MURDER NO CRIME.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3267, 12 July 1911, Page 6

MURDER NO CRIME.

ACQUITTAL OF A WIFE

There was a poignant scene at Aisne Assizes during the trial of Mine. Paulino Devoisins, a strikingly beautiful Italian woman, for the murder of a girl named Emilia Stephani. The Devoisins lived at Pisa, but their married 1 happiness was ruined by the husband’s infatuation for Emilia Stephani, the daughter of a factory foreman whom the wife had; befriended. In vain did Mime. Devoisins try to make her. husband, who was 18 years her senior, give up the girl. A kind of reconciliation took place, but Mme. Devoisins learned that her husband used to go and see her every, evening. The wife at last went to Tergnier and shot the girl Stephani dead. At her trial it iwas her husband who pleaded for her acquittal. The small, pale man, who recounted the tragedy in a broken voice, said: “I am the sole culprit. There are two victims —this one' here,” and he,timidly designated his wife, who sat weeping in the dock, “and the poor little thing down there.” The jury brought in a verdict of not guilty on all counts, and Mme. Devoisins was acquitted.