MURDERS ADMITTED

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 193, 15 August 1931, Page 19

MURDERS ADMITTED

Gruesome Crime on American Highway. GAOL STORMED BY MOB. United Press Assn.—By Electric I Telegraph—Copyright. 1 VANCOUVER. August 13. An enraged mob nv. inhering 2000 stormed the City Hall, which also serves as gaol, in the town of YpsiDnti, threatening to lynch Thom;»s F. leeks tone, a negro giant, and Fred Smith, a white man, following their confession of the massacre of two boys and tro gir 1 s in a motor-car along the Ann Arbor Read, two nights ago. Troops ws-e called out and aided the police *o hold the mob in check. Bledcstonc, Smith and a third man, Oliver Torch, pleaded guilty at a special evening session of the Court and were sentenced to life imprisonment, as there is no capital p nishment in Michigan. Smith is an ex-convict. The finding of his revolver led to the identity of the murderers, who got only eight shillings from the four young victims. At Ann Arbor, Michigan, four motorists, all under twenty years of age, were murdered and their bodies placed under the rear seat of the car, which was burned. A local farmer saw the tracks of another car leading away from the scene. The police were of the opinion that the victims, when returning from a cinema, were waylaid and robbed, the girls probably being outraged. Alt were then shot - dead and the bodies were tossed into the car, which was set on fire in order to remove all traces of the tragedy.