MURDER MYSTERY

Taranaki Daily News, 23 December 1919, Page 5

MURDER MYSTERY

THE PARIS BLUEBEARD. ' [ ' WIFE AND SON ARRESTED. By Telesrapli.>-Press Assn.—Copyright. Paris, Dee. 19. 1/andru's wife and son have been arrested for complicity in Landru's alleged crimes. They have been charged with receiving and forgery. It is alleged | that his wife received money, jewels, and furniture belonging to Landru's victims and profited by the realisation of the fortune of a victim, the widow Buisson, she posing as Madame Buisson in the presence of a banker, while Landru simultaneously posed as a brother-in-law of M. Buisson. They both signed the transfer of Buisson's securities. His wife acted similarly in order to withdraw the bank deposits of the victims. —Aus,-NjZ. Cable Assn.

[Landru, who has been described as the Paris bluebeard was charged with the murder of ten. Women, with some of whom he is stated to have gone through a form of marriage. A search for traces of his alleged victims has been carried on at his villa at Cambais since April last. Landru's criminal history date's from 1903, when he carried on a swindling employment agency, offering his victims surveying work and then disappearing with their caution money and their bicycles. Later, he established himself in fine offices in Paris, advertised partnerships or situations, and when he had obtained large sums ai security, frightened his clients by accusing them of robbing his safe, which was purposely left open. If they protested their innocence and refused to be blackmailed, Landru called in the police. /Finally he was caught and served several long terms of imprisonment. In connection with the missing women, with whose murder he is now charged, he interceptediand carefully preserved letters tliey gave him to post, neatly docketed their photographs and private papers, retained linen and jewellery belonging to them, and behavwl generally more like a homicidal maniac than a conscious criminal. The amount of circumstantial evidence which he stored up against himself is appalling. In October the skeletons of four women were discovered at Landru's estate as Oambais. Landru's clever attitude before the examining magistrate led to the belief that he was not guilty of murder but was concerned in a widespread white slave traffic, in which he employed his so-called fiancees. The discovery of the skeletons reinstated the murder theory.]