EXTRAORDINARY MURDER CASE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1641, 1 October 1887, Page 3

EXTRAORDINARY MURDER CASE.

In his lucid and temperate summing-up of the case against Israel Lipski, who on July 30th was found guilty of the murder of Miriam Angel, a young married woman residing with her husband in Whitechapel, Mr Justice Stephen remarked that the case before the jury was most extraordinary, and chat ho had never in his own long experience known of one which presented so many remarkable features. Ti e Whitechapel murder is indeed almost unprecedented in the peculiar nature of its barbarity and of the directness with which circumstantial evidence, and circumstantial evidence alone, has brought the crime home to the accused man. Lipski, who has been sentenced to death, is described as a mild-looking, open-faced young fellow of twenty-two. The prisoner and his victim lived in the same house, Lipski occupying a top back room, where he carried on the trade of a manufacturer of walking-sticks, having a man and a boy as his assistants. On the morning of June 28th the husband of Miriam Angel rose at six, and went to work, leaving his wife in bed. At seven o’clock Lipski let into the house the boy who worked for him, and then went out himself to make some purchases. Among these was an ounce of nitric acid O' aquafortis, which he procured from an oilman in the neighborhood. About nine o’clock Lipski asked his landlady to fetch him some coffee ; it was duly brought, but Lipski was not in his room and on the landlady calling upstairs to him the boy replied that his master was not there. The theory of the prosecution was that just about this time Lipski had entered the room wher* Miriam Angel was in bad. About eleven in the forenoon the people of the house began to be uneasy about Mrs Angel, who usually came down between eight and nine. Soon afterwards the handle of her door was tried, and it was found to be locked on the inside. The door was burst open, and the unfortunate woman ms found lying dead on the bed. A medical man, who was at once sent for, deposed that, when he was called, Miriam Angel had been dead about three hours. There was no “rigor mortis.” She was * without clothes, and her hair was dishevelled ; there were stains of nitric acid on-her mouth, her face, her breasts, and her hands, which were covered by the burning fluid. The right eye was discolored, and over the right temple was a patch of extravasated blood, where the muscle had been reduced to a pulp by the , infliction of—the doctor held— at least four violent blows. Stepping over the corpse and looking down between the bed and the wall in search of the bottle of poison, which be naturally thought must be somewhere about, the medical gentleman espied Israel Lipski lying in his shirtsleeves on his back partially under the bed. He was unconscious, but on the doctor hitting him a smart slap on the face he opened his eyes wide. The police took him towards a window, and it was then seen that his lips were stained with nitric acid. He was asked in English and German what he had taken, but he made no reply. He was removed to the hospital, but as from the first he bad been an object of suspicion the police never left him until he was formally charged with the murder, 1 and a constable in plain clothes sat by his %»bedside day and night until he was convalescent, Meanwhile a post-mortem examination of the remains of Miriam Angel ®had been made. It was found that the back of the throat was charred, and that a considerable quantity of the nitric acid had gone down through the larynx and the trachea into the stomach, indicating that it had been poured down the throat while the victim was in a state of insensibility. As regards Lipski, the medical evidence was to the effect that he had taken scarcely enough aquafortis to produce unconsciousness, bat that the state of syncope was the result of mental perturbation. In fine, the hypothesis of the prosecution amounted to this—that there was a small window commanding a view of Mrs Angel’s room ; that the murderer, whoever he was, had seen Mrs Angel in bed from that window; that he came downstairs and entered her room for an immoral purpose ; that, foiled in his design, he dealt his victim the blows which . had produced insensibility, and that he then poisoned her, and ultimately, frenzied by horror, remorse, and shame, endeavored to commit suicide himself. The assistant to the oilman swore that, to " the beat of his belief, the man who purchased from him the aquafortis was Israel Lipski, who explained that he wanted the stuff for the purpose of staining canes, and that the oilman’s assistant warned him that the acid was poisonous. One of the most damaging features of the evidence against Lipski was the falsehood he told about having had a sovereign in his pocket on the morning of the murder, when it wan conclusively proved that when arrested he only had a few ahillujga in his pocket, and that he had that very morning liied to borrow five shillings from his landlady. The prisoner’s statement, made through an interpreter, was to the effect that at seyen in the morning of the 28th a man who bad worked for him came to him and asked for employment, and that he told this person to wait until he bad bough t a vyoe for use at bis labor. He added that the tool

• shop where he meant to buy the vyce was stili closed ; that as he was going along he met another German workman whom he knew, at the corner of Buckchurch lane; be then returned to the tool shop, * which by this time was open, but he could - not agree with the shopkeeper as to tiie price of the vyce, and came away without it. On his way borne he ugaiu met the man whom he bad seen at the top of Buckchurch lane, and who also asked him for work. Lipski told this mau that he was going to have his breakfast, but bade him come a little later on *o the workshop when .be promised to engage him. hie relume ! to Bally street and asked the landlady to m»ke him some coffee, and while it was being made he dispatched i the first man who had called on him for ' some bran i). Dowd to this point Lipski’s statement is plain sailing enough : but now comes the extraordinary and incredible portion of the narruiive. He stated that, coming upstairs to the first

floor, the man who had been sent for the brandy, and the man from Backchurch Lane, were opening a in Mrs Angel’s bedroom; Hint tiny seiz'd him by the neck, threw him to the ground, forced open his mouth, youred poison down his throat, mockingly saying, “ There is your brandy.” Then they asked him whether he had any money, and ho replied that he had nothing-, but the rovereign which he had given the first man to buy brandy with. “Where,” they proceeded to ask him, “ was his gold wu'ch 1 ” He replied that it was in pawn, and indeed, a pawn-ticket for a watch was found in his coat pocket. They threatened him that if he did not give them the watch he would soon be as dead as the woman on the bed (meaning Miriam Angel), and according to his showing they crammed a piece of wood between his teeth to act ns a gag, knelt on his chest, and at last threw him under the bed, wuere he lay unconscious. All that the defence could urge was that, although Miriam Angel had undeniably been killed by nitric acid, there was noi sufficient evide”ce to show that Lipski was the man who bought the pennyworth of corrosive fluid on the morning of the murder, and there was an entire absence of motive so far as Lipski was concerned for the commission of so horrible a crime. The jury, however, took the view shadowed forth in the summing up by Mr Justice found the prisoner guidy. Lipski subsequoetly confessed hi« guilt.