The Sun.
London, England, 1847-04-19 00:00:00

STRANGE CASE OF MURDER IN

SPAIN.

The Court of Assizes of Saragossa was occupied a
Phort time since with the trial of Pedro Ceidessa, the
proprietor of a small inn near Sos, in Navarre, Paula
Auralo, his wife, and Carmen Cardessa, their daughter,
for the murder of a man named Gregorio Orensauz, re•
siding in the valley of Anso, two leagues distant from the
residence of the prisoners. It appeared from the evi-
dence that the deceased had left home on the 22d of
September to collect money due to him by various per-
sons. Some days having passed over without his re.
turning, his family became uneasy, and inquiries were
inatitutedi- Nothing further was discovered than tha: he
had been seen to enter the hOuse of the prisoners on the
day he left home. The male prisoner and his daughter
asserted that they knew nothing ab,ut the proceedings
of the deceaged, but the mother allowed that lie hail
called at the house, but after a short stay had taken
his departure. Nothing
coining to light to crimi-
nate them, they were merely subjected to several
examinations without being
tu..k
en into custody. Two
mouths after a human leg was discovered in the little
, a
river Oneella, close to the prisoner's residence, and search
being instituted, the remaining parts of the body were
found except the head which had been
off with some pparently cut
heavy instrument like a cleaver. The
limbs were all dreadfully hacked and mutilated ; some
of the articles of clothing were recognised as having be-
longed to the deceased. Still nothing bad been disco-
vered to fix the crime on any party in particular, when
Paula Murillo being taken ill, amd considering herself
on the point of death, sent fur the authorities and made
a confession to the following eff-ct :—" The deceased had
called at her house on September 22, and bad demanded
some money due to him for wheat. Not having it, she
desired him to wait until her husband returned. She
prepared breakfast fur him, at which he drank copiously,
and at last wanted to take liberties with her. On his
laying hands on her, she pushed him so violently away
that he staggered back and fell with his head against
the corner of a chest of drawers. She, being dread-
fully alarmed, went to raise him up and help him,
when she found that he was dead, without having
shed a drop of
blood. Being afraid of the conse-
quences of such an accident, she determined to con-
ceal the body, and wrapping it up in a coarse cloth,
she carried it down to the cellar, and hid it under a
quantity of faggots. She left it there for several weeks,
when the heap
of faggots beginning to run low, she got
afraid of her husband discovering the whole matter, and
taking a cleaver she cut the body into pieces, and placing
the limbs in two baskets carefully covered over, she her-
self took one, and her daughter the other, to the bank
of the river. She
then sent the young woman on an
errand to the neighbouring village, and during her ab-
sence emptied the baskets into the' water. The daughter
was suite ignorant of what the baskets contained; in the
harry of filling the baskets she had forgotten the head
in the cellar; she mutilated the features to prevent recog-
nition, and then buried it in a piece of waste ground. '
This confession, becoming known, excited the greatest
commotion, and the woman soon after getting better, she,
her husband and the daughter were arrested. The au-
thorities having caused a very minute search to be made
in the house where the prisouers had lived, found a num-
ber of French sf. pieces concealed, and those the daughter
admitted she had seen with her mother. It was proved
that precisely the same number of sf. pieces had been
paid on the morning of the murder to the deceased by
another party. The mother, on the other 'hand, denied
that she knew anything about the naoney in-question.
After a trial Of-great length. the Court aequatted. the
father and daughter, but nut believing that the deceseed
'hod liset*lth tilbs death accidentally, found 'the -mother
guilty 9tOittider.' 'The Court at once sentenced, her to
death; acalbrdeiled the execution to take` place in front
of the Town-hall of Sos. This sentence was carried
into;etecatiot on the 21st ult.