grandson, a halfwitted man of 31. The alleged assassin (says the Paris correspondent of the Morning Leader) was betrayed by the strangest of clues. Eugene Verite is a cripple, and on Monday morning curious tracks were discovered leading across a plough field where he had been working to the murdered woman’s farm, a few hundred yards away, and a second track leading back again. Now, a peculiar irregularity noticeable in the steps points unmistakably to tbeir having been made by a lame man. In addition to this the accused is scratched all over the face. The doctor who held the post-mortem examination on the victim says that the crime was horrible beyond words. The assassin must have seized his victim, who was eighty years of age, and held her face downwards over the fire in order to force her to say where her money was hidden. Infuriated at her obstinacy, he must then have seized a knife and killed her, after which he set fire to the bedding, hoping thus to destroy every trace of his crime. He was unable to find the treasure, for the police have, after a long search, discovered it undisturbed. When arrested Eugene Verite was calmly gathering nettles by the wayside.