MURDER MYSTERY OF THE CENTURY.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LV, Issue 13877, 1 February 1909, Page 7

MURDER MYSTERY OF THE CENTURY.

BEAUTIFUL WOMAN'S CONFESSIONS. LATE PRESIDENT FAURE'K DEATH .

People in the Story

M. Steinheil : A well-known French painter, found strangled m his room. Mme. Japy: M. Steinheil's mother-in-law, also found dead. Mme. Steinheil: Wile of the dead painter. Mile. Steinheil: A daughter. The Valet Couillard : Accused oi murder by Mmc Steinheil, but examined and released. Wolff: Son of Mme. Steinheil's housekeeper, also accused of murder by Mmc Steinheil, examined and released. M. Hamard: Tho famous French detective. The late- President Faure, in whose study Mme. Steinheil was on the night that' the President died. , i

No artist in fiction since novel-writ-ing began surely ever conceived such an amazing romance of crime ■as the Steinheil case which is now convulsing France. It has become a national topic, and every other subject, even the menace of war in the Balkans, has been eclipsed by it. Here is the history of the affair in brief: First Phase.— On May 31 last M. Steinheil, a painter, and Mmc Japy,. his wife's stepmother, were found, both strangled^ in their adjoining bedrooms of the former's house in the Impasse Ronsin, in the Montparnasse neighbourhood. The double crime was discovered by Remy Couillard, the servant, who lived at the top of the house, and had heard nothing during the night. He first found Mmc Steinheil bound and scratched, but otherwise unhurt. In another room Mmc Japy lay dead on her bed, having been! throttled. In a third bedroom, on the floor, was the dead body of M. Steinheil, huddled up as if he had tried his best to cope with hi* assailant or assailants.

Mmc Steinheil said the murder was committed by three men clothed in Glack robes and accompanied by a redhaired woman. The police made investigations, but at length abandoned them, and the affair passed into the list of unsolved crimes.