BETRAYED BY HIS BOOTS

Otaki Mail, 4 October 1922, Page 4

BETRAYED BY HIS BOOTS

TRENCH MURDERER CONrESSES. A French wireless operator named Raymond Richelet, twenty-two years of age, stands convicted of the murder of his friend, Charles Verrier, owing to a bloodstained pair of shoes which he had left at the boot shop where he purchased a new pair immediately after committing the crime. A man servant in a small Paris hotel discovered Verrier lying dead on the floor of his room with a bullet hole in his head. Suspicion immediately fast' encd'on Richelet, the victim's bosom friend, who had occupied the adjoining room, but who had disappeared. The police began a search, which was unsuccessful. Early one morning a young man walked into the central police station and asked to see the Police Commissioner, saying that he had important information to give.

The visitor, on being taken to the Commissioner's room, immediately began to express indignation at. the article* appearing in the newspapers suggesting that he was guilty of the crime, and begged the Commissioner to take all steps to remove suspicion, and likewise to reassure his father of his innocence. A dramatic dialogue followed, during which the young man admitted that he bought a new suit and a new pair ot shoes, and that he left the old shoes at the bootmakers. A detective fetched the shoes, which bore blood stains, and sent a note to the Commissioner. The Commissioner took the cue, and remarked casually: Do not try to remember where you left the old suit; you threw it into the Seine. This was too much for Richelet. who burst into sobs, and admitted that it was he who killed Verrier.