TERRIBLE CAREER OF CRIME.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9423, 22 July 1889, Page 6

TERRIBLE CAREER OF CRIME.

A MURDERER AND FORGER. The Chantilly murder case has all the elements of a sensational novel. Hoyos, the prisoner, is, the Daily News correspondent in Paris tells us, a Hercules in physical strength. He is the son of a. rich fanner in Belgium, Flanders, and succeeded to his farm and a capital of £4000. Hoyos married twice, and his lirst wife died soon after her life had been insured for £4400 in the Gresham and Uermania offices, of what at first seemed to be the kick of a horse on the head. But it was proved that Hoyos had a few days previously bought a horsehoe and nailed it to the end of mallet, and though he was acquitted, owing to the evidence of some doctors who doubted whether a mallet thus arranged could have caused the death, the officials of Moris never believed that the horse killed the poor woman. He was also once accused of having murdered a Belgian Judge, and in IH7G found guilty of having forged bills. ALWAYS LEADING A MYSTERIOUS LIKE. The other offences laid to the charge of Hoyos was beating his second wife, who had to leave him, and having forged documents in order to get some insurance money. To escape prosecution for his felony he tied to France, where he was successively a gardener, coachman, dustman, brewer, land steward, wood ranger, drayman, seedsman, and foreman in a factory, always leading a mysterious life arid constantly changing his name. In 1885 he returned to Belgium, and Avas imprisoned for two years. After that he induced a young lady of Mons to elope with him to Paris, and persuaded her that he was one Degaultier, a millionaire farmer. They agreed to marry, but the real Degaultier, discovering the fraud, forbade the banns. Hoyos subsequently was a steward, and was dismissed for having attempted to strangle a gamekeeper. THE LAST OF JUS TERRIBLE CRIMES. Being out of work, and without money, he planned the crime of which he stands charged ; but, so as to have two strings to his bow, he sought through a matrimonial agency to marry a wealthy woman, and advertised himself as " childless widower, strong, handsome, amiable, well connected, having £(i!XX)i and seeking youth, beauty, and good means." Failing to find a rich match, Hoyos then sought to insure his own life in six different offices for £52,000, going in a different character to each. When the policies were effected he looked out for somebodv whom he could kill, and when dead pass oft' for himself, and he hit upon a poor outcast Belgian, Louis Baron, who was rather like himself. On the 31st of October Baron was last seen alive, and his corpse was found soon after crushed into pulp on the railway near Chantilly, with papers belonging to Hoyos in his pockets. Hoyos meanwhile fled to Valenciennes, where he passed himself off as Baron, in whose favour he had made a holograph will dated the 30th of October. This will was also found on the dead man's person, and a duplicate was in Hoyos' possession.