THE MURDER OF A MILLIONAIRE BY BURGLARS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2459, 14 April 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE MURDER OF A MILLIONAIRE BY BURGLARS.

TitK shooting of Mr Snell, the Chicago millionaire, is, a New i'oik correspondent says, one of the most startling in. stances of a murder by burglars which has happened for many years, though if, is by no means rare for murders of this kind to be cemmittcd. It was not till four hours afterwards that the police heard of it. When they reached the house they found little to aid them in their search for the murderers. All they could leavn with certainty was that the house had been broken into, that the safe had been ransacked, that the owner had fried to drive off the intruders, and had been killed, that several shots had been exchanged, ind that a servant in the upper rooms had heard the noise of the affray, but from 2.30 until daylight no effort had been made to warn the authorities of what had taken place. The police learned, too, that the house was the third the burgars had visited in rapid succession. Mr Snob's residence is a substantial structure, and the neighbourhood is a highly respectable one. Mr Stiell went to bed about ten o'clock, tho servants following about half an hour later. A little after two 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 Suell's voice crying "Get out, get out." She jumped out of bed and aroused another servant. Both crept into tho hall on the fourth floor and listened. They could hear nothing, and no answer was made to their calls. Half an hour biter they thought they heard a door slowly opened and closed in tho lower hull,but they made no attempt to investigate the tiisoo. A little after six 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 out of tho door by boring IS boles with a hnlfinch bit, and through this the burglar's hand had been inserted and the bolt pushed back. The door stood partly ajar. The coachman entered and passed quickly through the hall to the front room in tho basement which MrSuell used as auoltioe, having it fitted it up with a desk and a safe. Here he. saw that the safe had been ransackud, while the floor was strewn with papers, He run 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 live chambers, four filled and one empty. There was a bullet wound in the head, and another in the heart. His nightshirt was stained with blood, which was in little pools on the floor. An examination of tho premises revealed tho manner the murder was committed. Tho double parlour doors had been locked. By means of a chisel the burglars had broken open the doors and secreted themselves in the parlour. On hearing Mr Suell descend the staircase—for tho noise they made in opening the doors evidently awakened him—they shut the doors and took refuse behind them. This was after they had opened the safe. Coming down with a loaded revolver Mr Snell discovered the presence of tho thieves. He shouted to them to get out, and fired a shot through the panel in the door. The buliet lodged in the wall on the opp.-ite side of tho room. Two other bullet holes were in tho door, having been fired from the inside by the intruders, Then it appeared that Mr Snell Kttempted to force open the doors, when another shot was fired from within, ploughing a small furrow at the edge of the door as it swung ajar, and probably entering his body. While he was reeling along the hall from this fatal wound the assassins must have stepped out and pent another bullet through his brain. They then walked out of the house as they came, taking their booty with them, and leaving no trace behind.