MURDER AND ROMANCE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 5667, 15 August 1905, Page 5

MURDER AND ROMANCE.

THE BONJIARTINI CASE. END OF A SENSATIONAL TUIAL. FIVE PERSONS CONVICTED. HOME, August 13. Tho trial of Countess Linda Uoiimarthii, lier brother, Tullio Alurri, her lover, Professor Secchi, Dr Pio Naldi, and llosina Donetti CTullio Alurri’s nhstross) on a charge of murdering the Countess’s husband on the night of the 28th August, 1902, has concluded. Tullio Alurri and Dr Naldi have been convicted of premeditated murder, with extenuating circumstances, and sentenced to thirty years’ imprisonment. Countess Bonmartini and Professor Secchi were found guilty of being accessories, and were sentenced to ten years’, and llosina Bonetti to seven years’.

The Bonmartini murder in 1902 andth© subsequent trial, which commenced at Turin about ten months ago, created an immense sensation throughout Italy, not only by reason of the dramatic circumstances surrounding it, but because of the high position of the accused. Count Bonmartini, • the murdered man, was a large landowner in Italy, a member of an old family settled at. Bologna. His marriage with Theodolinda Murri, daughter of a well-known professor of Bologna University, gave -every indication at the outset of being a most happy one, and apparently husband and wife were for some years on the best of terms. Before her marriage, however, the countess had fallen in love with Dr Carlo Secchi, a medical man, one of the accused. They met again at the house of a mutual friend some year's after, and there is reason to believe that the old attachment was renewed. Whatever the reason. Countess Bonrnartini’s feeling towards her husband changed; there were frequent quarrels, and finally an open rupture, though the parties continued to live with their children under the same roof. In these domestic broils the wife is said to have been vehemently supported by her brother, Tullio Murri, ami by those of her friends who also are charged with complicity in the crime. Count Bonmartini was found lying dead in his bedroom one day in September, 1902. The room had the appearance of having been ransacked by burglars. Cupboards were broken open, cabinets and chests of drawers forced, and their con-, tents abstracted, the apartment being litored all over. An empty champagne bottle, however, and a note left lying on a table, written in a femiiic hand and making an appointment to meet the count, suggested a more plausible theory. This was strengthened by the discovery of torn fragments of silk underclothing trimmed with lace strewn about the floor. In short, the appearance of the room tended to indicate that the count had fallen a victim to the snares of a woman who had visited him, and had been murdered and robbed by her associates. This was the theory first represented to the authorities.

Inquiries, however, made by the police into the state of affairs prevailing in the household led them to a different conclusion. Tnllio Murri had meanwhile left the country, but learning that he was himself suspected he wrote'to his father acknowledging that he was responsible for Count Bonmartini’s death, explaining that they had fought, and that he had killed his adversary when his own life was in danger. Professor Murri informed the police, and Tullio Murri, returning to Italy, waa at onoe arrested. Dr Naldi. who is also a medical man, was alleged to have assifted in the crime. Eosa Bonetti, a former mistress of Tullio, had been taken by the Countcse Bonmartini into her ferric*.

In March last, while the trial was proceeding, Tullio again made a statement with the object of clearing his fellow prisoners, declaring that he had killed tho count during a quarrel.