BESIEGED IN A CELLAR.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 3655, 16 October 1912, Page 8

BESIEGED IN A CELLAR.

INSANE MURDERER HANGS HIMSELF AFTER. SHOOTING AT POLICEMAN.

After strangling a homeless woman whom he had enticed to his home in Paris, an elderly mechanic named Alfred Mangeot, who was known to be on the verge of madness, decided to burn clown the house to conceal his crime.

He soaked rags in petroleum, and poured petroleum "on the bed where his victim lay, and just before six o’clock in the jporning he set fire to the place. Believing the flat deserted the firemen forced an entry, and found the partially burned corpse on the flaming bed. A policeman named Itollet decided that Mangeot must have retreated to the- cellars, and obtained a lighted lamp. When ho was at the foot of tlie staircase five shots resounded. The lamp, which lie "'as holding at arm’s length, was shattered by the first bullet; the other tour were fired in the darkness.

Rol!et ; amid the hail of bullets, groped his way up the stairs to obtain another light. By the time tills was secured several other policemen had arrived, and the squad descended together, carrying bucklers such as were employed at the siege of the motor bandits’ stronghold at Choisy a few months ago. These, however, were unnecessary, for _Mangeot had hanged himself, and his dead body was found dangling behind the cellar door.