AMERICAN MURDERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23121, 20 August 1938, Page 16

AMERICAN MURDERS

AMAZING REVELATIONS CHURCH WORKER SENTENCED NEW YORK. Aufirust 14 Foriher,deputy-sheriff Francis Carroll, aged 43, scoutmaster and church worker, has been sentenced to gaol for life for the murder of Dr. James Littlefield, at New Jersey. Paul Dwyer, aged 19, sweetheart of Carroll's daughter, Barbara, aged 17, already serving life sentence for the same crime, committed in December, last year, pleaded guilty to strangling Littlefield and Mrs. Littlefield. Subsequently he charged Carroll with both murders, declaring that he had pleaded guilty through fear of attempts on his own and his mother's lives. Carroll has been tried only for Littlefield's death. . Barbara, according to Dwyer, provided the climax to a passionate love affair by confessing in letters that she had previously had relations with her father. Dwyer set the stage for murder by telling Carroll that he had the letters. Dwyer gavo evidence that, because of Carroll's threats and demands for the letters, ho had sought Dr. Littlefield's aid. When the doctor confronted Carroll in Dwyer's home, Carroll murdered him. Carroll's defence was an alibi. Tho trial received amazing publicity. Pretty Barbara was self-possessed throughout. Tho newspapers are daily filled with fresh photographs of her, chiefly in bathing suits and play-suits. During the trial she signed postcards, which sold at 25 cents (Is), of which she received 10 cents. She has been deluged with offers of marriage and may accept a job at a cabaret. While her father was being sentenced, she was at a cinema, after having visited a beauty parlour. It is expected that Dwyer will bo pardoned.