MURDER AS A BUSINESS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 245, 25 March 1915, Page 4

MURDER AS A BUSINESS.

A\ MODERN BLUEBEARD.

;DROWNS' THREE WIVES IN THEIR

BATH.

ißy Cable—Press Association—Copyright owfo»," March 23. Smith\ a, frequently married man, whose wives died under suspicious circumstances, is now charged with the murder of three of his vivos.

Smith is charged with murdering Beatrice Mundy in Jul), 1912, Ali-a Burnham in December, 1913, and Margaret Lofty in Deecmber, 1914. Mr Bodkin, presecuting, said that Smith obtained £2BOO by two of tho deathß and might have .obtained £7OO by the third. During the period of hh) crimes Smith intermittently cohabited with a fourth woman with whom he .iontractod a bogus marriage, the legal wife whom he married in 1808, being still alive. In all three cases he pereuiydcd the women to make wills appoints* him solo legatee. All were drowned is baths. Smith was always the first to discover their death. Mundy was t'jo daughter of a bank manager at Weymouth, and inherited £2500. Smith was born at Bow in 1872 and was for some time a dealer in second-hand fur- ?•* niture and antiques. Mr Bodkin added that after each * death Smith disappeared and rejoined Edith Pegler, whom he married in I'JOS, ' but left for" weeks and months. la ■■ each case the woman was in a atrauge : ; house, yet left the Bathroom door unfastened. -, :

.Mundy purchased a bath for 37s 6d on July 5 and executed a will on July 8. Prisoner, on the 10th, called in a doctor and said his wife had had a fit. I%e doctor examined her and found no signs of this. Similarly, on the 12th, when the doctor was again called, and on the 13th, he found Mundy in the-bath with her head submerged. Mr Bodkin asserted that her head must have been forced under or her leas raised in order to allow her head to slide down.

Smith insured Burnbam for £SOO on December 4. Arriving in Blackpool on the 10th, he refused apartments whero there was no bathroom, and consulted a doctor about Burnham's headaches. She was drowned on the 12th. A quantity of hair was found on the sides of tho bath as though there had been some straggle. Prisoner insisted on Mundy and Burnham being buried inexpensively