MURDER AND ARSON.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 4 December 1924, Page 5

MURDER AND ARSON.

GANG ATTACK VILLA. MURDERERS ESCAPE. BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT. BERLIN, Dec. 2. A gang of twenty men attacked the lonely villa residence of Angerstein (the manager of a large quarrying company) near Siegen, in Westphalia, and killed eight occupants, including three women. They then set fire to the premises. The police, who arrived a. few minutes after the murderers’ departure, were confronted with a horrible sight. The upper part of the house, which Angerstein occupied, was on fire, and he lay woundedi and) Unconscious. His secretary and two clerks lay dead upstairs from knife wounds. Angerstein’s wife lay dead on a bedroom floor with eighteen knife wounds. His sister and mother were both dead from knife and axe wounds in adjoining bathrooms, while the dead bodies of the gardener and under-gardeners lay in the corridors. The murderers’ attack was apparently carefully planned, for the telepnone wire was cut and the water supply was cut off. Even the watchdog had been poisoned. Maid servants, who fled to the top floor, perished in the flames which the murderers started ciftfir their ghastly work below. Angerstein is not expected to recover. The crime is mysterious as well as ferocious. Owing to the death of ever’inmate it is very unlikely that it will ever he fully cleared up. It was at first thought that robbery was tlie motive, but a safe containing a large sum was not touched.