ASSASSIN PLEADS FOR DEATH.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3355, 3 January 1927, Page 2

ASSASSIN PLEADS FOR DEATH.

MURDERS ON HIS CONSCIENCE. The Neapolitan bandit, Domenico Groppo, who was arrested on a chariot assassination some weeks ago, has confessed to having committed 4S murders in his career. Many of these crimes have been verified, and innocent men are now in prison for a number of them. Groppo suffers from hallucinations, during which he sees his victims threatening him with even more horrible tortures than he inflicted on them, and he begs his gaolers continuously to let him commit suicide. “Anything rather than the torture of remorse,” he cries, and each time lie has appeared before the investigating magistrate there has been a sensa - tional scene when he has begged to be put out of his misery. Groppo has now petitioned the Go* eminent fdV the privilege of being the first criminal to be hanged under the now capital punishment law. This seems unlikely, as the law applies onlv to regicides and those who might attack the head of the Government. The bandit is eager to confess his crimes, as it gives him some slight relief from the tortures of remorse. The j bare facts of his recital were so inere- j diblv horrible that they were not believed at first; but as case after case is investigated the result suggests that he has not exaggerated the facts. In one case, where a whole family was massacred, two innocent men were sentenced for life. He usually murdered his accomplices to ensure bis own safety. On one oc-c-'siou be entered a farmhouse, killed fbo owner, his wife, ami their four children, carried away their valuables, curl then murdered three meu iuj the iw.brbi-orhood to make sure that thev Omuld give no information concerning him

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