PARIS MURDER.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 June 1922, Page 5

PARIS MURDER.

BODY IN A TRUNK. WOMAN KILLS HUSBAND. DAUGHTER’S CONFESSION. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Received June 22, 5.5 pjm. Paris, June 21. The sensational murder trial, in which Madam Bessarabo and her daughter by her first husband were accused of murdering her second husband, has concluded. Madam Bessarabo was found guilty under extenuating circumstances and her daughter was acquitted. Madam Bassarabo was sentenced to 20 years’ servitude. A sensation was caused when the daughter declared that her mother killed Bessarabo. The mother feigned madness, and denied all knowledge of the crime. The girl’s confession followed a dramatic speech by her counsel, who was overcome ; by emotion at the close of the oration and collapsed. The confession caused a sensation in court, during which the daughter turned her back on her mother, sheilding | her face with her hands. Amid agonised I sobs, she said: “I will tell everything. I heard a shot, and ran to the door of my bedroom. I found it locked, and I shouted, ‘Mother! Mother!’ ” Her mother repbed: “It is nothing; the geyser has exploded in the bathroom.” When the door opened she saw the body, and said to her mother: “You did it!” Her mother replied: “It was his life or mine.” She said she was afraid, and would not help her mother to dispose of the body, so they pushed it in a trunk. The trunk would not lock, so they roped it firmly, hired a car, and sent it to Nancy. The excitement over the girl’s confession was increased by the mother’s cries of protest, though at the end the mother still maintained her innocence. Bessarabo’s first husband was found dead in 1914, with a bullet in his head, and the inquest decided it was suicide.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn. [Madam Bessarabo and her daughter by her first husband were accused of murdering her second husband, packing the body in a trunk and sending it from Paris to Nancy, where it was discovered in the lost property office. The mother is aged 50 and is a fairly-well-known poetess and a writer of romance. She was also suspected of murdering her first husband. There were several incidents during the trial, such as women breaking down during the judge’s examination, shrieking “Spare my mother!" and “Spare my daughter!” The poetess once admitted the murder to the police, but said she did so in order to save her daughter being sent to the St. Lazarre Prison, where women of the street are sent.]