FIVE MURDERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 293, 10 December 1937, Page 7

FIVE MURDERS.

ALLEGED ADMISSION. Slayer Says He Killed Through Need of Money. AMERICAN DANGER'S FATE. United Press Association. —Copyright. (Received 2 p.m.) PARIS, December 9. The body of Miss Jean de Koven, American dancer who disappeared from her hotel in August last and whose aunt received a letter demanding £100 ransom, has been unearthed by the police under the front steps of a villa at St. Cloud, where Eugene Weidmann, 29, confessed that he had enticed and murdered her. A post-mortem revealed that Miss de Koyen was murdered shortly after her arrival and was buried, while days later her aunt received the ransom demand. Weidmann's arrest was sensational. He was an interpreter at Paris Exhibition, and was traced by means of a visiting card found on the body of Raymond Lesobre, a house agent and one of his victims, who was found dead in another villa at St. Cloud. Two policemen last night entered Weidmann's villa and the latter shot both with a revolver, but was overpowered.

He broke down after 13 fours' questioning and confessed to five murders, which he attributed to the need of money, although the police say that he obtained less than £215 from the killings.

It is alleged that Weidmann also admitted murdering Roger Lebond, a theatrical agent and taxi-driver, and Otto Frommer, a former friend whom, he said, he had buried in a cellar. The police later dug up Frommer's body.