MURDER OF KASSEL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIX, 4 February 1936, Page 6

MURDER OF KASSEL

FRENCH COUPLE DETAINED " gruelling questioning A WOMAN’S STORY (United Press Association— By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) PARIS, Ist February. The police detained a French couple in connection with the shooting of Max Kassel, and subjected them to gruelling questioning. They also have traced Kassel’s brother, who is lj ing ill in a Paris hotel. He positively confirmed the identification of Max from photographs. The couple detained were Charles Lacroix and Mrs Naylor, a French woman whose real name is believed to be Suzanne Bertron, but who was detained under the name of Feraro. The police are reported to have received warrants from London accusing the man of the murder of Kassel and the woman of bigamy and fraud. According to the woman’s story Kassel came to her fiat in London to collect £25 owing to him by Lacroix. She refused to give the money, but arranged a meeting, during which she was in another room and heard quarrelling and shots. She opened the door and saw Kassel go bleeding to the bathroom, where the police believe he died. The woman says she heard more quarrelling between Lacroix and a third man concerning the disposal of the body. A British United Press correspondent savs: “I saw Lacroix, who could hardly stand after an all-night examination, in which he was confronted with the woman. He is no longer the dapper little man who was known in Soho, and made a half-hearted attempt to shield his face from cameras.” The police say that he. strongly denied participation in the crime. r l lie woman, on the other hand, posed readily for photographers. "The London police have taken possession of the fiat in Soho in which it is believed Kassel was murdered. Blood stains in the fiat, which were examined at police laboratories, reveal the same group as the blood of Kassel. Kassel’s bullet-riddled body was found under a hedge outside St. Albans last week. He was identified as a French-Canadian named Emil Allard, but at the inquest a man who asked that his name be not disclosed stated that Allard’s real name was Max Kassel. The “Daily Mail” stated that the death of Max Kassel has exposed him as the leader of an international gang of white slave traffickers whose ramifications extended from Mayfair to the Continent, Australia, and Canada, and as a marriage broker who installed girls he imported in luxurious West End fiats. It was learned that under another nanjc he served a sentence of eight months’ imprisonment in France in connection with the transportation of a girl to Brazil. His death is regarded as the climax to a vendetta or gang feud. London police are working on the theory that he was “put on the spot” because he knew too much about rival gangs, and was about to “squeal” to the police.