PENAL SERVITUDE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIII, Issue 431, 23 June 1922, Page 5

PENAL SERVITUDE.

MURDERESS' SENTENCED. ACQUITTAL OF DAUGHTER. PARIS, June 21. Madame Bessarabo was sentenced to 20 years’ penal servitude. A sensation was caused when the daughter declared that her mother killed Bessarabo The mother feigned madness and denied all knowledge ot the crime. The daughter was acquitted. The girl’s confession, following a dramatic speech by her counsel, who was overcome by emotion, and at the close of his oration, collapsed, caused a sensation in the court, during which the daughter turned her back on her mother. Shielding her face with her hands, amid agonised sobs, she said: ‘‘l will tell everything. I heard a shot and ran to the door ot my bedroom, but found it locked, i shouted, ‘Mother! Mother.’ My mother replied: ‘lt is nothing. The geyser has exploded in tho bathroom.’'” When the door was opened she saw the body, and said to her mother: “You did it.’’ Her mother replied; “It was his lile or mine.” Then, said the girl, she was afraid and would not help her mother to dispose o! the body, so they pushed it in the trunk. The trunk would not lock so they roped it firm, hired a car and sent it to Nancy.

The excitement over the girl’s confession was increased by (be mol Iter’s cries of protest, though at the end the mother still maintained her innocence.

Madeline Bessarabo s first husband was found dead in 1914 with a bullet in the head. The inquest decided that < it was a case of suicide.—A. and N.Z. cable,