REMARKABLE MURDER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9118, 28 July 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

REMARKABLE MURDER.

1 The French system of "reconstituting" the j scene of the crime, to use the technical expression, has again been successful in wresting a full confession from a criminal. About a fortnight ago an old man was found hanging from a tree in a wood near Esbly. He was a stranger in the place, and the local authorities, concluding that he had committed suicide, had him quietly buried. A few days afterwards they read in the newspapers of the mysterious disappearance from his abode in Paris of a respectable workman named Oudin, who was supposed to have been inveigled into an expedition to their neighbourhood by Mathelin, an acquaintance, who had led him.to believe that he bad found him a situation at the Chateau of Montry, in the department of Seine-et-Marne. Oudin's wife, who was beside herself with alarm, explained to the police that Mathelin had induced her husband to take £20 out of the savings bank, as a guarantee was required, and that she was under the impression that the two men had gone off to the country together. It was speedily ascertained that Mathelin had returned to his dwelling in the metropolis, and for several days had been spending money in debauchery, although previously he had been without a sou. Meanwhile, the authorities at Esbly had communicated with the Paris police, and on the very day when Mathelin was arrested the body of Oudin was disinterred. Mathelin having persisted in declaring that he knew nothing of the affair, it was decided that he should be taken to the wood, and that the corpse of the murdered man should be attached to the tree as it was found, it being hoped that the suspected assassin would bo moved by the ghastly sight to make a complete avowal. Early in the morning Mathelin, who had previously been attired in the clothes which he wore at the time of his arrest, was taken by M. Goron from Mazas Prison to the Gare de l'Est en route for Esbly. At the station, he was recognised by one of the railway employes as the man who had travelled with Oudin on the fatal day, and ere Esbly was reached he confessed that he had strangled his victim in the wood with a rope concealed about his person and had afterwards hung him to an crime was thoroughly premeditated. Mathelin spoke with the utmost calmness, and he displayed no emotion when he was led up to the corpse, which was laid on a plank by the side of the grave in the cemetery. A doctor in his presence examined the body and pointed out the marks caused by the rope, but Mathelin maintained his careless attitude, merely repeating in an off-hand way his account of the crime.