MURDER TRIAL'S TRAGIC CLOSE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 137, 10 June 1911, Page 17

MURDER TRIAL'S TRAGIC CLOSE.

i t I/AWTEK DIIvS IN COURTi s c A startling and tragic ending took place to a sensational murder trial at Freehold. ' New Jersey, on Thursday. April 20, when f Louis Heldeman -a-as sentenc-ed to death r for the murder of a little girl last NoI veraber. Barely had the jndge pronounced ,' the sentence than Mr. William Hoffman. the prisoner's counsel, was seen to stagger and collapse. The Court officials ran to his assistance, but it was too late, and a hastily-summoned doctor declared that life '* was extinct. Mr. Hoffman, who was the greatest crlmi- ~ nal lawyer in New Jersey, was a somewhat choleric person, and as he had always made it a boast that no client of hte charged ' with murder had ever been convicted, ir is ." believed that death was due to apoplexy ls resulting from chagrin over the verdict ie and sentence. The prisoner whom he had been trying to save was perhaps the least concerned person in the Court. The case ]t I had attracted considerable attention on ac?r count of tbe callousness and brutality disd- played by Ileidemah, -wnoee victim was a a little girl ten years of age named Marie m j Smith. The girl -was assaulted and mur it dered on her way to school, and left in the Id , woods near Asbury Fark. A negro was arit I rested on suspicion, and it was only -with c, the greatest difficulty that the authorities ie were able to save him from a fnrioos mob ts of lynchers. Later Heldeman was susr. perted. and part of the prosecutors evine dence was a confession purporting to be ■ii signed by him in the presence of three dent I tectives. This confession was obtained by ro one of the detectives, wlio wormed bis way j into Heldeman'B confidence by pretending Jy&a.tjh.e-also. i waß- , wftslfi4. laz t itc-mcrder.