DUMB WITNESS IN MURDER TRIAL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9068, 20 April 1908, Page 7

DUMB WITNESS IN MURDER TRIAL.

"VIVID ACCOUNT OF TEE CRIME BY SIGNS. The Paris corresponded of the London "Express," writing to his paper on February 2Sth says:— There was an extraordinary scene at the trial of the pris-mnrs in the "Sweeny Todd" murder case fit Langon to day, when one of the witnesses , a deaf and dumb man named Lacampagne, was called to give evidence. An innkeeper named Branchery and his wife are alleged to have systematically murdered and robbed their customers, and two men named Parrot and Gazol are charged as accomplices. The particular charge now being heard concerns the murder of a commercial traveller named Monget, who was killed and robbed, after which his body wa3 thrown into the Garonne. The deaf mute was accompanied to ~the bar to-day by two friends, who acted as interpreters. Lacampane, in dumb show which was wonderfully •expressive, described how he had seen Monget, the raurderad man, in the inn. An hour later Lacampane had gone down into the cellar and seen the murderers washing their hands. He noticed that Mme. Branchery, the innkeeper's wife, had blood on her apron, and in a marvellous piece * of dumb show which would have been highly effective on the stage, he showed to the court the horror that he felt when he discovered the body. Branchery, the innkeeper, surprised him immediately after the •discovery, struck him on the head, and threw him out of the inn. He went for shelter to an outhouse and tried to sle«p, but could not. All this was expressed by the witness as clearly as if he had said it. At one o'clock in the morning he saw the cellar door open. Gazol, the smuggler, came out with a lighted candle, and Branchery and his accomplice Parrot followed with the wheelbarrow in which was the body of Monget tied up in a blanket. Throughout Lacampagne's evidence^' which made a tremendous impression, ■on the court, Branchery and Parrot repeatedly interrupted before the interpreters could explain, shrieking -out that the man was lying.