VISION OF CRIME.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 318, 3 June 1911, Page 10

VISION OF CRIME.

Now York, April 7. I'rob-ably for the first time in history n man has been convicted of murder on the strength of a vision. The evidence! heard in the trial at Xcw Jersey of William Strong, a fanner, who was accused of murdering his wife, suggested an episode as bizarre and terrible as- in the famous dream scene in "The Bells," so magnificently played by the laic Sir Henry Irving. Mine. Pauline Girard, a clairvoyant, was the chief witness for the prosecution. On her evidence, despite the protest of counsel for the accused. Strong was convicted. Mine. Girard calls herself a "plivcliometrist." ller method is to hold in'her hand a trinket hi longing to Hie person concerned, on which, she declares, a vision of his past arises before her. Strong was persuaded to visit her. and while she involved a vision two detectives hidden behind a screen in her parlor watched the effect on the accused. In her evidence, the clairvoyant described the murderer of her client's wife as wearing glasses and having fair hair, ''lie sat on the corpse for a long while." she went on dreamily, describing her vision. On (his Strong, it was alleged, broke down and confessed with sobs that the murderer she had pictured was himself. In Court Strong declared that the confession was extracted from him after Mine. Girard had placed him in a trance. Though counsel for the defence denounced the prosecution ''as having outstepped all bounds of decency" in securing .the assistance of the clairvoyant, whom he characterised as a professional trickster, the jury were unanimous in the conviction. Strong, who is sixty years of age, was sentenced to thirty years' imprisonment.