Connecticut western news., 1872-02-02
A Human Monster.

A remarkable criminal has been arrested in France, the details of whose many crimes we glean from our foreign files. Joseph Lemettre was but eighteen years old when, in 1864, he was in service at the farmhouse of Selles, and had won confidence by his quiet conduct and reg
 ular habits, and since that date he is now believed to have perpetrated at least twenty-seven crimes, many of them of the deepest dye In the Autumn of 1864 some stacks of beans, house and shed, and, again, some farm buildings, were on three distinct occasions burned down. No motive is assigned in these instances, but the accident of Lemettre having been seen near tue spot, and afterYards deny ing 1t, threw on him grave suspicion, from which, however, he was protected by his general good character. Early in the next year the farm house of the man who had suspected him was broken into, and an attempt was made to setit on fire. Lemettres master then died, and the history passes over an interval ot two years. Lemettre, however, seems to have remained in the service of his late masters widow3 U when, in 1867, she was mar ried to connection of his own, and went to reside at neighboring hamlet, he ac- companied them. At the end of that year the course of outrages srecommenced, not to be again interrupted until Lemet- tres apprehension. In September his fellow servant was robbed of 620 francs. Shots were fired at his employers, and Q box of powder was placed against the walls of their house. Lemettre nov ad- mits that he committed these outfages in order to frighten his master and mis- tress back to their old farm. The next year, 1868, was marked by murderous assault on brewers carman as he was returning from Andreselles with some money for his employer. Tn the same year widow, who lived alone at farm house in Andreselles, and who had just received a sum of 1,200f., was aroused at night by man demanding her money or her life she was brutally stabbed, and her house partially robbed. Once more, in the same year, the house of the priest was entered during midnight mass and robbed of plate and money. The year 1869 opened with two robberies of mon- ey from the same fellow-servant who had been robbed in 1867. Lemettre, about this time, took house in Andreselles. In the course of the Summer a young man was found murdered and robbed, on the evening after the fair, with his head close to the stable door of Lemettre's house. Suspicion fell upon the owner of a wine shop, who, however, was soon exonerated by being himself found murdered, with the same marks of brutality. The house had been robbed and attempts made to fire it. A fifth crime in this year was q burglary at a neighboring farmhouse. The year 1870 opened with the murder ol a man who had denounced the existence of robbers in the reighborhoo1, and an other burglary was committed. Lemet, tre was then absent, from home for six months, serving in the Garde Mobile and during his absence the crimes ceased Immediately on his return, ill April, 1871 three successive burglaries renewed the alarm of the neighborhood, and Lemet
 Ire began to be watched. He himself however, felt sufficiently secure to ge
 marned, and to celebrate the occasion with profuseness which aggravated the peasants suspicion. At length he wa
 observed creeping into cures house and was captured in the act of robbery His house being then searched, articles
 stolen in previous robberies were found in his possession, and he confessed to ont of the worst of the murders.