HORRIBLE DOUBLE MURDER IN LEGHORN.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1626, 6 March 1884, Page 2

HORRIBLE DOUBLE MURDER IN LEGHORN.

Considerable excitement has been caused in Rome by one of the most cold-blooded, and carefully-planned double murders on record; and the excitement is the greater inasmuch as the victims, though of comparatively humble position, were well known. ;

In 1870 a man of the name of Monti and his wife, neither of whom could read or write, lured in tlie Piazza Colonna one of the Mosques which had been erected in the cheap thoroughfares, in imitation of those on the boulevards of Paris, for the sale of newspapers, By diligence and saving the wife attending to the kiosque, while Monti busied himself with deal ings in match boxes and other things, they succeeded in putting by no less than 32,000f. In the month of May last Monti was induced by. a man of the name Emilio Fallaci, but was passing under that of Adolfo Landucci, to join him in carrying on a manufactory of wax matches which he was about to establish at Leghorn, and to accompany him there. Letters purporting to be dictated by Monti were received from time to time by his wife, informing her of matters connected with the manufactory, and requiring remittances, which were immediately sent, Becoming anxious, however at his protracted absence, she wrote, expressing her fears; and in reply received a letter, telling her to make a trip to Leghorn, as he could not leave the works to come to Home, and to bring their savings-bank deposit books with her.

She started with the intention of returning in three or four days, and in the meantime left the Mosque in charge of her eldest hoy, A fortnight having passed, her children received a letter, purporting to be from her, telling them that she was unavoidably detained,'but

was going to Romo, to £jet some things required out of the strongbox. Adolfo arrived, was permitted to break open the box and take all lie thought fit ■ from it, and then departed. Finally, however, suspicion was aroused, and the Leghorn police were communicated with, ' The pretended manufactory in the Yia del Corallo was found to be deserted; and on the door being broken open the bodies of Monti and his wife were' discovered in a room, on the door.of which was a notice prohibiting anyone from entering there, because it contained inflammable substances, The body of the wife, who had evidently been murdered immediately upon her entering the, house, was lying on the floor. That of Monti, in an advanced stage of decom-' position, was found buried a foot or two under it. From the state of the remains, and the fact that lie had never been seen about by any of tlie neighbors, it is'supposed that lie wa| : despatched at once on arriving th&ie. with Fallaci, alias Landucci, seven months ago. The murderer appears not only to have gone, after the murder of the wife, to the police office at Florence, and presenting himself there as Luigi Monti, to have requested the authorities to obtain for him from Rome that attestation of .his being the lawful owner of the savings bank books which would enable him .to sell them, but, with incredible coolness, to have gone backwards and forwards there for several days, until becoming, it may be supposed, alarmed, he finally disappeared, just as suspicions were aroused.