MAX KASSEL’S DEATH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 101, 30 April 1937, Page 7

MAX KASSEL’S DEATH

SENSATIONAL SQHO MURDER TRIAL BEGINS IN PARIS CHARGE AGAINST VERNON. PARIS, April 28. The most sensational of many murders recorded in London’s most cosmopolitan area, Soho, is being investigated by the Assize Court here. The trial has opened of Roger Vernon, a'ias Charles Lacroix, aged 36, who is charged with the murder of Max Kassel, otherwise “Red Max,” and Suzanne Bertron, aged 25, is charged as an accomplice. In accordance with the usual French procedure live minutes was allowed photographers before the Judge took his seat in which the accused were snapped, while an artist rapidly made a sketch. Then there was a duel between the Judge and Vernon, in which the Judge reviewed Vernon's life. He was forced to answer most damaging questions. The case was adjourned.

Max Kassel’s bullet-riddled body was found in January, 1936, under a hedge outside St. Albans. He was identined at the inquest as a FrenchCanadian named Emil Allard, but a man who asked that his name be not disclosed, stated that Allard's real name was Max Kassel. The Daily Mail stated that the death of Max Kassel exposed him as the leader of an international gang of white slave traffickers whose ramifications extend from Mayfair to the Continent, Australia, and Canada, and as a marriage broker who installed girls he imported in luxurious West End flats, ft was learned that he served a sentence of eight months' imprisonment in France in connection with the transportation of a girt to Brazil. It is certain that his death was the climax to a vendetta or gang feud. London police worked on the theory that he was "put on the spot" because he knew too much about rival gangs, and was about to "squeal" to the police. A Paris message on February 2, 1936, stated that the police had detained Charles Lacroix and Mrs. Naylor, a Frenchwoman, whose real name was believed to be Suzanne Bertron, but who was detained under the name of Feraro. According to the woman’s story, Kassel came to her flat in London to collect £25 owing to him by Lacroix. She refused to give the money, but arranged a meeting, at which, when she was in another room, she heard quarrelling and shots. She opened the door and saw Kassel go bleeding to the bathroom, where the police believe he died. The woman said that she heard more quarrelling between Lacroix and a third man concerning the disposal of the body. VERNON’S STATEMENT

TROUBLE OVER A LOAN PARIS, April 28. Vernon, after being reminded of his escape from Devil’s Island, described how he had repeatedly asked Max to return the loan of £25. Eventually Max came to his flat in Soho. “Max arrived furious, i knew immediately that he or I must be killed. He trier, to strangle me and tried to seize my pistol. It emptied itself by itself.”