HORRIBLE MURDERS IN FRANCE

West Coast Times, Issue 328, 11 October 1866, Page 1 (Supplement)

HORRIBLE MURDERS IN FRANCE

Tlie " Globe" giA-cs the following narration of the numerous horrid crimes AA'hich it is supposed have been committed by the French muvderer Phillippe, avlio is now lying under sentence of death at Paris, for having, assassinated Marie Victoire Bodeux, and attempted to kill Avidow Midy : —

" On the 1 lth January lost, a middleaged widow lady in Paris, Madame Midy,'by profession a painter, narrowly escaped being murdered. A man who had lately been in her house as a workman in the emploj T ment of a framemaker Avhom she patronised, Avas the intended murderer ; and he had doubiless been tempted to the deed in order to ,rob his victim of some -small but valuable paintings which had been entrustedto her by a Polish prince. He called under pretence of looking for • a' tool AA'hich he had accidentally left behind. Not finding it, he "dreAv from his pocket a bolster-cove-, askiug the lady if it did not belong- to I her ; and as she turned' away, annoyed I by his questions, he took the opportunity to throAv the cloth over her headso as to cover it, at the same time ! placing one hand* on her neck and the other on her mouth, stuffing the linen down her throat so as to stifle her cries. She had been able to scream a little, however, and her screams, the noise of the scuffle, and the sound of her fall on the floor, brought a brother painter, the Sieur Vauchelet, who Avas in an adjoiuing apartment, to her assistance. The prisoner, thus interrupted, coolly Avalkod aAvay, merely saying that the lady was ill ; but he Avas^followed and arrested. The^ police soon identified him as the man avlio was 'Avanted' for a "horrid nivvder 'committed a feAv days before ; and a little more investigation proved their prisoner, Joseph Philippe by name,, to be one of those great criminals of the Dumollard £ype, Avho commit murder by wholesale, .partly from blood-thirstnes's of nature, and partly for ,the plunder and outrage of their A'ictims. His -trial has just taken place under one of, the most formidable aotes (V accusation Avhich the ingenuity of French lawyers has constructed. - " The prisoner is, thirty-five years of age. He was taken for the military serA'ice in 1852, eondemued in 1856 to a year's imprisonment for misconduct, and enrolled soon after in one of those terrible Battalions d'Afrique into AA'hich the scoundrels of the French army are drafted. He returned to Paris in 1861, and has since been in numerous situations as cook, groom, general servant, and warehouse messenger, but staying long in none, on account of his drunken habits. The idea of liA'ing by murder and robbery appears to have originated in the necessities of his poverty, Avhen out of employment ; and his system is noA'el, as the first attempt to take advautage of a ceri.aii> fea&ve i n our social life. The muvderer tAvo years ago at Florence victimised lodging-housekeepers, Avhoni he found out as a faineant lodger, and Avhom he Avas enabled to murder on account of their lonely position. Joseph Philippe selected for his operations the class of unfortunates Avhose degradation, and isolation,- and the peculiarities of their miserable trade, expose in a high degree to the danger of assassination. The Waterloo Road murder, the more recent mvder of Emma Jackson, exemplify, among ovseh'es, Avhat these dangers amount to. But the prisoner is the first to have seen in the facts the chance of a living. From the evidence now obtained, it is certain that he did act on system., More than two years ago he revealed his secret to one of these females in the weakness intoxication. ' I love ! Avomen well,' he said, ' and I do for them ' Avell. I stuff their mouths and j cut their throats. Wait a bit, pud you Avill hear me talked about.' What passed for a grim jest has become a too horrid reality. i <: ScA'eral unfortunates have perished in Paris since 1861, strangled, or Avith throats cut, but it is only within the last tAvo years that cases have been found in Avhich there is p/oof against the prisoner. There are three distinct cases, one of them a double murder, in ! Avhich the iufant of one of his victims Avas also killed, and the circiunstances arc much alike \in all. Three days before his apprehension he accosted, at eleven o'clock in the cA r ening, in the Rue de lot Ville d'Eveque, a girl named Marie Victorie Bodeux ; soon after he Avas seen entering the building in Avhich were her apartments, and a quarter of an hour after Avas observed to leaA'e by an old man who lived in the house, aud AA'ho Avanted to see the gii-l. This mail, entering her apartment, discovered her on the floor, Avith her throat frightfully gashed, and the marks of blood-stained fingers on the ; drawers and their contents, Avhich, as avcll as the mattress of the bed, had been rummaged Tor valuables . It Avas found that the murdered Avoman's purse, containing four pounds, and several articles of jeAA-elry, had been stolen ; ancj. luckily there had been found in the prisoner's possession sufficient articles to identify, him. Before leaA'ing he had had time to Avash his hands in a basin Avhich stood upon the dressing-table in 'the apartment The other murders Avith Avhich he is connected were committed in the spring of 1864. One morning in April that year, an unfoi Lunate named Julie Robert, not i having appeared since the evening of tlie day before; Avas found in the Rue Saint Joseph Avith her throat cut ma similar fashion to that of the girl Bodeux— her pockets and the Avhole apartment also bearing the marks of hasty rifling, and la handbasin in like manner marked with blood-slams. The prisoner is sa^.d

to have taken with him a handkerchief, AA'hich has been identified as the deceased's property, and he is proved t6 ]jfivc been spending money freely at the time, although he had but newly entered on an employment after a term of idleness, and yet received no wages. His strange demeanor and agitation at the time have also been remembered against him. The most horrid affair of all Avas the murder in November folloAving, in the Rue Saint Marguerite, of a woman named Mage and her two years old son. One Sunday morning in, that month, workmen passing to their work observed for a moment a woman in her chemise at a Avindow, shrieking hoarsely ; but thinking her ' either drunk or mad, they passed on. Slle Avas ifeither drunk nor m^d, but in the fatal grasp of -a murderer. Nor did her cries bring the assistance of neighbors. Half-an-hour* after, a man resembling the prisoner Avas seen to descend the stair of the house and depart, leaving the key of the apartment on the landing. There Avas'somc suspicion, and on an entrance being" made the tAVo bodies were found to be horribly mutilated and bruised — the woman having plainly gone through a tremendous struggle before her anta- i

gonist succeeded. There were the same marks of rifling left as in the other cases, showing the same author. The prisoner was not only identified by those AA'ho saAV him leaving, but another unfortunate Avhom he had addressed the same cA r ening, had been so frightened at his looks that she avouUl not lake him home, but had seen him aftenvards going home Avith the deceased. She Avas not the only Avoman of the class Avho testifies to haA^ng been saved from probable murder by a similar fear. ''

" The strangest fact 'of all remains, and .that is the" horror of the prisoner at his OAvn v crimes. His feleep Avas disturbed by frightful dreams. After the last mentioned murder, those in the house Avhere he lodged heard him raising frightful cries - as if some bloody apparition had appeared before him. He plunged into deeper debauches to drown the terrors of his * conscience. One would almost have expected that so Avholesale a "criminal Avould have been more hardened. , " Such is one of the most frightful chapters of crime that haA'e lately been recorded."