FRENCH MURDER TRIAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 June 1922, Page 5

FRENCH MURDER TRIAL.

sensational' scenes. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Paris, June 11. The Bessarbo trial has been marked by sensational scenes, mother and daughter protesting their innocence in floods of vituperative eloquence, which the Judge and counsel were powerless to quell. Madame angrily denied the allegations of past loose conduct, defining her relations with men as spiritual lias ions. The tensest moment of the trial was when the Judge asked how the trunk containing her husband’s corpse came to leave the house. Madame made a long explanation, concluding, “I did not kill my husband; do what you like with me." The Judge then examined the daughter, who said, “I cannot speak freely; there is a secret in this. If revealed, it would completely alter the ease.” Madame, fixing intent eyes on her daughter, hereupon exclaimed in Spanish, “I forbid you to say anything.” Insinuating that she loves the actual murderer and will sacrifice herself if necessary to shield him, Mdlle. Bessarbos resisted the prolonged appeals of the Judge and her own counsel to reveal her secret. Tremblingly she told the Judge: ‘‘My mother told me the whole truth when I seemed to be at the point of death. I refuse to reveal it.” The Judge then appealed to the mother for the last time: “Will you speak?”

The mother replied: “We are not guilty, but I will accuse nobody.” The police themselves believe an unknown man is implicated.