CRIME WAVE IN FRANCE

Otago Witness, Issue 3860, 6 March 1928, Page 30

CRIME WAVE IN FRANCE

THE PUBLIC TERRIFIED. PARIS. February 23. A bound man, burned so as to be unrecognisable, was found in a ditch near Melun. Marks of a motor car nearby indicate that the man was taken to the spot in a car. On arrival he was sprinkled with petrol and burned to death. February _29. There has been an extraordinary series of crimes, the mystery of which is terrifying the public. There are no fewer than five crimes reported in to-day’s papers including that of the carbonised body of Melun. There has been a horrible murder of a woman newsvendor in Paris, whose skull was smashed in by some iron instrument it her shop in broad daylight. Last week a man shot his wife dead because she refused to make a cup of coffee in the middle of the night. Public anxiety is increased by the police failure to track the criminals in several cases, and the juries acquitting murderers whose guilt was plain, readily accepting counsel’s emotional appeals that the crime was an act of passion. Three accused whom the police were confident of convicting were acquitted yesterday, causing L’ Temps to make a strong plea for an immediate reform of the jury system. The man has been identified as a young traveller named Gaston Truphene. who had been missing for two days. He was in possession of jewels and precious stones worth £5.000. Hi s head was horribly battered, presumably bv motor who tied the body up in a petrol-soaked sack, to which they set fire. The clue was supplied by a butcher boy who saw a motor car discarding bloodstained tins.