MURDER MYSTERY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 247, 18 October 1928, Page 7

MURDER MYSTERY.

MATRICIDE ALLEGED.

Woman Strangled In Room— Door Locked From Inside.

GBUESOME DEATH CEREMONY

(Australian and >".Z. Press Association.)

(Received 2 p.m.)

PARIS, October 17.

Much interest is evinced in fcho coming trial of George Pape, who is charged with matricide, owing to the gruesome provisions of the French penal code.

A prisoner condemned for parricide or matricide must be led to the guillotine naked, save for his shirt, and with his head concealed in a black mask he stands

on the scaffold while the sheriff reads the death sentence in a loud "oice. Then he is guillotined.

The story of the crime is very strange. Pape was going out with his stepfather, but suddenly returned to speak to his mother. Thus apparently he was the last person to see his mother alive. When the stepfather returned he found the door locked. He broke in and discovered his wife had been strangled. She was in an upright position.

The prosecution says the marks on the woman's neck show that her sou strangled her.

The defence claims that the marks were really the scars of an old bum. Ic also insists on the extraordinary fact that the door of the room where the woman was strangled was locked from the inside when. her body was discovered.