A DALMATIAN HORROR.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 203, 7 September 1901, Page 5 (Supplement)

A DALMATIAN HORROR.

TERRIBLE STORY OF MURDER AND

ROBBERY,

The District Court of Zara, in Dalmatia. is just now investigating a murder case, the chief features of which remind one strongly of the tragedies of romantic story. A peasant, named Valentisch, of Knin, accompanied by his daughter* drove a pair of oxen to the neighbouring market and sold them for 250 gulden. Returning home, the peasant handed the money to his daughter for safer keeping. At a lonely part of the road the father fell for a few moments behind the girl, and was suddenly attacked by a couple of robbers, who demanded the money he had received for his oxen. Valentisch protested that he had no money, and thereupon the miscreants strangled him, afterwards searching their victim's pockets in vain for the booty they expected to find. Alarmed by her father's first cry for help, the girl had turned in her path just in time to hear and see all that passed, and then, horrified and terrified, sh6 fled and sank exhausted at the door of the nearest hut. The woman of the hut, after hearing the poor girl's story, begged her to stay over night, as the roads were unsafe, and promised that her husband should in the early morning search for the girl's father, who was only probably very badly hurt. The woman's simulated sympathy imposed upon the overwrought feelings of the poor orphan. An hour later the woman's husband and his companion, the murderers of Valentisch, returned to the hut. and they, too, promised the girl to succour her father at daybreak. Learning that the girl had the 250 gulden on her pei son, the murderers now

PLANNED HER DESTRUCTION in a diabolical manner. The poor girl was put to sleep with Jtbe chief robber's only daughter, and the latter was particularly instructed by her mother to He on the left side of the bed. In the meantime the murderers proceeded outside to make a kiln Are for burning the body of their second victim. Unable to sleep like her companion, the distracted girl lay awake for some time, and then rose to get a drink of water at the opposite side of the room. Returning to bed, she found that her companion, in her sleep, had rolled over to the right side, and she therefore lay down on the left. Shortly afterwards she heard stealthy footsteps approaching, and the two robbers entered the room barefooted. The father Seized his daughter by the throat with both hands, dragged her from the bed, and strangled her, whilst his companion pinioned her nrms and legs. They then silently carried the body out of the house to the kiln. Meanwhile, the half-demented witness of the crime managed to escape through a window and fled towards the township, clad only in her nightdress. The first persons she met. were fortunately a gendarme and financepatrol walking together. To these she hurriedly related what had passed, and indicated to them the murderers' hut. After placing the girl in safety, the armed oflicers proceeded, to the hut and arrested the miscreants just as they were closing the kiln containing the charred remains ot the chief murderer's own daughter. It was only from the officers that the wretched father learnt that It was his own child he had so cruelly murdered. He has not spoken since.