The San Francisco call., 1898-03-18
Terrible Crime Committed on the Roadside of a Rugged
 Mountain Canyon.
DRAGGED WHILE DYING.
The Young Victim Remained Dang ling From a Buggy While
 Passing Her Home.
Special Dispatch to The Call.

CHILES VALLEY. Napa County, March 17-Because she refused an or fer of marriage, Victorina Sasselli, the belle of Chiles Valley, lies dead in her picturesque mountain home, and Jules Behn. the man who shot her, has de- nied the county the poor privilege or having him hanged. He, too, is dead, and by his own hand.
 The tragedy occurred just at dusk on Wednesday evening in one of the wild est canyons among the Napa hills. The murderer was taking her home, ana as the buggy climbed the grade ana wound in and out around the clltts and precipices he shot the girl he thought he loved, and then jumping down into the road he turned the weapon upon himself
 The shots aroused the horse, and he started on, the bleeding, dying girl cIutching the seat and ctriving to keep her consciousness until she reached her home. just around the last bend in the canyon.
 For half a mile the horse plodded up the grade, drawing the buggy and 1tc awful burden On one side was the al- most overhanging hill; on the other hundreds of feet below, Sage Creek boiled and roared over its rocky ped, ana a turn to the side would tumble wagon and horse and helpless passen- ger far down among the trees in the bottom of the gorge. But the horse rounded the curves in safety, and went on out of the canyon and down past the little house hanging on the steep hill side.
 The girl must have seen ana recoS- nized her home, for she tried to get out of the buggy; but her strength failed. and as she fell forward her dress caught in the steps, and haVlng re- ceived no word to stop, the horse kept on dragging the almost helpless girl along the road, and leaving past the house a trail of red.
 The girls mother saw her as turn in the road was hiding the wagon rom sight. and, running after it, the mother stopped the horse and forced her daughter's body from between the wheels. She thought there had peen some horrible accident, and she called on her daughter to tell her what had happened The girl tried to speak, but no sound came from her lips, ana theri' in her mothers arms, she died.
 Behn was a farmland, who worked for a man named Sewers, near St. Hel- ena. He met his victim about seven months ago, and at once commenced 10 nav her marked attention. Her moth- CT is a Frenchwoman, and she raised her daughter according to the strlcl code which France has adopted in re- gard to the department of young la dies. As a consequence the girl was never allowed to go out alone with Behn. nor to see him except under chaperonage, and when he became her sl1itor he was told by the girl herself that his suit was hopeless. She was too young, she said, and she was only lo, but even if she were older she would never marry him. He pleaded and threatened, but to no avail, and then he said he would go away.
 Wednesday Sasselli started for St Helena on some surveying business, and as he cannot speak very good Eng Iish. his daughter, Victorina, went with him.
 SasseIi home, one up through Ch1les Valley and the other through Sage Canyon. The Sassellis live almost al +he function of Sage and Chiles. The e1irl and her father were nearly due to return. when Behn drove up the Ch1les Valley road and stopping at the house asked if Victorina was there. Mrs SasseIli told him she and her father had gone To St. Helena, but were prob ably on their way home. Behn salo he would go to meet them, and he started on in the direction 1n Whlcl he had been going and which wouio lead him down the Sage canyon road
 About three miles from the house Behn met father and daughter, ana ne immediately turned his buggy rouno and said he would go home with them He wanted Victorina to get 1n the buggy with him, but she would not
 He pleaded and threatened, and nm ally said it was an "old plug they were driving anyhow, and she had bet ter get in with him, as he had a good horse and would get her home quick ly Yielding to such entreatles she left her fathers buggy, and within q few minutes Behn had driven so Ial ahead that the bends in the roao hlu the buggies from each other
 It was an "old plug" Sasseli was driving and climbing the grade was slow work, but the horse was not too old to shy violently at grewsome oo- ject, shapeless in the gathering tWl- light, and lying across the WheeltracKs just where the road seemed to swing in midair so high was it above the gorge.
 Hastily alighting Sasselli knelt by the body, and at once saw it was Behn. '1t was the gorge" was his first to peer down into the depths for the fragments of the buggy, his foot struck a pistol Then he suspected the truth.
 Regardless of the narrow road, the frowning precipices or the hungry roar of the river, he dashed his old