FRENCH MURDERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21638, 2 November 1933, Page 10

FRENCH MURDERS

END OF THE TRIAL ITALIAN CONDEMNED SISTERS TEN YEARS IN GAOL PROSECUTION'S ALLEGATIONS By Telegraph—Preps Association—Copyright (Received November 1, 5.5 p.m.) PARIS. Oct. 31 The tri.'ll was concluded to-day at Aix-en-Provence, of Philomene and Catherine Schmidt, German sisters, and Georges Sarret, an Italian domiciled in France, who were jointly charged with the disposal of two victims in sulphuric acid baths, and the subsequent collection of insurance. Sarret was sentenced to death, and will be guillotined in the public square of the town. The two sisters were each sentenced to 10 years' penal servitude. Georges Sarret (otherwise Sarrejani) is a lawyer. The Schmidt sisters were horn in Germany, but settled in France in 1913. They married Frenchmen, who both died shortly afterwards, the widows receiving large sums of insurance. They went to Marseilles in 1922 and fell completely under the domination of Sarret. Their boarder, Lady Arnould (an Englishwoman) died, but because of her great age a death certificate was easily obtained.

Sarret in 1925 rented a cottage at Aix and invited thither an unfrocked priest named Louis Chambon and a woman friend, Madame Ballandroux, to whom Sarret and the Schmidts were heavily indebted. The prosecution alleged that Sarret shot Chambon and Madame Ballandroiix from behind a screen, while Catherine Schmidt was showing them the premises. The sound of the shots was drowned by the noise of a specially installed motor-cycle engine in the garden. Sarret and the'sisters sat by the corpses that night and formulated plans for disposing of the bodies.

Then, it was alleged, the trio procured a bath and placed in it a quantity of sulphuric acid, in which they immersed the corpses for several days. The solution was then baled out and poured on hot rocks in the garden, where it evaporated. A police inquiry was held, but it was futile. The man and the women would have escaped but for a strange incident. Catherine Schmidt ostensibly died, after insuring her life for £21,000 with five companies in her "mother's" favour. Pnilomene, carefully disguised as an aged woman, the mother and secured the money, but Catherine foolishly reappeared in public. This led to further inquiries and it was ascertained that the "corpse" cf Catherine was that of Madali Herbin., a young consumptive, whom the sisters were alleged to have murdered with poisoned champagne. It is said that the. brokers involved in the insurance transactions will be charged with forgery, and a doctor and che deputy-major of Marseillbs, who issued Mile. Herbin's death certificate, together with Andree, daughter of Sarret.'"