TWO WOMEN MURDERED.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 February 1922, Page 12

TWO WOMEN MURDERED.

THREE BROTHERS ARRESTED. The finding in a flat in Turin of the dead bodies of Miss Cogo, 64, the mistress, and her adopted daughter, Rita Bordon, 21, has led to the arrest of three brothers, nephews o-f the older woman, and her maid. On December 6 the maid, Margherita Palermo, told the police that she had found her mispress and the girl dead. The police immediately went to the house with Palermo and found in the diningroom the bodies of Miss Cogo, fully dressed, sitting on the sofa, while Rita, also dressed, was lying on the floor. It was supposed that the two women had been poisoned by carbon dioxide fumes from the stove. The case appeared perfectly plain until the maid was questioned. She declared that during the night she heard a cry, went into the passage outside the diningroom, noticed nothing, and went back to bed. The next morning she took from th 6 kitchen the can in which she usually fetched the milk, opened the diningroom door, saw the girl’s legs under the table, and rushed downstairs in a great fright and fetched the police. The story was utterly unlike the story told by a servant in a flat above Miss Cogo’s, who said that she saw Palermo returning with the milk and ga out again a few minutes later. Also the police could not understand why Paler*loo had not immediately called Carlo and Agostino Cogo, nephews of the dead woman, who were living on the same floor of the same house. Their suspicions thoroughly aroused, the police began to make closer investigations, and- they discovered the following facts: — First, the two women were badly dressed, the old woman lacking her corsets and the heavy woollen garments she always wore. The girl’s clothes also were badly buttoned and she lacked a shoe. Secondly, near the noses and mouths were marks which a doctor declared might be caused by an attempt at anaesthetising. Thirdly, there were recent marks of blood on the pillows of both women. Fourthly, the jersey of the girl was caught under the stove, therefore it was impossible that she could have fallen there, but must have been placed there, the stove being moved later. These considerations led the police to believe tliat the two women had been anaesthetised, stifled in bed. then dressed and placed in the dining-rom in such a position as to lead people to believe it was an accident. The police arrested Palermo, who next morning declared she had opened the door after midnight to two men who murdered the women. Later she confessed that the two men were Carlo and Agostino Cogo, who were immediately arrested.

The post mortem revealed that the women had been stifled and that the murder occurred at 11 p.m. Marks on the girl’s body showed that three men were implicated, wherefore the eldest brother. Giacinto Cogo, who was in Turin at the time and was unable to prove an alibi, was also arrested.