MURDER WILL OUT.

Colonist, Volume LII, Issue 12753, 28 March 1910, Page 4

MURDER WILL OUT.

A MYSTERY UNFOLDED. The mysterious death of Mrs Guinness, the "farm siren," of Laporte, Indiana, has been cleared up by a confession made ou a prison death-bed bjRoy Lamphere, who was convicted or the murder, of Mrs Guinness and lier tliree" children, says the New iorK correspondent of the "Daily. Mail. In May, 1908, America was thrilled by the revelation of a series of horrible crimes committed on a lonely farm near Laporte, Indiana, by a handsome woman of Swedish extraction, Mrs Guinness, who used to lure her victims by means of matrimonial advertisements to her house, and there rob and despatch them, The murders first came to light through the burning under mysterious circumstances _of the Guinness furm,th© charred remains of Mrs Guinness and her tliree children being found in the ruins. Subsequently the police dug up the bodies of 17 persons buried about the farm. Two of the corpses proved to be those of the first and second husbands of the murderess. Roy Lamphere, before he died in prison the other day, confessed to the prison chaplain .that he had several times helped the "siren widow" to bury her victims. "Three times," the dying prisoner declared, "I purchased. chloroform for Belle Guinness. Once I dug a hole m the farm yard and helped her to bury someone who she said had died suddenly in the house. She told me that the easiest way was to cover the body and say nothing about it. "I did not suspect Mrs Guinness of murder/ however, until one night I bored holes in. the wall of the house and saw her administer chloroform to a man and then hit him on the back of the head with a hatchet. After that Mrs Guinness gave me money on several occasions.",. Lamphere added that he never intended to murder Mrs Guinness. With a negro woman one dark night he crept to the farmhouse, and choloroformed Mrs Guinness and' robbed her. In his hurry, he declared, he must havo upset the lamp, tfor afterwards he saw the house in flames. The negro woman whom Lamphere named in his confession has been arersted. ; (When the news^was cabled about the discovery of the murders it was believed for a time that Mrs Guinness had escaped from America, anjl that the remains found in the ruins were those : of additional victims that she had lured to the place).