GIRL CONFESSES MURDER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 750, 24 August 1929, Page 11

GIRL CONFESSES MURDER

VICTIM THEN COMES TO SEE JUDGE QUEER CASE IN FRANCE A fantastic police case is puzzling an investigating magistrate (or juge d’instruction) in Normandy. Recently a middle-aged woman’s body, with the head cut as by an axe, was found in a river near Evreux. Though the face was unrecognisable, it was thought the victim •was a widow named Mussard, aged 55, wlio had been seen a few days earlier with her daughter. Marie Langlois, aged 24, and Marie's sweetheart, Georges Potin. They were .then walking toward the river where the body was later discovered. When the police found Marie Langlois and her friend, employed on a farm, Marie Langlois identified the body as that of her mother. Being questioned, she confessed that she and her lover had murdered her mother. She first assaulted the woman with a small hatchet, and her lover “finished” the widow. At Evreux, Marie repeated her confession to the investigating magistrate, and added that they werp “tired of supporting the old woman,” so she and her friend decided to get rid of her. Georges Potin denied any partic.ipa- ! tion in the crime. Both had been in prison for three I days, when the investigating raagisj trate received a visitor he did not j expect in the least. His visitor was Mine. Mussard—- ; the supposed “murdered” woman. | She explained that she had found I work in another village. Hearing j that her daughter and Potin were ! charged with having murdered her, | she had come across to see the magistrate. When the magistrate sent for the two prisoners, Marie Langlois refused to explain why she had confessed to a crime which she had not committed. Pending further inquiries and the true identification of the victim, the i magistrate had decided to keep in prison the young woman and her lover, who are still officially charged with a murder which did not take place.