DOUBLE MURDER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22985, 14 September 1936, Page 16

DOUBLE MURDER

GODPARENTS SLAIN BODIES BURIED IN GARDEN RACEHORSE TRAINER’S CRIME Once a well-known figure at Newmarket and Doncaster (England) sales of bloodstock, Andre Martin, the French trainer and breeder of racehorses, has been sentenced to death for the murder of a Caen jeweller and his wife. M. and Mme. Roussel. Martin made a brazen attempt to fasten the guilt on another wellknown figure in the racing world, M. Marie, but after a trial lasting two days he was found guilty. The two victims were the godparents of Martin. On the night of the crime he had invited them to his house at Saint Contest, and killed them both, afterwards burying the bodies in the grounds of the Yellow House, as his establishment was known. In order that he might’'the better carry out his plans he sent his wife

into Caen to the pictures. | After he had disposed of the bodies, he broke into the shop of the I couple at Caen and stole a consider- I able quantity of jewellery and several thousand francs. The prosecution declared that Martin was heavily in debt at the time and that M. Roussel had refused to lend him more money. He killed M. Roussel, they urged, to obtain the money he needed. REVISED HIS STORY When first arrested Martin denied all knowledge of the crime, but later declared that it had been committed by a man he only knew by his nickname of “ Carroty Hair.” He afterwards revised his story and denounced his friend and fellowtrainer as the assassin, saying that his own part had been limited to•; burying the bodies of the victims in order to screen the other man. Martin asserted that Marie had enticed the couple to the house with the story that he wanted to discuss business with them, and when Marie had been refused a loan he shot the couple dead before Martin could interfere. “ Loving Marie as a brother,” he told the judge, “I decided to help him to hide his crime by burying the bodies in cement in the grounds of my house.” The prosecution were satisfied that there was no truth in the allegations against the trainer Marie, and that the crime had been premeditated by Martin and carried out by him alone. It was established that Martin had prepared the grave some days before and that he alone had placed the bodies there after the crime. He had purchased slabs of cement and lime with which to cover the bodies. To the last Martin stuck to his story of the guilt of his friend, in spite of the judge’s warnings, but the jury found him guilty without extenuating circumstances. _ Their verdict automatically carried the death penalty with it. “ You have condemned an innocent man,” he said as the jury filed out of the room at the end of the trial.