MURDER WILL OUT

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8737, 20 May 1914, Page 4

MURDER WILL OUT

A STRANGE STORY ONE CRIME REVEALED BY A SECOND. PARIS, April 8. The body was found a few days ago in the River Marne, near Noisy, of a man who had been shoi. dead, and the remains were identified by the police as those of a certain Ealcmpin, an habitual criminal. A few days before passers-by near Gournay Bridge had heard despairing cries for help, the sound of a pistol, and a splash, and had seen a man running from the scene of the crime.

On Saturday a man named Barratin presented himself at the police station and asked to see the body, as he thought it might be that of a friend who had lately disappeared. His manner, however, was so suspicious that the commissary detained him whilst he sent for witnesses from Gournay—three of whom swore that he was the man they saw on the night in question running away. While waiting for the parquet to visit the spot the police shut Barratin in a spare room and served him with luncheon, accompanied by a small decanter of wine. Almost directly a loud cry was heard, and on opening the door a gendarme found him with the neck of the decanter in his right hand lying on the floor with his throat cut by the jagged edge of the glass. > His condition is so serious that it is Impossible to interrogate him, as he appears also to have swallowed involuntarily some pieces of glass. There is, indeed, small hope of saving his life. Meanwhile another commissary proceeded to the house of Barratin, who was married, and behind the chimneypiece discovered a small bdx with £2BO in bank notes, together with a woman’s gold handbag and jewels worth £BOO more. Mme Barratin explained that the last time her husband’s bosom friend Falempin was condemned to three months’ imprisonment in a case of violent assault he had entrusted the box to her husband. s

The affair is gradually working itself out in the strangest manner, as last July a woman named Louise Poret was murdered and robbed, and Falempin was then • arrested on suspicion, but released for want of proof. If the jewels are recognised, as it is rumoured several already have been, as the property of Poret, it may be deduced that Falempin murdered her and that Barratin was an accessory. It is suggested that Falempin’s death was probably due to a dispute engineered by Barratin in the hope of remaining the sole heir to the booty. The jewels answer closely to. the' description circulated at the time of the Poret crime, and the police have little doubt as to the correctness of the surmises. The only anomalous fact is that if Barratin resolved not to stick at killing his friend in order to obtain the plunder he should so long have carefully preserved'it intaci for him. It will be interesting to hear his own version should he ever recover sufficiently to be able to give one.