MURDER TRIAL

Southland Times, Issue 22159, 30 October 1933, Page 7

MURDER TRIAL

FRENCH CASE ALLEGED INSURANCE FRAUDS SCENES IN COURT (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.) (Rec. 6.30 p.m.) Aix-en-Provence, October 27. Sarrett and his daughter dissolved into tears when following tire collapse and removal from the court of Sarrett’s first wife, Madame Bertrand, as she attempted to testify. The prosecutor read her statement prior to Sarrett’s arrest. His second wife, Madame Airaud, also weeping, testified that Sarrett had given her many articles belonging to the murdered priest, Father Chambon, in whose villa Sarrett lived for three months after Father Chambon’s death. There was another scene when Philomeme Schmidt flew at Sarrett and tried to scratch his face, screaming “You dirty scoundrel, you low dog.” The police with difficulty restored order.

A previous message from Paris stated: In a sensational trial begun at Aix-en-Provence on October 22, charges were laid against Katherine and Philomeme Schmidt, beautiful German sisters, who came to France before the war and married two Frenchmen, who mysteriously disappeared, and Georges Sarrett, a suave, middleaged Italian-born lawyer of Greek parentage, who has long been domiciled in France. It is alleged that they, with accomplices, defrauded insurance companies by taking policies on the lives of people who disappeared. The three principals are said to have disposed of the bodies of two of their victims by dissolving them in a bath of sulphuric acid.