The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-08-10
Strangling Is Oldest And
 LoWest Form Of Murder
New York Latest Case Recalls Atrocious Deeds
 Of Secret Garroters

NEW YORK, Aug. 9.-When the limp little body of 7-year-old Francis Mcdonnell was lifted from under a mound of leaves and brush in the woods near Port Richmond, s. l., few days ago, with the straps of his overalls tied tightly about r.; slender neck, the police were once more confronted with tie work of one of the oldest and most hideous types of criminals in the world the strangler.
 The ancient legend of Lilith, Adams first wife, represents her as a vam- pire, who stranged her victims with her long golden hair. From the dawn of time, strangulation has been the method of the degenerate, the thug, the madman, the professional murderer, the coward.
 A Simple Method.
 It is so simple. Instinct, without a single glimmer of reason, knows that to shut off the breath is to kill quickly. Instinct sends the hand to the throat. Instinct, or little more, drags the cord or tightens the ker- chief or twists the belt into an i'm provised moose.
 And it is silent. The victim can- not cry out His eyes bulge, his tongue protrudes, his face turns blue but he makes no sound.
 It is the crime of the morbid, or of the utterly brutish, or of the uncan- nily cautions, or of the panic-stricken. It is the crime most often committed to complete a worse crime.
 Stranglers, Singly or in groups, have set some of the strangest prob lems with which justice has ever had to deal. Bare mention of the gar rOters, who in the nineties held Paris in a paralysis of terror, still sends a shiver down the spine. Day after day, at intervals extending over a period of two years, citizens disap- peared, silently and without trace until their bodies were found in the green waters of the stagnant moat around the city Qualifications, or iD the Seine. Most of the victims were workingmen, or small tradesmen, re- turning to their homes in the dark winter evenings with their small wages or profits. Women of the streets were taken too, for the sake of their miserable earnings.
 Fifty-four bodies were taken from the moat and the backwaterss of the Seine and it is believed that hundreds were never found.
 Woman Was A Decoy.
 It was known that a woman was the chief one of the gangs. She acted as a decoy to lure the male vic tins into the bushes surrounding the fertilization. There a cord fell sil- lently around the neck of the unfortu- nate, or hand grasped his windpipe, there was brief, soundless struggle, a splash and the slimy water of the moat closed over another secret Some times the woman herself took a hand in the murder but more often she di- rected it.
 With infinite risk and cunning the police caught some of the stranglers, but for a long time the woman es- capped them. The garroters, when cap tured, were willing enough to admit their guilt. Willingness, even eager ness, to confess and describe their crimes is a characteristic of stranglers, students of crimnolOgy say. But when questioned about their woman chief they turned pale, trembled and were silent. Even the impulses of their distorted psychology were conquered by their fear of her.
 Finally, by watching her lover, she was taken. She was Marie Ret, twenty eight, tall, strong and per haps once handsome, though now she looked like a bird of prey. Her capture so weakened the morale of the gang that they fill rapidly into the hands of the police. It was found that connected with them was at least one other and even larger gang. Altogether, the great organiza- tion of stranglers numbered more than POO. It was finally broken up and many of the mnrdarers rilillotinad