CONFESSIONS OF MURDER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 30, 1 March 1909, Page 4

CONFESSIONS OF MURDER.

GERMAN POLICE METHODS. Two confessions of murder in one day are to be placed to the credit of the. system which gives the flerman police a free hand in the cross-examination, of prisoners.

A shop assistant named Richard Ilenkrl excited -suspicion while attempting to pawn five rings. The police were called in, and the rings wotc recognised as having been stolen from the jeweller Frankfurter, who was shot dead at Vienna on Bth December. Henkel at first attempted to prove an alibi, which he had evidently premeditated before the crime, hut finally broke down under severe cross-questioning, and admitted his guilt. Ife then told how. driven desperate by privation, he went into the jeweller's shop liolding a cocked pistol in his pocket, and while fieri- Frankfurter w _ as showing him some chains, drew the weapon out and shot him through the head.

The other confession was obtained from the architect Maagh. a fellowtraveller of the insuranw* agent Kegel wlio was found shot dead in an earlymorning train from Coblcnz to Treves on 10th December. In this case the admission of guilt was only obtained after the prisoner had been examined day after day for hours at a time, and after he kid involved himself in an inextricable web o't contradictions. Maagh's motive for killing his friend, was the hope of finding on the body enough money to relieve the financial embarrassment in which he had managed to involve himself.