PEASANT WOMEN ON TRIAL

Taranaki Daily News, 30 December 1929, Page 11

PEASANT WOMEN ON TRIAL

HUSBAND MURDER CASES

TWO OF ACCUSED SET FREE.

SUCCESSFUL APPEAL HEARD.

By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.

Rec. 5.5 p.m. Budapest, Dec. 28. The trial lias been resumed of the Hungarian peasant women who are charged with the murder of their husbands and other relatives. It is alleged that Mario Fazckas, a midwife, who hanged herself before the police could arrest her, collected arsenic from flypapers and in the course of 20 years compassed more than 100 murders. She even tried to poison police. It is supposed that she inspired the 34 women who were arrested. Their ages vary from 20 to 70 years, and one of them is accused of poisoning seven persons. In 44 bodies that were exhumed there was enough poison to kill 1000 men. Esther Takacs was acquitted for lack of evidence to support the charge that she poisoned her father-in-law. She declared that he pursued her with unwelcome attentions. She admitted purchasing flypapers, which she intended to use for legitimate purposes. Following the public prosecutor’s protest against the acquittal of Maria Casaibai, who declared that her husband was a drunkard and ill-treated his family and subsequently committed suicide, she withdrew her previous confession, but was found guilty of manslaughter and was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment. She successfully appealed against the sentence.