SIX-YEAR-OLD MYSTERY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14235, 4 December 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)

SIX-YEAR-OLD MYSTERY.

GERMAN OWNS TO KILLING ENGLISH CYCLIST.

Scotland Yard is searching for news of an Englishman, possibly a former resident in Norwich, who is believed to have been murdered and robbed near Stuttgart, in Germany, six years ago.

The search is being undertaken at the request of the investigating judge of the German district in which the crime, to Which a man. named Karl Paul Gotzelt confessed a few weeks ago, took place'.

The only cites are the facts that a photograph,' which the murderer says he destroyed, was found on the dead man's body, bearing an address in Norwich, and the lining of his felt hat bore the words, " Barclay et Cie., London."

It has been pointed out, however, that the matter may be no concern of the London ;police at all. as there is a Norwich near London in Ontario, and the French wording of the second inscription would be by. no means unusual there. *

The man Gotzelt confessed as follows;—'

"At the end of July, 1903. at a distance of several kilometres from Stuttgart, on the high road leading towards Weil. I killed ami robbed a foreign cyclist. The man had evidently not been to Stuttgart, for wren I left Wildbud two days before I saw him there. I " I took his pocket-book Aid bicycle. I did not search for any faluanles. his Match, ut his purse, as I took the contents of his pocket-book to be of much more importance. It contained, besides a circular tourist ticket, some papers, a portrait, arid- 22 fifty-murk notes. On the back of the photograph was the name of a photographer in Norwich. I kept the notes, and the pocket-book, with its remaining contents, I threw into a pond near by. m "I put the dead man (Wit of sight and went away with the bicycle to*Stuttgarr. In the evening I returned with a spade and buried the man. I have been much under arrest in the meantime, and it is very possible that the man may have been accidentfound. The contrary, on account of the remoteness of the spot, is much more likely. "On the following day I went by train to Cologne, where I Bold the. bicycle to a traveller for 60 marks. I then "went to Leipsic. where I spent the money in treating people during Michaelmas. * , ° I "When I had buried the man I noticed on the spot his hat. As it was new, and suited me. I kept it. I still possess it. although damaged by reason of its not having been taken care, of in prison. It bears on, the perspiration' lining the name of a firm of London hatters. It may. therefore be supposed that the dead man was an Englishman." j

The man attempted to retract his statement at his judicial examination.