MURDERER IN TIGER-SKIN GOAT.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3515, 4 May 1912, Page 3

MURDERER IN TIGER-SKIN GOAT.

ARMY CONTRACTOR. KILLED IN TRAIN.

M. Andre Martz, a contractor for the supply of butcher’s meat to tho French army, was found murdered recently in the train which had brought him from Dijon to Chalons. When the train arrived at Chalons a passenger in a tiger-skin coat jumped out, gave up his ticket, and .left the station. The ticket was smeared with blood, and the collector mentioned this to the man who gave it to him, whom lie took to he M. Martz —for M. Martz and his tiger-skin coat were well-known in Chalons. The passenger was not Martz, but his murderer. He took no notice of the eolletcor’s exclamation, and hurried out of the station. Subsequently a tiger-skin coat was found in a sido street in Chalons.

A railway- official found the body of Andre Martz lying in a pool of blood on tbe floor of the carriage in which lie and the murderer had travelled. The body was still warm. There were twenty-six knife wounds on it-, and five of them were mortal. Martz had been paid £2OO at Dijon the previous afternoon, and had taken the money away with him in banknotes. There were signs of a fierce struggle in the compartment. The police theory is that the murderer stabbed M. Martz in the face, grappled with him, stabbed him in the back, and then cut his throat. He then went through his • pockets carefully, taking every penny on the body, and left the carriage in the dead man’s well-known tiger-skin. Tim police believed the murderer to lie an Italian, whom they expected to shortly arrest.