REVOLTING MURDER IN FRANCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 224, 24 September 1877, Page 4

REVOLTING MURDER IN FRANCE.

A trial for murder under most atrocious circumstances has just taken place at Marseilles. The accused were a young man named L6on Vitalis, and a young woman, Maria Boyer, and the victim was the mother of the female prisoner. The elder woman, who was a widow, kept a small general shop, with her daughter, and besides possessed a little fortune of 30,000 f. or 40,000 f. The man assistant to a dealer in second-hand books, courted the daughter, and the mother at first promised her in marriage, but shortly afterwards illicit relatious sprang up between Mdme. Boyer and Vitalis, and she then refused to consent to the marriage of her daughter with her paramour. The man, however, pressed her to fulfil her promise, and Maria Boyer was also anxious for the marriage. Not being able to overcome the resistance of the mother, they resolved to get rid of her by crime. The woman was murdered in a room behind the shop, the daughter looking on and handing Vitalis a large cheese-knife to despatch the mother, who resisted while he was strangling her. The body was then cut up in the cellar by the man, the daughter from time to time pulling up the trap door to inquire how was getting on. After the face had been mutilated so as to reader identification impossible, the remains were put in a sack, and a barrow having been hired, were wheeled at night down to the sea shore and left there. This ghastly work accomplished the worthy couple went back to the house, The crime was discovered next morning, and the young woman having giving a very unsatisfactory account of tbe disappearance of her mother, she and her accomplice were at once arrested, when they both confessed tbeir guilt. The trial lasted three days. At the close of it, the , advocate who defended Vitalis only attempted to obtain the admission of extenuating circumstances for his client, by which a capital sentence would be escaped. Tha couuael for Maria Boyer asked for au acuitgtal on the ground of insanity. The court condemued the man to death, and the daughter to hard labour for life.