HORRIBLE CRIME.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13692, 7 March 1908, Page 2 (Supplement)

HORRIBLE CRIME.

WOMAN ROASTS HER HUSBAND. The Rome correspondent of the Morning Leader states that an unpreeedenledly terrible crime has just been discovered by the Sicilian police,, A peasant named Lorillo left his work in the country to spend New Year with his wife and children, who lived in the town of Trapani.

The day after his arrival home Lorilla mysteriously disappeared. The wife and children feigned considerable grief, under which circumstances a crime was not suspected. On the Wednesday Lorillo's daughter, aged seven, after spending several hours in prayer in church, sought the police, and, weeping bitterly, told them that her father had been murdered. The police were unable to obtain the details of the crime, as the girl fainted, and all efforts to make her talk on reviving were unavailing. Thereupon they suspected that the child was suffering from some hallucination, and were almost inclined' to drop the matter: but owing to the girl's insistence they arrested the mother and the child's brother.

The woman then confessed that she murdered her husband while In- was sleeping off the effects of a heavy carouse. With the children's help she lifted the body and placed it inside the oven, and calmly watched him roast to death through a small opening in the door. As the tire had not consumed the bones she threw these into the sea next, clay.

The woman refused to give any reason or motive for the crime, but declared that the children were innocent, as she forced them by threats of death 'to assist her in the murder. As she told her awful story she was quite calm, and did not shed a single tear. She seemed quite reconciled to the prospect of spending her life in prison, though in Italy this is worse than capital punishment. The doctors declare that the woman is in full possession of her mental faculties, and that there are no sign*; of criminality.