HORRIBLE MURDER BY A LABOURER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9401, 6 January 1894, Page 2 (Supplement)

HORRIBLE MURDER BY A LABOURER.

The trial of a young man named Charles Scherer, charged with a double crime, was begun recently at Melun, in the Department of the Seine eb Marno. The accused was a {arm labourer in the service of the author, M. de la VillebervG, living near Fontainebieau, but owing to laziness and bad conduct he was discharged. One night, shortly shortly after his dismissal, Scherer waylaid M. de la Villeherv6'a servant, a young woman who is supposed to have declined his attentions. It is alleged that he followed her into her master's stables, and, after having stabbed her several times, strangled her with a rope. M. de la Vilieherv6, uneasy at the absence of the girl, went into the stables to look for her, and ■was ferociously attacked by the murderer, who, with his knife, inflicted Severn injuries on his former master. In the meantime, Madame de la hearing her hueband's cries for help, ran to his rescue, and would have been murdered had not a boy arrived and raised an alarm. Scherer then rushed out of the stables, wandered all | night about the forest, and next day gave ' himself up to the police. M. de la Villa- i hervl had received a terrible wound in the skull from the murderer's knife, and he was obliged to undergo the operation of trepanning in Paris before the broken blade could be ex tracted from his head. After hovering for several weeks between life and death he / has now recovered, and was able to appear In the Afisize Court together with his wife. Madame ■'© la Villeherv6 had escaped the murderer's knife, which had fallen from him, fell but Scherer knocked her down and was in the act of battering her skull with his hobnail boots when he was disturbed in bis • work by the boy, : . •. , -