DEAD PRIEST MYSTERY

Evening Star, Issue 20586, 11 September 1930, Page 5

DEAD PRIEST MYSTERY

FOUND IN PARIS GUTTER FOUR UNKNOWN WOMEN VISITORS PARIS, August 27. Yesterday morning the dead body of a man dressed in an ordinary lounge suit, and with a bullet wound in his back, was found lying in a gutter in the Rue Blottiere. In one of his pockets was a Spanish passport identifying him as a Spanish priest, Capnano Echevena. Police inquiries have now served to show that this is his correct-identity. He'arrived in Paris on Thursday at the head of a large party qf pilgrims who had come to France to visit Lourdes and other shrines. ■ . As there was not sufficient room foi the whole partv of pilgrims m one hotel, tho Spaniard occupied a room in another. He ordinarily wore ecclesiastical dress, but on Saturday night at about 11 o’clock four young women called at his hotel and asked to see him. He met them m the lounge, and then, after having retired to his room for a few minutes, reappeared dressed in a tweed lounge suit and wearing a cap. Nothing is known of ins movements from then onwards. Several facts, however, have attracted the special attention of the police. ~ , , . , First, a few hours after his body had been found a young Spanish woman, who, according to the hotelkeeper, was one of the four who had called for him on the previous evening, appeared at the hotel and asked to speak to him. Unfortunately, the hotelkeeper did not trouble to get her name or her adA second point is that, though the Spaniard appears to have been killed by a bullet fired into his back, his shirt front bore bloodstains which could not be associated with any wound.,: : Thirdly, bruises on the body suggest that the man fought for Ins life, before he was killed. Finally, robbery was not the motive, as a sum of money was found on him.