ASSASSIN PLEADS FOR DEATH

Taranaki Daily News, 14 December 1926, Page 15

ASSASSIN PLEADS FOR DEATH

FORTY-EIGHT MURDERS. SUFFERED GHOST TORTURE. Milan, Nov. 20. The Neapolitan bandit, Domemce Groppo, who was arrested on a charge of assassination some weeks ago, has confessed to having committed 48 murders in his career. Many of these crimes have been verified, and innocent men are now in prison for a number of them. Groppo suffers from hallucinations, during which he sees his victims threatening him with even more horrible tortures than he inflicted on them, and _lm begs his gaolers continuously to let him commit suicide. “Anything rather than the torture o remorse,” he cries, and each time he has appeared before the investigating magistrate there has been a sensational scene when he has begged to be put out of his misery. WANTS TO BE THE FIRST. Groppo has now petitioned the Government for the privilege of being the first criminal to be hanged under the new capital punishment law. This seems unlikely, as the law applies only to regicides and those who might attack the head of the Government. The bandit is eager to confess his crimes, as it gives him some slight relief from the tortures of remorse. The bare facts of his recital were so incredibly horrible that they were not believed at first; but as case after case is investigated the result suggests that he has not exaggerated the facts. In one case, where a whole family was massacred, two innocent men were sentenced for life. He usually murdered his accomplices to ensure his own safety. On one occasion he entered a farmhouse, killed the owner, his wife and their four children, carried away their valuables, and then murdered three men in the neighbourhood to make sure that they should give no information concerning him.