A FRENCH MURDERER.

Otago Witness, Issue 3399, 7 May 1919, Page 17

A FRENCH MURDERER.

(By Cable.) PAEIS, April 28. The police have intercepted a letter addressed to Landru from Mile Deschamps, ■whom Landru met in a tube half an hour before he was arrested: otherwise she undoubtedly would have been another of his victims.

Mile Deschamps, a pretty girl, 20 years old, with beautiful eyes, tola the police that she immediately felt she could trust the handsome black-bearded gentleman with fascinating eyes, amiable manners, and sweet voice who offered her a seat, and she couldn't resist when he askerd her to alight at the next station, and said i " I would give all my life for a minute's talk with you alone." She says that they walked together in underground corridors for a quarter of an hour. Landru professed love for her, and told her he had a large fortune, and he said : " Next week you come in a motor car to my lovely villa in the country."

One of Landru's supposed victims was Madame Guillano. Landru proposed marriage to her in 1915, saying that he was French Consul for Australia. Madame Guillano disappeared soon afterwards and her friends supposed that she had gone to Australia. Landru, however, was seen in Paris in 1916 in company with other women.

May 1. An examination of Landru's shabbilyfurnished bungalow revealed the charred remains of a human skull in the kitchen grate; bloodstains were discovered on the stairs leading to a cellar, and more charred bones were found under a heap of dead leaves in an outhouse. It is suspected that Landru opened graves and buried some of his victims in them during the night time. An investigation at the cemetery is proceeding as a result of the gravedigger's assertion to this effect.