THIS MURDER OF A MILLIONAIRE BY BURGLARS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1720, 5 April 1888, Page 4

THIS MURDER OF A MILLIONAIRE BY BURGLARS.

The shooting of Mr Snell, the Chicago millionare, is (writes the New York correspondent of the Daily News) one of the most startling instances of a murder by burglars which has happened for many years. It was not till four hours afterwards that the police heard of it. Mr Snell went to bed about ten 10 o’clock, the servants following half an hour later. A little after 2 o’clock the cook was awakened by the sound of five or six pistol shots, fired at short but irregular intervals. Between the shots she could distinguish Mr Snell’s voice crying “ Get out; get out.” She jumped out of bed and aroused another servant. Both crept into the hall on the fourth floor and listened. They could hear nothing, and no answer was made to their calls. Half an hour later they thought they heard a door slowly opened and closed in the lower hall, but they made no attempt to investigate the noise. A little after 6 o’clock the coachman came to the house to light the fires. He went to the basement door and found that just above the latch an oblong block had been cut off the door by boring 18 holes with a halfinch bit, and through this the burglar’s hand had been inserted and the bolt pushed hack. The coachman entered and passed through the hall to the front room in the basement, which Mr Snell used as an office, having it fitted up with a desk and a safe. Here he" saw that the safe had been ransacked, while the floor was strewn with papers. He ran to the hall passage on the parlour floor, where he stumbled and almost fell over the dead body of his employer, who lay there cold and rigid.... A revolver was lying on the floor beside him. It had five chambers, four filled and one empty. There was a bullet wound in the head and another in the heart.

An examination of the premises revealed the manner the murder was committed. The double parlor doors had been locked. By means of a chisel the burglars had broken open the doors and secreted themselves in the parlor. On hearing Mr Snell descend the staircase —for the noise they made in opening the doors evidently awakened him—they shut the doors and took refuge behind them. This was after they had opened the safe. Coming down with a loaded revolver, Mr Snell discovered the presence of the thieves. He shouted to them to get out, and fired a shot through the panel in the door. The bullet lodged in the wall on the opposite side of the room. Two other bullet holes were in the door, having been fired from the inside by the intruders. Then it appeared that Mr Snell attempted to force open the doers, when another shot was fired from within, ploughing a small furrow at the edge of the door as it swung ajar, and probably entering bis body, While he was reeling along the ball from this fatal wound the assassin must have stepped out and sent another bullet through his brain. They then walked out of the house as they came, taking their booty with them, and leaving uo trace behind.