SENSATIONAL MURDER TRIAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 254, 17 March 1913, Page 5

SENSATIONAL MURDER TRIAL.

«3> STRAXf.JLKD AND T.ntXKD. j ])y Cable —Press As.-ociation—Copyright. [ Hcrliu. .March 14. The trial has begun at Frankfort of Sternickel. Two brothers. Kerstens, mid a third man. Scliwcnz. accomplices of Sternickel, coollv rehiled the story of the murders. Tiicy pleaded that they only intended partially to strangle their victims, and did not realise that they had killed them. Early in January a stableman in Poland murdered a fanner, his wife and a servant girl, and nailed up the house to prevent two daughters escaping. The police arrived when the criminal was burning the bodies in a haystack, but he escaped. It appeared later that the man was one .Sternickel, whose fame for eluding the police was almost legendary in Germany. Tkjs was the more remarkable because ihere was no mystery as to his identify or appearance. A world-wide search was made for him in connection with a Kilesian murder, yet Sternickel worked in various places near Berlin, and cultivated rather than shunned the police. He was twice arrested, and escaped bv hoodwinking his captors. His accomplices in the Polish murder slated that Sternickel planned to rob his master, assuring them that no violence would lie used. They left without knowing that his victims were dead. Sternickel picked quarrels with his victims in succession, threw a noose over their heads, and quickly strangled them. Tie intended to burn the house in which the girls were locked.