SLAIN BY ROADSIDE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 489, 19 October 1928, Page 9

SLAIN BY ROADSIDE

FRENCH MYSTERY CRIME STRANGE MIDNIGHT LIGHT (United P.A. — By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian end X.Z. Press Association) Reed. 9 a.m. PARIS, Thursday. A roadside mystery murder has been revealed near Mouticrs, recalling: the case of Mestorino last March. The partly-charred body of a man named Lazier. aged 25. was found. His hand was clutching a tuft of hair. Nearby was a neatly-folded pile of clothing and a paraffin bottle. There were numerous footprints, but no signs of a wound or strangulation. A stone-breaker saw thereabout at midnight a strangj light, like a large, waving torch.

After being questioned for nearly 20 hours, from ii a.m. to -1.30 p.m. next day. with only brief intervals for meals. Mesterino, a jeweller, confessed on March 14 this year to th*» murder of Truphene. a jeweller’s traveller, who was found bound and burned by a roadside at Me lu n, on March 1. Mesterino was exhausted, mentally and physically. At the close the police, two at a time, took turns at Hinging questions until resistance ended, and Mesterino murmured: "Yes, I am the man. For pity’s sake, give me a rest." Then he collapsed. Next morning the police took Mesterino to his house in the Rue St. Augustin, for a reconstruction of the crime. There •was an immense crowd outside and there was very hostile shouting of "To the guillotine !" Mesterino confessed that Truphene demanded money which was owing to him, and this caused a violent quarrel, in the course of which Truphene was knocked down, and hit his head on a corner of the table. When he recovered consciousness he shouted for help. Mesterino said ho lost liis head and suffocated his adversary by stuffing a wad of cotton in his mouth. He tied up the body, drove it in a car and burned it. Then he returned to Paris and continued his business.