TRIAL OF DEATH.

Taihape Daily Times, 16 May 1919, Page 6

TRIAL OF DEATH.

GRIM MYSTERY OF GERMS AND

POISONS

VICTIMS INSURED,

While she was beng entertained by J Henri Girard, a Paris insurance agent, ami his wife, Mddlc. Monin, accepted from them a glass of tonic wine_ Next day she died. During the following week Girard and his wife were paid £16,000 by different insurance companies in respect of policies on her life! But the doctor of one office who examined the body noticed that the dead woman was strangely unlike the one he had passed for insurance. This led to inquiries, which showed that Mdlle. Mouin had been personated by Mins. Girard, and to the discovery .that the couple had insured a number of people without their knowledge Several of these had already died, some of maladies which carried them off in a few days, others of complaints like typhoid fever and anthrax. If the suspicions of the Paris police are fully justified, this promises to prove the annals of the crime.

Giirard and his wife were arrested for defrauding’ the insurance companies and the. publicity given to the case led to an allegation that Girard’s friend Pornotte while suffering from typhoid had died with mysterious suddenness after Girard had given him an injection ordered by a doctor Other suspicious cases came to light, including one in which a young woman, after accepting the couple’s hospitality on two occasions, each time became ill in circumstances which completely baffled her doctor. She recovered, but other guests or acquaintances of the Girard family were less fortunate. Finally it was discovered that some years previously, when Girard was in trouble for-a trifling offence, he was in possession of medical works on poisons and a quantity of dangerous drugs and microbe cultures. He was discharged as being weak-minded, but by some extraordinary blunders bis collection of poisons was returned to him.

Recollection of this incident led to the flat of his woman friend. Mine. Dpuctcau, being searched, and to the finding of traces cf typhoid and anthrax cultures and of morphine, cocaine and cyanide. It is also alleged that he studied poisonous mushrooms and other venomous substances, a ;d. although not a qualified student, carried out experiments on guinea-pigs Moreover, this struggling insurance agent was paying £9OO a ycai for Mn.o, Douetoau’s flat, an 1 through speculation on the, lives of people who died mysteriously had accumulated a large forteune. Girard and his wife ami woman friend were arrested, and now. after ten months’ secret inquiry, they are charged with conspiracy to poison a number of people. Girard, it, is stated, kept a dairy in which he recorded not merely his financial transactions. but also his scientific experiments and this will he produced at the forthcoming trial.