HEADS OR TAILS!

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15170, 9 December 1912, Page 7

HEADS OR TAILS!

ANARCHIST'S COLD BLOODED MURDER.

NIGHT OF BRUTAL TORTURE.

LIFE 'PROLONGED BY TOSS OF

COIN.

WOMAN'S NARROW ESCAPE.

Br T«!«S ra P 1, ~ I>rCM Association.—Copyright

(Received December 8. 5.5 p.m.)

Paris, December 7. The particulars of the murder of an anarchist named Ducret by a fellowanarchist named Lacombe show that the latter submitted Ducret and his wife to amazing torture. Lacombe entered Ducret's chamber afc night and taunted him with betraying him to tho police. He announced that he would kill both Ducret and his wife and also their child. The murderer compelled Ducret and his wife to go to bed where, he said, it would be more convenient to kill them. Meanwhile Lacombe sang snatches of ribald songs, and forced Ducret to toss a coin, adding, " If it's tails 1 vrill kill you immediately; if it's heads I will kill you at dawn." The coin turned head up. Throughout the night Lacombe terrorised the couple with a revolver. At six o'clock he fired a fusillade, and the discharge extinguished the lamp. Shofcj struck Ducret in the throat and chest. His wife fell flat on the floor and eventually escaped. Lacombe left the house and has not yet been captured.

A Rang, imitating tho notorious motor bandits.. shot a railway ticket-collector dead at Los Aubrais, near Orleans, in September last, and deposited a bomb in the stationmiirter's office. Lacombe was implicated in tho crime, and it is stated that Ducrefc betrayed him to the polio©.