Questioned All Night

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 45, 16 May 1927, Page 6

Questioned All Night

Murderer’s Morning Confession * The crimes of Landru, the Paris Bluebeard, are recalled by the confession this morning, after a night of cross-examination, of Jean Jules Vermande that he murdered his wife at Nancy and burned her remains in a furnace. Vermande and his wife were employed in a printing works at Nancy and lodged in a small house giving access to it. For months husband and wife had not been on the best of terms, but a fortnight ago Mme. Vermande disappeared, and her husband allowed it to be known that she had run away. A few days later Vermande asked to be paid off, telling his employer that he was going to Indo-China to begin life afresh. No suspicion had been aroused, and nothing more might have been known but for the zeal of one of the stokers employed by the firm. He had noticed that Vermande, some days before, had lit the big central heating plant, which had been allowed to die out some time before, and had given as an explanation that it was to dry some brickwork which had been put up on the first floor. The stoker was annoyed, as he had already cleaned out the furnace, and when Vermande had gone he raked it out to give it a thorough clean. Police Wait All Day Among the ashes he was surprised to notice something that looked like a piece of human bone. Calling another workman he sifted the cinders very carefully and found other calcined bones, stumps of teeth, and heattwisted hooks of a pair of corsets. The discovery, coupled with the fact that the woman was missing, was made known to the police. Orders were telegraphed to the Paris police to arrest Vermande, who had gone thither with a young woman named "Windeck. He had asked that the remainder of the money due to him should be sent to a post office, and two detectives waited for him there the whole of yesterday. About ten minutes before the office was due to close Vermande, accompanied by the woman, appeared, and both were arrested. Vermande was questioned all night by detectives of the Surete-Generale, and at first obstinately proclaimed big innocence. At 10 o’clock this morning, however, he broke down and confessed. “On March 13 I had a quarrel with my wife,” he said, “and she told me that she was going to leave me. I saw ‘red’ and seized her neck with ny hand. I do not know what happened, but when I looked at her she was dead. “I was very frightened, and then I remembered that I had lit the big furnace the night before, and I took the body down on my shoulders and pushed it in. The next day I looked in the furnaces, but I could see nothing but glowing red coals.” Vermande, who is a tall handsome man of unusual strength, swore that Mme. Windeck knew nothing about his crime, and asked to be allowed to see her. The police consented and when she arrived he threw himself at her feet and sobbed his confession. He was then taken to the Sante prison.