Los Angeles herald., 1893-01-12
IS THIS STORY FACT OR FICTION?
A Letter to the Police Which
Delivered Itself.
1t Purports to Give an Account of q
Murder at Santa Monica.
A Tale of Crime which May Be the
vaporings of q Cracked Brain, or
May Prove to Have Some
Foundation.

A very long letter in the French Ian
guage by some mysterious means found
it's way to the table of Inspector Moffati
of the detective department on Tuesday
morning. and the strangest part is that
no one knows how it got in there. II
tell the story of a murder which the
writer, Pierre Ricard, says was COM
mitted by Frenchman, his wife and
daughter, in Santa Monica in April,
1884. upon another Frenchman. The
letter may be the vaporings of cracked
brain, and the tale is told in the long
winded, disconnected manner of an un-
educated person, but there is a wealth
of details, which, If the writer can be
found, might render an investigation
desirable.
Pierre Ricard tells of the sudden dis
appearance of the alleged victim and of
his never being heard of again. Then,
later on, the writer's attention is called
to spot in the supposed murderer's
yard. by its horrible smell, under which
he was told, upon inquiry, that dead
dog laid buried.
Some time after this Mr.. Ricard had
occasion to stay at the house of these
people and found that the pillow case of
his bed had been saturated with q
peculiar smelling liquid, which may
have been chloroform. When he OBJ
iected to the pillow the woman removed
1t, but nevertheless he got fearful
headache. Heidi not fall asleep and
in the night was rewarded for his wake
fulness by noticing some one humping
at his door. He remained quiet, when
he heard the man say to his wife: "It
must be done, we need his money.
Well dump him beside the other one."
The woman expostulated and referred
to the danger, and he then answered
that If she did not want the body in the
yard he would harness up the horse and
carry the cadaver to the cienega and
plant it there. Upon further refusal on
the part of the wife, he proposed get
ting their daughter to assist him, but as
she remained obdurateshe had to give
up his murderous plan and 60 to eleep.
Pierre Ricard noticed next morning
that hole bad been made near the
place where he suspected that the MUIR
dered man lay buried and the earth had
been hastily shoveled into it again.
The would-be assassin, his daughter
and Ricard travelled in buggy on that
morning, and the former told the girl,
with many inuendoes, that if she had
been willing to assist him in the job he
would have bought her much nicer
dress than the last. Ricard inquired
what the job was, and the other an
swered carelessly, "Oh, burial"
The names and addresses of all par
ties to this story are given, and the po-
lice have clue which may lead to the
finding of Ricard in short time, and
then it will be made clear whether the
story is the idle nonsense of lunatic,
the inspiration of spite, or the true'tale
of a horrible murder. 1t is strange that
Pierre Ricard should have kept quiet go
many years and now that he unbosoms
himself that it should be in such mys-
terioua way and without revealing bis
whereabouts. His story covers 10
sheets of closely written note paper.