CRIME WAVE IN PARIS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19892, 10 March 1928, Page 11

CRIME WAVE IN PARIS.

BLAME FOR THE POLICE.

MOTORIST FOUND KILLED.

SUICIDE IN DIVORCE COURT.

By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright. (Received March 9i 8.5 p.m.) > A. and N.Z. PARIS, March 8.

The city of Paris is gaining an unenviable reputation as a centre of crime. Never in its history has there been such a wave of attack from press and public upon the police for their powerlessness to deal with criminality. There has scarcely been a day this year without some terrible crime, the perpetrators of which have escaped. To-day the body of a motorist was found on the banks of the Seine. The victim had been kidnapped in a motorcar, which was subsequently found abandoned in the Bois de Boulogne. A sensational crime was enacted in the Paris Divorce Court. The Judge, whose duty it is to try to reconcile the people concerned before hearing a divorce action, announced that a husband refused to compromise with his wife. The latter, a Servian, aged 23, thereupon drew a revolver from her handbag and shot herself through the heart. .. . - ; The newspaper Quotidien comments that the crime wave threatens to submerge the police organisation. It says, there are three reasons for the crime wave, namely that the police are insufficient ancl inadequately equipped, that juries will not convict accused persons and that the heads of the departments are incompetent. MELUN MURDER CASE. IDENTITY OF THE VICTIM. STARTLING THEORY FORMED. A. and N.Z. ' PARIS, March .8. A startling theory, which is grimly reminiscent of the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, has been advanced in connection with the murder at Melun where the body of a man believed to be that of Truphene, a jewellery traveller, was found on March 1 bound and burned in a ditch by the roadside. It is now suggested that Truphene, who was in possession of more than £6OQO in cash and diamonds, himself murdered an unknown man, dressed the body in his own clothes and set fire to it' hoping to mislead the police into believing lie was dead. This theory is supported by three men who have identified Truphene from a photograph as the driver of a coffeecolonred motor-car in which it is believed the body was conveyed to the place where it was found. Two women who know Truphene well state that he had mentioned to them that he had a presentiment he would be assassinated and his body burned ; also that he was going to Amsterdam where a new position awaited him. Another intriguing circumstance is that Truphene's overcoat, in the pocket of which was a small pair of scales used for weighing jewels, was found on the roadside near the body. * ...