WOOED AND SLAIN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 99, 29 April 1933, Page 4 (Supplement)

WOOED AND SLAIN.

WOMEN TERRORISED.

MORE "RIPPER" MURDERS.

SERIES OF APPALLING CRIMES.

Women of the Rhineland are once more going in'terror of their lives, following a new outbreak of " ripper " murders, which are believed to be the work of two men who lure their victims by first adopting a Don Juan role. A killer now being sought by the Dortmund police has already murdered two women and made attempts on the lives of many more, after making love to them.

Another series of appalling crimes is alleged by the police to have been committed by a man named Vincente Barcelona, who is now in custody. They describe him as Rhineland's " Ripper-Bluebeard," and he is said to have confessed to many of the crimes imputed to him. Officially he is being charged with one murder only, that of Greta Kraft, a sturdy servant girl, who was found savagely stabbed. It is asserted by the police, and said to have been confessed by the man, that he made the acquaintance of the girl through a woman partner in crime, who has been arrested, and gained her confidence by making love to her. While in the girl's room he attacked her with a knife, and she was found later with seven terrible vrounds. Anonymous Lstter. It was an anonymous letter, after a reward had been offered, that led the police to associate Barcelona with the dead girl. It seems clear, the police declare, that the man has been in communication with women in all parts through matrimonial advertisements, and he has not only been visited*, at various addressed on the Continent by Englishwomen, but he has made visits to intended women victims in London and Liverpool. .It ia significant that the police officer who has been making the inquiries outside Germany into the antecedents of Barcelona has obtained special photographs of the injuries done to two women victims in unsolved English ,my: Leries. In His Clutches. In some cases wb: re the victims got off with their lives, tie police fctate, it was only to become ije slaves of Barcelona. In his rooms wer-■ found agreements drawn up on stamped legal paper, under which girls in his clutches bound themselves to pay specified monthly or weekly sums, failing whichlthey authorised him to denounce them to the police for various crimes they were supposed to have committed. In the case of aji English girl living in Paris, who \vas party to such an agreement, the police are satisfied she could have, had no connection with the crime she was supposed to have committed. The Dortmund murderer, whose activities recall those of Peter Kuerten, 'the. Dusseldorf " ripper," lures girls to Dortmund by advertising for servants.

Fran Anna Schur answered such an advertisement, caught the train to Dortmund which was suggested, was met by the man, and murdered after he had made love to her.. Emma Schneider, a servant girl who answered a similar advertisement, has not been seen since, and the police believe she has also been killed.