CAMORRIST MURDER TRIAL

Otago Witness, Issue 2978, 12 April 1911, Page 27

CAMORRIST MURDER TRIAL

0 ROME, April 3. At the Camorrist trials at Viterbo, after the informer Abbat Maggio had been under examination for a week, Enrico Alfa ni (the chief accused) was ir ten -©gated. He revealed a subtle intellect, indulged in real rhetoric, and appealed passionately to the jury to consider that the prisoners were sons of Vesuvius—quick-tempered and vivacious, but incapable of committing ferocious murders. Moreover, he declared, their financial position made such risks unnecessary. They had made large profits by selling mules to England at the time of the South African war, also to Lord Kitchener for the use of troops in India. Alfani explained that he fled to America when Abbat Maggio made his revelations because he feared that he might b 9 imprisoned for years before he was put on his trial. The following cablegram, dated March 24, appeared in the Sydney Sun: —" Of the female prisoners among the 40 members of the Gamorra now undergoing their trial at Viterbo for the murder of Signor Cuocolo, and his wife, Maria Stenardo, is the only one who retains evidence of her earlier beauty. The woman's home in Naples used to be the resort of men in high places, equally with desperadoes, and her powerful influence in official circles in the city was a matter of notoriety. Stenardo denied that she had bribed any witnesses to clear herself and the other prisoners. The Carabineers, however, had offered her 50s for each witness whom she could induco to sign a certain statemnt they had prepared. She emphatically asserted that the charge that Morra and his companions went to her house to wash their blood-stained hands after-the commission of the crime was a pisoe of manufactured evidence. According to the police, Ferdinand Dematteo, formerly an athlete, but. now a man of advanced years. lured Signer Cuocolo to a lonely spec, wh<?rc everything had been prepared for his murder. Demattco, however, denied having participated in the actual commission of the crime. He jsaid that years ago Morra and he thieved together, and continued to do so until they quarrelled. Demattoo declared that he would never ' work ' with him again. ' I hate him !' fiercely exclaimed the wicked old man."