THE HORSE-SHOE MURDER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXIV, Issue 17655, 3 September 1919, Page 2

THE HORSE-SHOE MURDER

THE AMAZING STORY OF THE MONS MURDERER, ONE OF THE MOST INGENIOUS OF ALL MOD-

ERN CRIMINALS

By JOHN LAWRENCE.

(Pearson's Weekly.) One November * morning some workmen on the Northern Railway of France were horrified to find the mutilated body of a man on the line a few miles from Paris.

Half a dozen trains must have passed over it, for it was barely recognisable, the face being crushed by the wheels of the trains, and the limbs almost severed from the trunk.

The clothing of the dead man was marked H.H., while in the pocket of the jacket were a number of letters addressed to Henri Hoyos.

DOCTORS MAKE SOME

DISCOVERIES

The address given on the letters was that of a well-known, wealthy landowner living: near' Paris, and inquiries made there showed that Henri Hoyos had worked there some time as steward on the estate. The expenses of the estate mounting up rapidly under Hoyos' care, the landowner became suspicious, and the. steward, hearing of these suspicions, had hurriedly left a short while before the discovery made by the workmen.

When a medical examination was made of the body, the doctors came across a number of deep wounds which they asserted must have been made with a chopper or axe before the body was found.

"It is murder, not suicide!" was their verdict after their examination, and a close search was made around the scene of the crime. Some distance away was found a pool of blood, apparently where the unfortunate man had been attacked, and also a handkerchief, a walking stick, and a hat with the name of a maker in Mons inside it.

GOING TO MONS TO GET MONEY.

This latter clue was to prove significant, especially when one or two people on the estate where Hoyos had formerly worked told the police that, just before he left he said he would shortly be going to Mons to get a large sum of money which had been left to him. The same people saw the mutilataed body and identified the body as belonging to Hoyos, so the police were now practically certain of the identity of the dead man.

But the greatest clue was in a letter the police received from a young woman living on the borders of Paris, who wrote that her husband, Henri Hoyos, was missing and she was very anxious about him. In her letter she said: "He left me on November 2nd, carrying a large sum of money." It was on the following morning that the mutilated body was found.

THOUGHT IT WOULD LOOK LIKE

SUICIDE

Here was the motive the police had been seeking for the crime.. It was quite evident that Henri Hoyos had been murdered for»the money he had on him, and his body afterwards put on- the rails to give the appearance of accident or suicide/ for, of course, no money was found on him. ■

Accident! It was that word which first brought to light one of the most 'remarkable of insurance murders. In France it is quite a common thing for people to insure themselves against death by accident only, because the premiums are so very much lower than general insurance. And it was. found that Hoyos had insured his life for no less than £4000, all of which was left to the woman who had shown so much anxiety about his. disappearance.

The insurance people became suspicious because* the "accident" to the insured man had occurred after he had paid only one premium, and

they the police to make the closest possible investigation before handing over the money.

It was then that a remarkable thing came to light. A witness came to the police and swore positively that he had seen Hoyos in company with his wife the night after the discovei'y of the body! The police also found out that nothing had been seen of a friend of Hoyos' named •Baron since J,he day before the body Was found on the line.

The mutilated body was quickly exhumed again and a number of people who knew Baron promptly reeoguised it from certain marks on it to be his body. The police arrested Hoyos just as he was about to cross the frontier, near which he had been staying under the name of Louis Baron!

At the trial it was shown that Hoyos was one 'of the cleverest scoundrels the police had caufeht for many a long day. It turned out at the trial, too, that this was the second murder in which he had been concerned, though the first one had been so ingenious that no one had thought of it as murder.

He had been previously married in Belgium, but had so cruelly illused his wife that she had separated from liini. She went to live in a country cottage, near to which was a meadow in which a number of horses were regularly turned loose to feed.

FASTENED HORSE-SHOE TO HIS

BOOT

Not satisfied with being separated and being compelled to keep his wife,' Hoyos determined to get rid of her. He watched her movements' and found out that she was in the habit of walking regularly one day a week to the nearest market town, returning in the evening along a road which was generally very deserted.

One morning some labourers going to work along this road discovered the unfortunate woman's body lying near the field where the horses had strayed into the road. The dead woman had apparently been kicked

to death by them, for the marks of the horse-shoes were plainly to be seen on her body and head, and it was so assumed by the doctors who examined her.

It did not appear till after his arrest that Hoyos had waited for his wife, knocked her senseless and kicked her to death with his boot, to which lie had fastened a horseshoe!

After he had conceived his cunning scheme of swindling the insurance companies he lost no time in putting it into action. He looked 1 round for someone who was as near him in general build as possible, and found not only the unfortunate man Baron, but also another man named Cornant. He kept each of them during the month previous to the murder in a small inn near Paris, telling them that he was coming into a large sum of money in November and was going to ♦ buy an estate, which he wanted them to manage. In reality he was not decided in his own mind which was the better man for his purpose, but luckily for Cornant he got tired of doing nothing and left to take a job, so that Hoyos was compelled to fall back on Baron. FLUNG HIM OVER THE BRIDGE. '- He wasted no time for fear of losing his second victim. He brought hini to Paris, where he Wore a .conspicuous check suit. This suit Hoyos carefully wore, because it was to serve as a means of identification of the body found on the line. * Witnesses proved at the trial that they had seen Hoyos near the railway bridge on which the .murder was committed, and the prosecution showed that the unfortunate man Baron had been, killed on the railway bridge, and then flung over on to the line. . *.. By the bloodstains on the grass, however, it was clear the body fell on the embankment, and' Hoyos, after hacking his face to-prevent recognition, and putting his own letters in his victim's pockets, had dragged it the line, so that the trains would coMgJete the work of mutilation. ' It was shown, too, at -the trial that Baron had been seen wearing, the check suit which proved such a misleading means of identification. Hoyos , in fact, must liave given him the suit and a complete'set of underclothing just before the day of the murder and induced his victim to wear them! . MYSTERY OF THE MARKED LINEN. Even the shirt the dead man was wearing was marked conspicuously with the; letters H.H., and with all Henri Hdyos' papers in the pockets of the check suit, coupled-with the fact that the body was the general build of Hoyos, it is not surprising that it was recognised as his, since the face was so badly mutilated. It was' proved at the trial that fHoyos had actually got his wife, only a few days before, to put the initials H.H. on this particular shh-t! No other linen belonging to Hoyos was marked that way. j His wife, too, admitted that she had beer^ compelled by her husband to write the letter to the police saying he was missing. Of course, Hoyos swore he knew nothing whatever about the crime, but 'in addition to the evidence against him I have already related, $1,,. toolin,aker, swore that Hoyos had brought*a hatchet to him the month: before the murder and asked him to put a new handle in it. The hatchet was afterwards found near the scene of the murder. FOUND GUILTY IN TWO ! MINUTES. At any rate, despite his protesta-. tions, it took the jury exactly two minutes to find him guilty. . "I am innocent!" Hoyos shoutal as soon .as the verdict was pronounced. "May my blood be upon the heads of all here.' 1 But his life had been one long career of crime. He had been forced to leave Belgium, where he was born, because of the fact that he had twice | forged his father-in-law's name,' and had also suggested to him that the two should murder an uncle who had recently been left a legacy of some thousands. He had also tried to swindle insurance companies by insuring an imaginary man named Huet, but without success. .

He was guillotined a few weeks later.