MURDER OF MISS LAKE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 6326, 28 September 1907, Page 7

MURDER OF MISS LAKE

A GERMAN TRAGEDY UNEXPECTED DEVELOPMENT. evLFKED LAND CONFESSES. BUT IS ACQUITTED. By TelegrapU—Dress Association —Copyright EKRIAN, September 20. Despite bis confession of gnilt, Alfred Land was acquitted on the charge of the murder of Miss Lake, an English lady who was brutally killed in Essen Forest on September 30th of last year* STORY OF THE GRIME. BRUTAL USED in ESSEN FOREST. At DucsseldoH. on February 11th. last, Alfred Land, o-ered twenty-one. a native of Breslau, who h-a.d surrendered to the police two days earlier, confessed to the murder. Miss Madeline Lake, whoso homo was at Sheen Park, Richmond. Surrey, lived as a paying guest in a house near Essen, bhe was returning alono at evening through the lonely woods when she met with her death. At the time tho crime was committed I/and was a clerk in th© offices of tho Khincland-Westphalian Coal Syndicate at Essen He was unaccountably miesmg at the time of the murder. He Bald tot he had two accomplices, but tho polio© oia credited this statement. AOT NOT PREMEDITATED. Land declared that he djd not intend to kill Miss Lake, but be caused her death by strangling her when she attempted to resist and scream. He dragged the body fifteen yards from, the road into tho hushes where it was found. He returned to work next day. but, hauntdd by hia proximity to tho scene of the crime, he fled to Belgium, whor© he worked four months aa a waiter in Liege and Brussels. I Povertystricken and conscience-smitten, he returned to Germany and gave himself np at Essou, making a detailed confession. Land was mentally and bodily broken down. It is said that at seventeen he attempted suicide, and that not long before th© confession ho had been imprisoned for theft.

ANOTHER VERSION. According to a Reuter message the police authorities issued a statement that Band was beyond all djubt the murderer of Miss Bake. In his confession he stated that while walking with two unknown men he met Miss Bake coming in the opposite direction. They stopped her and dragged her into the wood, but she offered a stout resistance. Land alleged that he only knew the Christian names of hia accomplices— Karl and Heinrich—and that after accompanying him to Brussels they left for a destination ontslde Europe.