BAFFLING PROBLEM.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 661, 14 January 1933, Page 22 (Supplement)

BAFFLING PROBLEM.

ITALIAN TRUNK CRIME. REMAINS IN SUIT CASE. MYSTERY OF NEWSPAPERS. An Italian trunk crime is presenting the police in Rome with one of the most baffling criminal problems for many years. The remains of a young woman’s dismembered body were found in two suitcases left behind in a second-class compartment when an express train reached Naples from Turin. The cases were new and bore no identity mark. A further gruesome discovery was made at the Rome railway station.

In a third-class carriage attached to the Turin express arriving in Rome at 6.30 a.m. a new fibre suitcase of brown colour was found to have been abandoned. When opened at the stationmaster’s office it proved to contain two hands and two feet, wrapped in green paper. These are believed to be part of the body found at Naples. Nothing more has been discovered as to the identity of the victim, who is believed to have been about 30 years of age. The parts of the body found at Naples were wrapped in a newspaper published at Genoa on November 11; another Italian newspaper, published at Leghorn on November 13, torn pieces of English newspapers, and pages of the Milan telephone directory. It is believed that the victim was murdered twenty hours before the discovery of the remains at Naples, and the crime savours of vendetta. It is not believed that she was a foreigner. Several persons have been detained in Naples and Rome. It is believed that the evidence of a ticket-collector, who drew attention to the excessive weight of the luggage, may afford a clue. The evidence of the passenger who drew attention to the suitcases en route, which he said had been left behind by another passenger, who got out at Pisa, is also expected to be of great importance.