SISTER-IN-LAW OF ACCUSED RECANTS

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6630, 8 June 1928, Page 9

SISTER-IN-LAW OF ACCUSED RECANTS

MESTORINO TRIAL OPENS. United Press Association- —By Blectrit Telegraph—Copyright. PARIS, June 4. The trial of Mestorino has commenced. The Court was crowded with many celebrities largely owing to Mestorino 's sister-in-law retracting her statement that she was the mistress of the murdered man. Prisoner said she had pm-de tho statement because she wanted to save him and he had not the courage to contradict her.. Mestorino’s wife and sister-in-law sat in the Court weeping. One of Mctsorino’s employees, a youth aged eighteen, gave evidence that he saw Truphcmo lying on the ground but ho said nothing because he wanted to help his master. Mestorino admitted he sold two of Tiuphcms’s jewels in order to pay a garage keeper 10,000 francs that he might give evidence that Mestorino’s car had not left the garage.

A message received! in March stated that Mestorino, after being questioned by the police for twenty hours, confessed to the murder. .Ho said that Truphemo demanded money, and they had a violent quarrel in the course of which Trupheme was floored and hit his head on the corner of the table. When he recovered consciousness ho shouted “Help!” Mestorino host his head and suffocated him, stuffing a wad of cotton into his mouth. Ho tied up the body, drove out in a car and buried it. Then he returned to Paris and continued his business. A large part of the jewels were recovered. Mestorino did them up in two packages and gave thorn to his sister-in-law and aunt to keep, neither knowing the contents.